Daily intelligencer. [volume] (Wheeling, Va. [W. Va.]) 1859-1865, 1864-09-17

Appeal of the National Union Conn
mIttee to the People OF tho United
States. r....
HEAD'o'T'Rs. NATIONAL UNION CoMM'T'E., l
New YORK, Sept. 9, 1864. !
The great rebellion, which for more than
three years has wrapped the nation in the
flames of civil war, draws near its crisis
Its armies have been beaten, it's territory
has been conquered, the forts and posts
which it treacherously seized have been
occupied and held by the soldiers of the
Republic, its foreign allies have been de-
tached from its support, and its hostile arm,
parslyzed by exhaustion and discouraged
by defeat, is upheld solely by the hope of
political victories to be achieved by its al
lies in the Presidential election of NoVem-
Der next.
If the people in that election sustain the
Government, if they re.assert its just au q.
thority and re. affirm their purpose to main
tain it by war SO lobg as war assails it, the
rebellion will speedily end. If they falter
in this determination, or leave any room
for doubt on this vital point, the rebels
will take fresh courage and prolong the
contest. Every attendance of their organs
and their agents afirms and confirms this
position. Every rebel in arms and every
rebel states or in foreign lands, every hater
of Democratic freedom and the rights of
man, longs and labors for the overthrow of
the administration and the expulsion of
Abraham Lincoln from the Presidential
chair.
In the Northern and Western States this
hostility has been embodied and organic
ed in the acts and declarations of the Chi
cago Convention. The Convention gives a
silent approval of the rebellion itself, and
an open condemnation of the war waged
for its suppression. Without a word of
ceusure for the conspirators who plotted
the nations death, it brands with unsparing
deuunciation the patriots and heroes who
defend its life. While it passes in utter
silence the gigantic usurpations of Jeffer-
son Davis and his confederate traitors
while it oVerlooks entirely, and thus, by
just and necessary inference, approves
their abrogation of political rights and
personal liberties over all that portion of
the United Stats in which they have been
able thus far to sustain their usurped au-
thority, it pours out its wrath, without
stint or measure, upon every act by which
the Constitutional President of the United
States has sought to defend and protect
the life and liberties of the nation, whose
executive power is placed in his hands.
That Convention had no words of exul-
tation for our victories; no thanks and
honors for the soldiers and sailors who
have shed their blood to achieve them
While it'deuounces our government for
neglect of duty toward our "fellow-cit-
iSens who are now, and long have been,
prisoners of war in a suffering condition"
it has not even syllable of ceusure for
those rebel authorities who, with more
than savage cruelty, and in their disregard
of every dictate of humanity, as we'll as
of every usage of civilized warfare, have
deliberately and with systematic pur.
pose Inflicted upon those prisoners all the
tortures OF exposure, of neglect and starva.
ton, and have offered premiums for their
murder to the brutal guards to whose grim
custody they have been consigned. And,
on the very eve of the most glorious victo,
Fies that have ever crowned our armsGaf.
ter three years of bloody, costly and sue
cessfQl war, when thrse-fourthy of the ter
ritory originally held by the rebels has
passed into onr hands, ct the EAry moment
when the rebellion itself IL totSeFipg to lie