New York, June 4,
1864.
GENTLEMEN: In answer to the letter which I have had the
honor to receive from you, on the part of the representatives of the people
assembled at Cleveland, the 31st of May, I desire to express my thanks
for the confidence which led them to offer me the honorable and difficult
position of their candidate in the approaching Presidential election.
Very honorable, because in offering it to me you act in the
name of a great number of citizens who seek above all things the good of their
country, and who have no sort of selfish interest in view. Very difficult,
because in accepting the candidacy you propose to me, I am exposed to the
reproach of creating a schism In the party with which I have been identified.
Had Mr. Lincoln remained faithful to the principles he was
elected to defend, no schism could have been created, and no contest could have
been possible. This is not an ordinary election. It is a contest for the right
even to have candidates, and not merely, as usual, for the choice among them.
Now, for the first time since 76, the question of constitutional liberty has
been brought directly before the people for their serious consideration and
vote. The ordinary rights secured under the Constitution and the laws of the
country have been violated and extraordinary powers have been usurped by the
Executive. It is directly before the people now to say whether or not the
principles established by the Revolution are worth maintaining.
If, as we have been taught to believe, those guarantees for
liberty which made the distinctive name and glory of our country, are in truth
inviolably sacred, then here must be a protest against the arbitrary violation
which had not even the excuse of a necessity. The schism is made by those who
force the choice between a shameful silence or a protest against wrong. In such
considerations originated the Cleveland Convention. It was among its objects to
arouse the attention of the people to such facts, and to bring them to realize
that, while we are saturating Southern soil with the best blood of the country
in the name of liberty, we have really parted with it at home.
To-day we have in the country the abuses of a military
dictation without its unity of action and vigor of execution — an
Administration marked at home by disregard of constitutional rights, by its
violation of personal liberty and the liberty of the press, and as a crowning shame,
by its abandonment of
the right of asylum, a right especially dear to all free nations abroad. Its
course has been characterized by a feebleness and want of principle which has
misled European powers and driven them to a belief that only commercial interests
and personal aims are concerned, and that no great principles are involved in the issue. The
admirable conduct of the people, their readiness to make every sacrifice
demanded of them, their forbearance and silence under the suspension of everything
that could be suspended, their many acts of heroism and sacrifices, were all
rendered fruitless by the incapacity, or to speak more exactly, by the personal
ends for which the war was managed. This incapacity and selfishness naturally
produced such results as led the European powers, and logically enough, to the
conviction that the North, with its greatly superior population, its immense
resources, and its credit, will never be able to recover the South. Sympathies
which would have been with us from the outset of this war were turned against
us, and in this way the Administration has done the country a double wrong
abroad. It created hostility, or at best indifference, among those who would
have been its friends if the real intentions of the people could have been
better known, while, at the same time, it neglected no occasion for making the
most humiliating concessions.
Against this disastrous condition of affairs the Cleveland
Convention was a protest.
The principles which form the basis of its platform have my
unqualified and cordial approbation, but I cannot so heartily concur in all the
measures which you propose. I do
not believe that confiscation extended to the property of all rebels, is
practicable and if it were so, I do not think it a measure of sound policy.
It is, in fact, a question belonging to the people themselves to decide, and is
a proper occasion for the exercise of their original and sovereign authority.
As a war measure, in the beginning of a revolt which might be quelled by prompt
severity, I understand the policy of confiscation, but not as a final measure
of reconstruction after the suppression of an insurrection.
In the adjustments which are to follow peace no
considerations of vengeance can consistently be admitted.
The object of the war is to make permanently secure the
peace and happiness of the whole country, and there was but a single clement in
the way of its attainment. This element of slavery may be considered
practically destroyed in the country, and it needs only your proposed
amendment of the Constitution, to make its extinction complete.
With this extinction of slavery the party divisions created
by it have also disappeared. And if in the history of the country there has ever
been a time when the American people, without regard to one or another of the
political divisions, were willed upon to give solemnly their voice in a matter which
involved the safety of the United States, it is assuredly the present time.
If the Convention at Baltimore will nominate any man
whose past life justifies a well-grounded confidence in his fidelity to our
cardinal principles, there, is no reason why there should be any division among
the really patriotic men of the country. To any such I shall be most happy
to give a cordial and active support.
My own decided preference is to aid in this way, and not to
be myself a candidate. But if Mr. Lincoln should be nominated — us I
believe it would be fatal to the country to indorse a policy and renew a
power which has cost w the lives of thousands of men, and needlessly put the
country on the road to bankruptcy — there will remain no other alternative but
to organize against him every element of conscientious opposition with the view
to prevent the misfortune of his re-election.
In this contingency, I accept the nomination at Cleveland,
and, as a preliminary step, I have resigned my commission in the army. This
was a sacrifice it gave me pain to make. But I had for a long time fruitlessly
endeavored to obtain service. I make this sacrifice now only to regain liberty
of speech, and to leave nothing in the way of discharging to my utmost ability
the task you have set for me.
With my earnest and sincere thanks for your expressions of
confidence and regard, and for the many honorable terms in which you acquaint
me with the actions of the Convention, I am, gentlemen,
Very respectfully and
truly yours,
J. C. FREMONT.
To Worthington G. Snethen of Maryland, Edward Gilbert of New
York, Casper Butz of Illinois, Charles E. Moss of Missouri, N. P. Sawyer of
Pennsylvania, a Committee, &c.
SOURCE: Edward McPherson, The Political History
of the United States of America, during the Great Rebellion, p. 413-4
