1864 Democratic National Convention

The 1864 Democratic National Convention was held at The Amphitheatre in Chicago, Illinois, United States.

The Convention nominated Major General George B. McClellan from New Jersey for president, and Representative George H. Pendleton of Ohio for vice president. McClellan, age 37 at the time of the convention, and Pendleton, age 39, are the youngest major party presidential ticket ever nominated in the United States.

Background
The Democratic Party was bitterly split over the American Civil War between the War Democrats and the Peace Democrats. Also making matters complicated were the factions that existed among the Peace Democrats. For much of the war they had been dominated by the Copperheads, led by Clement Vallandigham. The Copperheads declared the war to be a failure and favored an immediate end to hostilities without securing Union victory, either via re-admitting all the Confederate states with slavery intact and legally protected, or by formally recognizing the Confederacy as a sovereign nation and attempting to re-establish peaceful relationships.

As the tide of the war began to turn, the Peace Democrats started to splinter between the Copperheads and their more moderate members. After the Battle of Gettysburg, when it was clear the Confederacy could no longer win the war, moderate Peace Democrats such as Horatio Seymour proposed a negotiated peace that would secure Union victory. They believed this was the best course of action because an armistice could finish the war without destroying the South. The Copperheads continued to advocate allowing the Confederate states to rejoin with slavery intact, however, believing that to do otherwise would merely lead to another Civil War sooner or later.

Platform
On the first day of the convention, a peace platform was adopted. McClellan, the front-runner for the Democratic nomination, was personally opposed to a peace platform. McClellan supported the continuation of the war and restoration of the Union, but the party platform, written by Vallandigham, was opposed to this position.