459 347 1918a ic E459 .B47T918f "'"" """'^ ^ImumrnVmSmiJ'" J^'^^ without victory d oiin 3 1924 030 905 149 CORNELL UNIVERSITY LIBRARY M 3 THE MOVEMENT FOR PEACE WITHOUT VICTORY DURING THE CIVIL WAR. Elbert Jay Benton UNIVERSITY MICROFILMS A Xerox Company Ann Arbor, Michigan, U. S. A. Cornell University Library The original of tiiis book is in tine Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924030905149 * * * This is an authorized facsimile of the original book, and was produced in 1968 by microfilm-xerography by University Microfilms, A Xerox Company, Ann Arbor, Michigan, U.S.A. * * * Publication No. 99 COLLECTIONS The Western Reserve Historical Society Issued December 1918 The Movement for Peace Without a Victory During the Civil War Elbert J. Benton CLEVELAND. OHIO 1918 3^6 Benton, Elbert Jay, 1871-1946. ... The movement for peace without victory during the civil war, by Elbert J. Benton. Cleveland, O., 1918, 2 p. 1., 80 p. fold, facslm. 23 cm. (Publication no. 99. Collec- tions, the Western Reserve historical society) Contents. — Contending forces In the civil war. — The Pence Etemo- crats.— The secret political societies. — The exile of Vallandlgham. — A northwest confederacy to enforce peace. . 1. U. S.— Pol. & govt.— Civil war. 2. Secret societies— U. S. 3. Val- landlgham, Clement Lalid, 1820-1871. 4. Northwestern conspiracy, 1884. I. Title. T,. - 19—10133 Library of Congress P486.W58 no. 99 ia48el v. I '.I I tVl.l (' I . j Officers The Western Reserve Historical Society OFFICERS FOR 1918-1919 President WiLLAiM P. Palmer Vice President and Director Wallace H. Cathcaht Honorary Vice Presidents John D. Rockefeller Jacob B. Perkins Secretary Elbeut J. Benton Treasurer A. S. Chisholm Elrot. M. Avery S. P. Baldwin C. W. Bingham A. T. Brewer E. S. Burke, Jr. W. H. Cathcart A. S. Chisholm J. D. Cox Wm. G. Dietz James R. Garfield C. A. Grasselli Webb C. Hayes Trustees C. W. Bingham S. P. Bald\vin S. S. Wilson Finance Committee F. F. Prentiss Ralph King W. G. Mather Price McKinnet D. Z. Norton Wm. p. Palmer Douglas Perkins Jacob Perkins F. F. Prentiss J. L. Severance Ambrose Swasey Chas. F. TH%\nNG J. H. Wade W. G. Dietz D. Z. Norton E. J. Benton Publication Committee W. H. Cathcart H. E. Bourne Articles of Incorporation STATE OP OHIO These Articles of Incorporation of The Western Reserve Historical Society Witnesseth, That we, the undersigned, all of whom are citizens of the State of Ohio, desiring to form a corporation not for profit, under the general corporation laws of said State, do hereby certify: First. The name of said corporation shall be The Western Reserve Historical Society. Second. Said corporation shall be located and its principle business transacted at the City of Cleveland, in Cuyahoga Conuty Ohio. Third. The purpose for which said corporation is formed is not profit, but is to discover, collect and preserve whatever relates to the history, biography, genealogy, and antiquities of Ohio and the West; and of the people dwelling therein, including the physical history and condition of the State; to maintain a museum and library, and to extend knowledge upon the subjects mentioned, by literary meetings, by publication and by other proper means. In Witness Whereof, We have hereunto set our hands, this seventh day of March, A. D., 1892. Henry C. Ranney Charles C. Baldwin D. W. Manchester David C. Baldwin Amos Townsend, Percy W. Rice, William Bingham, Jas. D. Cleveland, A. T. Brewer THE MOVEMENT FOR PEACE WITHOUT A VICTORY DURING THE CIVIL WAR Contending Forces in the Civil War. It is a common practice for writers on the Civil War to reduce the opposing forces to two, the South and the North, or Confederates and Unionists, and likewise to simplify the issues by condensing them to one word, slavery. There is enough truth in this view to satisfy many persons. It has the merit that it may be easily remembered. That it breeds superficiality and inaccuracy of thought does not seem to trouble the authors. It fails wholly to explain the motives and ideals of the hundreds of thousands in the South who supported the Confederate cause and of an as- tonishingly large number in the North who opposed the Unionists in the prosecution of the War without, in either case, having any direct interest in preserving slavery. It also falls short as an adequate presenta- tion of the complex forces arrayed against the Govern- ment throughout the Civil War. It is necessary for the purpose of this paper to re- call that the Civil War was preceded by the secession of seven states, extending from South Carolina south- ward and westward along the coast, during the winter of 1860-18G1. They were the states which were dom- inated by the cotton planters. ' Complex motives were present in their act of se- cession, but the decisive one was the determination that property in slaves should have access to the fed- eral territories, and have the same federal protection . as that extended to other forms of personal property in the territories. The gauntlet had been thrown down by the Breckinridge Democrats in the campaign of 1860, and accepted by the Republicans. The election of Lincoln on a platform which declared "that the • There were somewhere near i,6oo,ooo white families in the South. Less than 400,000 of these held slaves. Three fourths of the southern families held no slaves and had no direct interest in its continuation. About 10,000 families owned the great slave plantations and constituted the ruling class of the slave states. The South in the Building oj the Nation, Vol.V, p. 117. 2 Contending Forces in the Civil Wah normal condition of all the territory is that of free- dom" and denied "the authority of Congress, of a territorial legislature, or of any individuals, to give legal existence to slavery in any territory of the United States" eflfectually blocked the cotton planters' pro- gram. Lincoln's firm refusal during the winter of 1860-1861 to assent to a compromise in Congress upon the territorial issue strengthened the conclusion which the secessionists had reached that the Union as it was developing was no longer tolerable. " Lincoln's inflexible attitude represented for the most part the views of the western element of the Re- publican party. Horace Greeley, an eastern Republi- can of great influence, editor of the New York Tribune, placed his popular journal on record for peace, virtually on the Confederate terms. "If the cotton States", he said, "shall decide that they can do better out of the Union than in it, we insist on letting them go in peace. The right to secede may be a revolutionary one, but it exists nevertheless Whenever a considerable section of our Union shall deliberately resolve to go out, we shall resist all coercive measures designed to keep it in. We hope never to live in a republic, where- of one section is pinned to the residue by bayonets." "If the cotton States generally unite with her (South Carolina) in seceding, we insist that they cannot be prevented, and that the attempt must not be made. Five millions of people, more than half of them the dominant race, of whom at least a half a million are able and willing to shoulder muskets, can never be subdued while fighting around and over their own hearth-stones". ' It is true that Greeley soon recanted his doctrine of peace-at-any-price, but not before in- calculable encouragement had been given to disunion. * ' Lincoln took the position that the compromises proposed in Congress would not terminate the struggle between the North and the South over the territories; that the only compromise of any value was a federal prohibition against acquiring any more territory. Nicolay and Hay, Compltte IVorks oj Abraham Lincoln, Jan- uary II, 1861, Vol. VI, p. 93. > Thf New York Tribuni, Nov. 9, 16, 19, 30, i860. * Ibid. January 14 and February 2, 1861. Contending Fohcks in the Civil War 3 He continued tliroughout the war to seek peace other- wise than by the direct one of overcoming Southern resistance by mihtary force. A negotiated peace, one without victory, became his highway to reunion. Greeley by no means stood alone among the Republi- cans. His was not an isolated, individual view. The thought of the loss of the southern markets paralyzed the combative organs of many an eastern merchant. Those whose sense of nationalism was slightly devel- oped raised the white flag before secession. Plenry Ward Beecher declared that he did not care if the southern states seceded, and that it would be an ad- vantage for them to go off. " What William Lloyd Garrison and other extreme Abolitionists were saying interested relatively few. They were outside the pale. But within the innermost circles of the Republican fold, the self-appointed leader, the President-elect's choice for the premiership of the Cabinet, William H. Seward, was commonly classed with those who stood ready to renounce the Territorial clause of the Repub- lican platform and to compromise with the cotton planters in order to maintain peace. ' What the historian has to record about the be- ginnings of the Civil War is that the rival policies of Radical Democrats and Radical Republicans precipi- tated the conflict. The decisive or aggressive forces before the fall of Fort Sumter were the cotton planters and the western farmers who had accepted Breckin- ridge and Lincoln respectively as their leaders. The real issue between them was to determine whether planters with black slave gangs or the sons of small farmers and artisans should have the homesteads of the prairie west. Both saw that the two labor systems were mutually exclusive. They had not been able to dwell in peace in Kansas. The tragic history of the poor whites of the South had established their in- ' Address at Boston, Nov. 27, i860. New York Tribune, Nov. 29, 30, i860. Rhodes, History of the United States, Vol. Ill, pp. 139, 141. • Rhodes, History of the United States, Vol. Ill, p. 288, especially notes 2 and 3. 4 Contending Forces in the Civii, War compatibility beyond a peradventure. And yet these forces which knew what they wanted and counted not too dear the cost constituted a clear minority of the nation. The great majority, with minds unmade, with hopes centered on compromises, ready for peace at almost any price, waited through the fateful passing months for a harmony of leadership which came too late. The Radical elements rallied around their lead- ers without hesitation as defenders of holy causes and stamped their opponents as aggressors. It is one of the tragedies of human history that so far both views could describe accurately a situation. The economic system which each represented called for new lands. Wild land was the raw material of the old agriculture. If the cotton planters were the more impatient and the more bitter it was because their institution was the more wasteful of land and their individual capital at stake, if land failed them, greater than that of the small farmers. Humanitarianism entered into both agri- cultural movements, but differed fundamentally in kind. The planters regarded the slaves, members of a larger family circle, as a race in its childhood which needed the disclipine and protection of the slave sys- tem; and there their thinking stopped. The Republi- can farmers and merchants and artisans were anti- slavery in every sense, but not stimulated by any strong radical agitation such as had organized the Abolition movement of New England and other parts of the North. ' The fall of Fort Sumter and the call of President Lincoln for the state militia brought tumbling into the arena, as it were, two new forces. A middle group of slave states. North Carolina, Virginia, Tennessee, and Arkansas, seceded and joined the Confederacy. And why.? Slavery in their limits was decadent. There was no dominant, aggressive cotton planter or other ' A. C. Cole, President Lincoln and the Illinois Radical Republicans, Mississippi Valley Historical Review, Vol. IV, No. 4, March 1918, p. 417. Contending Forces in the Civil War 5 similar class planning to provide for the future of a basic labor system. A free labor system had, in fact, come strongly into conflict with the old slave system. But the idea that the federal union was a creature or . servant of sovereign states, that the states could not be coerced, was a political fetish. The growing national- ism genuinely alarmed the persons who made States' Rights the basis of their political philosophy. Their interpretation of American colonial history, their read- ing of all history, although crude and inaccurate like that of their generation, convinced them that the be- ginning of all tyranny was in centralization, the secur- ity of human liberty in America, and for that matter in the World, bound up in maintaining unimpaired States' Rights. There is no use of quarrelling with the philosophy of another generation because we have drifted far from it. It is enough to take account of the fact. Tb*^ doctrine that a state might not be coerced was the tenet which guided the middle group of slave states into secession. They would protest that their act came not because they loved the old Union less than their neighbors, but because they feared a new and uncovenented union which threatened to take its place. States' Rights which was the main chord with the middle group of slavp states was at the same time a minor one with the cotton group. Conversely, elements of the population of the middle group were directly interested in the perpetuation of slavery, or terrified at the idea of vast numbers of negro freed- men in their midst, and so joined their influence with the dominant one to resist what all feared in common, a new union and a new era. The central fact is that Lincoln's call for the state militia to enforce the fed- eral laws and maintain the federal institutions was an- swered by the withdrawal of four states and the waver- ing of a group of border slave states — Delaware, Mary- land, Kentucky and Missouri. One of them Kentucky, proclaimed its neutrality, and actually maintained the 6 Contending Forces in the Civil War novel, status until neutrality was violated in Septem- ber, 1861, by a Confederate army. « In the end the border states remained in the Union, or perhaps in the case of Maryland the fact is more accurately expressed when it is said that it was re- strained from secession. A large element of the popu- lation of the border states found ways of opposing the Administration in the prosecution of the War. One of the most common was to give their adhesion to an- other force arrayed in the Civil War. This was thg movement of the Peace Democrats. The thought of this element like the dominant one in the middle group was glued to the States' Ilights political philosophy. Each individual thought of himself as a defender of all that was institutionally precious. That he was sacri- ficing himself or his country to a passing theory of government he could not see. To him there were no I\It. Pisgahs from which to survey the passing ages. That he was an indirect ally of a slave oligarchy troubled him about as little as the alliances of the dem- ocracies of Europe with Russia in 1914 troubled them. All through the three slave sections poor white farmers whose economic life had been narrowed to the lowest standards by competition with the large slave gangs sprang to the aid of the cotton planters and the doc- trainaires of States' Rights. The alliance was complete and whole hearted because it was based on long gen- erations of common thought and persistant teaching in an isolated environment. The poor whites, too, feared the freeing of the negroes. They imagined, as others without number before them had imagined, a state of anarchy and violence and hard times in the South if by any chance the discipline of slavery were relaxed. A rough sketch of this kind does not do jus- tice to the complex motives and fears of the Confeder- ates. It only pretends to outline some main forces. » There ii no story more strikingly illustrative of Lincoln's political saRacity and patience than his treatment of Kentucky at this crisis. See Rhodes, History oj the United States, Vol. Ill, pp. 391-2. Contending Forces in the Civil War 7 There were others, such as run with the current of human history born of greed, and selfishness, and bitter memories, but they are of no great moment now. The significant fact is that the several elements of population which the Confederate statesmen cemented together thought of their Cause as one of defense. In 18G1 President Lincoln rallied two organized political forces in support of his policy of forcible re- union. These were (1) the Republican Party as a whole and (2) a portion of the Democratic Party, the War Democrats. The Republican Party took the name Union Party in order to make agreeable the new alliance, though the camouflage only partially suc- ceeded in its purposes. The War Democrats gener- ally maintained their party organization and resisted the temptations of fusion. They supported the policy of forcible reunion; they had no sympathy with the Administration's ideas of policies toward slavery, — either the pledges with regard to the territories, or slavery in the States. They were uncharitable critics of the measures which the Government deemed nec- essary to accomplish its purpose. But they yielded an invaluable support to the main purpose of the Administration, which was re-union. There were also the Abolitionists; the followers of Garrison and Wendell Phillips. To the Southerner, involved as he was socially and financially in a race tangle, they were hideous monsters. Did they not call his ownership of slave property a crime? And offer the remedy of confiscation? It is a fact that the Aboli- tionists took no account of history, and social systems, and racial progress, or elemental justice. To be sure] with most of them the end was to be achieved by the ballot. John Brown's race-war was a movement by itself. The South, however made the fundamental mistake of identifying John Brown's movement with Abolition, and both with that of the Republicans. Men who feared a social revolution should undoubtedly have a measure of consideration from History if 8 The Peace Democrats they could not draw clear distinctions. In reality, those who thought as did Lincoln were leaving the slavery of the States for the States to meet. They committed themselves, when once the War began, to the primary task of preserving democracy from the perversion with which secession threatened it. They had no intention of making the fate of slavery an issue of the Civil War. The Abolitionists, whether of the extreme variety who could not find satisfac- tion in one of the other parties, or more moderate, supported the President in the prosecution of the War. They did so, however, with the hope that Lincoln's policy would overtake their's and lead to the destruc- tion of slavery. Lincoln's constructive policy with regard to slavery, announced in his message to Con- gress in December, 1861, combining a policy of state • emancipation with national compensation to the owners and colonization of the freedmen, did not satisfy the Abolitionists. A paper which enumerated the supporters of the United States at the North during the civil war and ignored the large population in the middle group of slave states,especially of western Virginia and eastern Tennessee, that fought in the Union armies would neg- lect an important factor of the Civil War. The mountain whites of the South were too much isolated to fear the freedmen, had been too long in conflict with the State authorities to be concious of any attachment to States' Rights. Living the simple democratic life of the frontier they were instinctively out of sympathy with the slave oligarchies. It will suffice to think of this force as positively, and whole heartedly. Unionists. Its contribution to the War measured in percentages of volunteers to the total population exceeded that from the northern states. The Peace Democrats The menace of national disruption through the efforts of the seceding states was only one form of at- The Peace Democrats 9 tack on democratic government during the Civil War. The Government of the United States had to combat other forces, more insidious because less open and above board, and therefore really more dangerous ones. There was a danger of foreign intermeddling during the early months of the War. The Governments of Eng- land and France pressed the United States to accept mediation in order to find a basis for a negotiated peace. But all knew well that a negotiated peace meant a per- manent disruption of the Union. The foreign powers even considered armed intervention. The Pope ex- horted the Archbishops of New York and New Orleans to use their influences with their respective communi- ties for peace; encouraged by the response of Jefferson Davis, the correspondence led the Pope to make the charge that the Government at Washington was to blame for the continuation of the War. ' Neither of the foreign powers exhibited any real appreciation of the great moral or social or political principles involved in the titanic American struggle. Their mistake may well be passed over. The particular Governments of Europe of that day had no sympathy with democracy as it was being worked out in America. And as for moral or social issues, it is open to question whether even the American people realized these at the time. Certain it is that to Lincoln in 1861 the issue was the simple one of restoration of the union. ' " The most dangerous opposition which a cause may have is one which conceals itself, perhaps unconsciously, behind a pacifist group, or any particular group, and makes use of one or the other for partisan ends. In in » Letter of Pope Pius .IX to Archbishop Hughes, October iS, 1862, published i„ the Richmond Daily JFhig, August 7, 1863. Other letters of the correspondence in Richardson, Messages and Papers oj the Confederacy, Vol. II, pp. 571, 603. »» Nicolay and Hay, Complete Works of Abraham Lincoln, Vol. VIII p 16. Letter to Greely, August 22, 1862. "My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not cither to save or destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it; and if I could save it by freeine all the slaves, I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone, I would also do that. What I do about slavery and the colored race, I do because I believe it helps to save the Union". 10 The Peace Democrats other words the party which takes advantage of a national crisis in order to achieve a success it could hot win from a democratic people at the polls is the great- est menace a free people has to face. Such a party de- liberately flouts democracy. It attempts to convert a democracy into an autocracy. The history of the Civil War was complicated by the persistent activities of just such a party. A portion of the northern Democracy, especially large in the Old Northwest, openly opposed the pro- secution of the War by the Administration. * » Be- cause of the fact that the movement demanded that the Administration stop the War, and that the mem- bership was drawn from the old Democratic party the name the Peace Democratic Party has been given it. Breckinridge received 279,211 votes in the free states in 1860; this element was a natural nucleus of a north- ern party of opposition. The opponents sneeringly called its members "copperheads", or identified them with the Confederates by the common appelation of "butternuts", i " Fernando Wood, Mayor of New York, and his brother, Benjamin Wood, publisher of the New York News and a member of Congress, made themselves spokesmen of a faction of Peace Democrats in the East. Fernando Wood proposed at the beginning of the Civil War that New York City proclaim itself a free city, a sort of a Liibeck or Hamburg in the federal union, and re- tain its trade both with the United States and the Con- •• The South, too, had its Peace Parties. At one time in North Carolina and Georgia the activities of such an opposition gave the Confederate authorities considerable embarassment. The movement seems to have been the work of a dormant Union element stirred to life by local leadership. See the Richmond Daily IVhig, February 19, 1864, for a brief account. "A satirical poem published in Philadelphia, 1863, worked out in seemingly endless verses the theme .of contempt of the Unionists for the Copperheads. "Ye 'sneak' is a sly bird. Ye rattle-sneak, indced,/hath some chivalry, if it is in his tail; but ye Sneak/yclepid 'Copperhead' hath none." etc. • There was an appropriatehess in the term "butternut" for both the confeder- ates and the Peace Democrats. Both drew their strength in numbers from the poorer whites of the rural South and West who by force of circumstances wore homespun clothes dyed from the butternut. The Peace Demochats 11 federacy. "Thus", according to the Mayor's vision, "We could live free from taxes, and have cheap goods nearly duty, free." ^' But th6 chief elements of the Peace Democrats were located in the Ohio valley, de- creasing in density of numbers as the distance north- ward from the Ohio river increased. The evidence con- nects the class with the immigration stream which had moved like an overflowing flood from the South to the north side of the Ohio River. The area in Ohio com- prehended by a line drawn through Dayton, Hamilton, Chillicothe and Cincinnati, the river counties of Indiana and Illinois, and their neighbors, were the strongholds of the party. * '' The rank and file of the Copperheads were the smaller farmers and poor artisans of the region, if measured by accumulated wealth. They like the poor whites of the South saw another vision from that which the followers of Lincoln saw. The latter saw the ex- pansion of their agricultural system across the fertile prairies of the plains balked by expanding slave areas. The former saw a black horde of freedmen, a veritable black peril, sweeping from the southland across the Ohio into the free farming regions of the Ohio Valley. ^ * All those social forces which count with a people — en- vironment, tradition, decades of teaching from plat- form, press, and pulpit — were bearing their natural fruit in the Ohio Valley. It is the tragedy of this Con- flict in the Northwest that the votaries of both sides thought of their causes as defensive ones, and from the point of view of each it was so. 13 McPherson, History of iht Rebellion, p. 42. '* The Census oj i860 showed that about six per cent of the white population of Ohio were immigrants or the descendents of immigrants from slave states chiefly from Virginia and Kentucky; about twelve per cent of Indiana, chiefly from Kentucky, Virginia, North Carolina, and Tennessee; about ten per cent of Illinois, chiefly from Kentucky, Tennessee, Virginia and North Carolina; about 25 per cent of Missouri, chiefly from Kentucky, Tennessee, Virginia and* North Carolina. " The Democratic newspapers kept the menace of the freedmen always before their readers. The Columbus Crisis, October 29, 1862, contains a typical article. 12 The Peace Democrats There was a close analogy between the line of rea- soning of the Copperheads and their poor white kinsfolk of the South. Without doubt, if the Copperheads had had the balance of power in the Northwest as they had in Kentucky they would have made the whole section neutral, or, if they had been in the majority as in North Carolina they would have swung the Northwest into an alliance with the Confederacy. It was inevi- table that they should number among themselves some that were the conscious agents of the South and some whom the loss of peace-time markets during the early stages of the War and the consequent hard times drove into the opposition party. The newspapers of the river towns stressed the losses from the cessation of the old trade. The Cincinnati Gazette estimated at the close of 1861 that the loss of the southern market for bacon alone meant a loss of $6,000,000 to the farmers of the Northwest. ' ' To those who were more concern- ed about the recovery of the old river commerce and plantation markets than about rival labor systems or social structures, peace-at-any-price had a commercial background. Once the South seceded and set up a barrier to river commerce, the event worked two ways. To the Peace Democrats of the Ohio Valley it stimu- lated a movement for peace in order to have back old markets on the basis of restoration; to the Unionists it stimulated a war of conquest. The varying points of view arose from the respective doctrines of States' Rights and Nationalism. The Peace Democrats of the Northwest had an active, cunning leadership. The names of only a few have survived the oblivion which history allows to those who grieviously err. The high priest of the faction was Clement L. Vallandigham. He was of Huguenot and Scotch descent; the scion of families early transplanted to Virginia, and thence to Ohio; Presbyterian and Dem- ocrat by forces as immutable in such minds as any laws " See, for example, the Knoxville Daily Register, June 12, 1862. The Peace Democrats IS of nature. He inherited a fixed philosophy of life. His was one of those minds that instinctively fear in- novation, whose eyes were on the past, whose faith clung to established institutions and time worn customs. The dogmatic assurance and inflexible purpose of his kind were entrenched in a cold and selfish personality. As a man he stood apart from others, set oft' by an ar- rogance and egoism, which would neither take council of man or God. ' ' And yet somehow he possessed a " The following letter from the brother of Vallandigham's mother, besides giving an interesting glimpse of Maryland life in the 30's, reveals much of the heritage of Vallandigham. The original is in the Vallandigham Collection of manuscripts, letters, etc. in the Library of the Western Reserve Historical Society. Parsonage, Trinity Parish Charles Co. Maryland Saturday night Nov. 17, 1S32. Rev: C. Vallandigham. Dear brother. The period of life & the grade in the Ministry of reconcilia- tion to which I have attained, intimate, nay urge, the propriety of surrendering my juvenile enmities. The reflection that I had alienated those toward whom nature duty and interest bound me to cherish pacific feelings, has incurred many a pang of regret. I am, therefore, constrained to make this overture to you. You are excusable for not having superceded its necessity — as you have not known the particular plact of my present residence. You will-, doubtless, respond in a spirit similar to that in which I write*****It will very probably, interest you to become acquainted with my present condition and future prospects. I was elected Rector of this Parish, upon the 3' of June 1830 — but was prevented by the ex- treme sickness of my eldest, (then only) child from taking charge of it until the 21. of the ensuing August. This parish is twenty miles in length & its medium width is nine miles & contains over two hundred families. In it are two brick Churches, erected some seventy or eighty years since, which have been rebuilt. They are situated twelve miles from each other. The Glebe; upon which I live, contains 300 acres, two-thirds of which are enclosed, and upon it are erected a Parsonage, Negro house. Corn & Meat house, Tobacco barn et ceaterea. The Parsonage, a brick house of eighty years erection, is a substantial, neat house. It is five miles distant from my Parish Church & seven from my Chapel. The Vestry employed me the first year for $435 and the use of the Glebe, worth S200. The second year they gave me 500$ & use &c. The present year they will give me S600 & use &c. My perquisites are worth 200S per annum — so that my present salary is 1000$. Since resident here I have baptised 230 infants, niarried twenty- seven couples (for which I have rcc° )5230 — some of them were slaves, & preached thirty-six funerals, (for which I have rec'' 270?) During last Convention year namely from A'lay 31'. to May '32, I buried 81 persons. Sickness & Mortality always great was unusually so last year. I rode down two horses during our Au- tumnal sickness & in Jan' & February the Pleaurasy prevalcd to an alarming extent. My own general health has improved since I removed hither. My breast affection has partially, if not totally subsided. In last Alay & June I passed thr'o a severe acclimating — having sixteen Agues and fevers in succession: Since when I have enjoyed excellent health. My good lady has not been one day unwel since we removed hither. Blessed be God, health has been extraordinary thr'o my parish this year. W have escaped the autumnal fevers. This phenomanon is attributable ,sofar as human means are concerned, to the uncommon prudence in dieting & cloathing, which people here practised as a preventive of the Cholera. 14 The Peace Democrats grace of bearing and powers of address which captivated those who came within his sphere. College education, legal studies and practice in the courts, and editorial experience on the Dayton Empire failed to liberalize his ways of thinking, but from their training he develop- ed a power of expression, the eloquence of the political platform, in which few of his generation surpassed him. In 1857 Vallandigham entered Congress. The Civil War found him among those who first sought to medi- ate between the forces in the Union which were strug- gling with fixed purposes, and, failing in efforts at com- promise, made themselves the "wilful obstructionists" of the time. But the fact that the group threw them- selves against the forces which were" struggling in Con- gress and out with fixed purposes does not mean to im- That fearful complaint reached Port Tobacco, our County town, yet we have been mercifully spared. There have been only fifteen cases, all however have been fatal. I have been advised of its pravalence in Cincinnati. ***There are some differences between Penn* (and indeed the whole North) and Maryland, to the advantage of the latter. There is an intelligence, a nobleness of spirit & a sentimental delicacy found in our Country Parishes here which are not pravalent in the North. The existence of slavery furnishes time to the rich to cultivate their minds & to cherish fine feelings. It deepens the divisional lines between the heart & the extremities of Society. It precludes associations with the lowest class which are calculated, eminently so, to inspire those of the higher class with mean opinions of themselves & to arrest them in the noble march of honorable ambition. To descend to all the menial offices of a domestic, must tend to degrade a classical youth in his own estimation & to check his noble aspirations after dig- nified, hallowed manhood. How it must subvert his idea of meritorious distinc- tion, to behold the greasy cook &' the sooty shoe-black seated around the family board with himself.' While Society moves it must have extremities, as while a man walks, he must have legs, as, therefore, there must be servitude. I cannot concieve of any species of it so suitable to the general wants particular & lasting comfort of society, as slavery is. The bond & the hired servant may one day be- come a master & an employer. This, each holds in prospect, which unfits him for faithful service. Will he cherish the appropriate feelings & discharge the indcs- pensable duties of his rank, when he beholds himself, thr' othe short vista of a few years, clad with all the prerogatives of authority.' Will he reverence him, from whom he considers himself nothing different, except in a temporary degradation? Will he cherish an obedient spirit toward him whom he regards as dressed in the brief authority of a few years- Submission, reverence & obedience to his master, & attachment to his person & regard for his interest ( all indcspensible in every servant) animate the bosom of the slave. They are but seldom found in bond or hired servants. The expectation of future promotion, which their temporary ser- vitude allows them to entertain, inflate their vanity, & therefore, extinguish their submissive spirit & produce discontent. It is an argument of inconsiderable force for the perpetual obligation of matrimony, that it reconciles the contracting parties to many inconveniences which necessarily grow out of that state — so, inter- minable servitude adapts its subject to his condition. But — enough — I am now The Peace Democrats 15 ply that their movement was aimletss. It was the ag- gressiveness of thp Peace Democrats which made their movement the potent force and the menace which it was. The public policy of Vallandigham and his fol- j lowers was based on a theory of the economic section- alism of the United States. "Sir, we of the Northwest", he exclaimed in Con- gress during the debates over compromise, "have a deeper interest in the preservation of this government in its present form than any other section of the Union. Hemmed in, isolated, cut off from the seaboard upon every side; a thousand miles and more from the mouth of the Mississippi, the free navigation of which under the law of nations we demand, and will have at every cost; with nothing else but our great inland seas, the employed in collecting & arranging materials for the Latin controversy, which will embrace all the points in disslmiliarity in doctrine & practice between the R. Catholics & Protestants — In a recent sermon I encountered & combatted & (without vanity may say) confuted the Dogma of Purgatory — Of brother Robert I hear nothing. Were he to duly revolve my circumstances at the time I opposed him, he would promptly forgive any extravagence of which I might possibly have been guilty. The last letter I rec* from him, he very uncharitably insinuated that I had been guilty of dishonesty toward John Gillespie! Credat Judeus Apello — non ego — My family now consists of M" Laird, Claudius Horace Binney, John Henry, & a daughter born the 28"" Ultimo, who is not yet baptised, therefore anonymous. Let me know if our Estate at Racoon has been finally settled & what yet remains tor me. I left a Note upon M' Whitacre calling for 6$, with M' George Graham. I wrote to him respecting it but have not rec' an answer. Ask him of it. Let me know of yourselves & little ones. M" L. joins me in expressions of affectionate regards for you all. God bless you all. Francis H. L. Laird - - My address is Rev. F. H. L. Laird Rector of Trinity Parish (Charles Co.) Char- lotte Hall P. Office St .Marys Co. Maryland. Be particular to use this direction. Please write soon. P. S. A few weeks since Lsaw your cousin & my particular friend M' Thomas Beden of Prince George's Co. He is an old but lively bachelor He is now in the attendence upon the races at Port Tobacco! Upon Monday I shall be engaged & tuesday is our mail day — therefore I write tonight. Next tuesday, I shall, God willing, marry a ladv worth 30,000$ to a brother Parson. The highest marriage fee which I have rec' is 25S in gold & the greatest for a funeral $50. Ten is the common charge for each. I have not time to review this hastily, written letter — Excuse its inaccuracies. Charlotte Hall M^ Affectionately y'r's &c. Nov" 20 To the Rev. Clement Vallandigham Pastor of the Pre^ Church New Lisbon Columbiana Co. Ohio. 16 The Peace Democrats lakes — and their outlet, too, through a foreign country- what is to be our destiny? Sir, we have fifteen hundred miles of southern frontier, and but a little narrow strip of eighty miles or less from Virginia to Lake Erie bounding us upon the east. Ohio is the isthmus that coimects the South with the British posessions, and the East with the West. The Rocky Mountains separate us from the Pacific. Where is to be our outlet? What are we to do when we have broken up and destroyed this Government? We are seven States now, and a population of nine millions. We have an empire equal in area to the third of all Europe, and we do not mean to be a dependency or province either of the east or of the South; nor yet an interior or second-rate power upon this continent; and if we cannot secure a maritime boundary upon other terms, we will cleave our way to the sea-coast with the sword. A nation of warriors we may be; a tribe of shepherds never". > « Such was the theory of the Peace Democrats: the Northwest was bound in economic interests more closely to the South by river highways than to the Atlantic coast. It was a theory which had described a condition a decade earlier, but the construction of trans- Alleghany railroad connections and a network of lines throughout the Northwest had altered the entire economic structure of the United States. ' ' Of these changes the leaders of the Ohio Valley Democracy were apparently oblivious. On February 20, 1861, Vallandigham attempted to formulate a congressional policy of federal reconstruct- ion which would peacably win back the allegiance of the seceding states, satisfy enough in the North, and have the added merit of establishing his doctrine of economic sectionalism. The plan was to recognize in an amended constitution four sections — a North, a West, a Pacific, ■• Congressional Globe, Part l, 2nd sess. 36th Cong., 1860-61, December 10, i860, p. 38; Vallandigham' s Speeches, p. 258. ' • See the article by Frederic L. Paison, The Railroads of the Old Northwest hejore the Civil War, Transactions of the Wisconsin Academy of Science, Arts and . Letters, Vol. XVII, Part i, Oct., 1912. The Peace Democrats 17 and a South section — and to make the assent of a maj- ority of the Senators of each section requisite for the passage of laws under certain circumstances. Likewise the Electoral College was to be reconstructed and a majority of the electors in each of the four sections be necessary for the choice of President and Vice-Presi- dent. Secession was to be recognized as a legal right, but regulated, as it were, for the act would be valid only when it had the sanction of the legislatures of the states constituting the section of the seceding state. The scheme was Calhoun's concurrent majority rule in a new form. "^ " There is no evidence that the Vallandigham pro- ject of federal reconstruction as a peace-bait or as a pol- itical program received more than a passing consider- ation in Congress. Unsuccessful in his own leadership, unable to accept that of another, Vallandigham fell back in Congress on the natural recourse of his type. His record until his retirement in 18G3, when he was defeated for re-election, was uniformly that of an ob- structionist. 2 1 And yet he and his associates undoubt- edly sincerely thought of themselves as the only real Unionists and of Confederates and Republicans and War Democrats as disunionists. But the Union of which they thought was one the Democratic Party had presided over for nearly a generation; it was the union of compromises with slavery, of weak nationalism, and of strong States' Rights. The Constitution as it is and the Union as it was formed the watchwords of the Peace Democrats. The fact that the old Union could not be restored, that neither of the radical forces — the cotton planters, the western Republicans, nor the Abolitionists anywhere — Avould ever accept such a restoration, ex- '" Congrissional Globe, Part i, 2nd sess. 36th Cong. 1860-61, p. 794; Speeches Arguments ,Addresses, and Letters of Clement L. Vallandigham, p. 298. '''The Unionist made use of this record for campaign purposes. The following pamphlets arc typical: William A. Cook, The Peace Democracy, iSdj; Complicity of Democracy with Treason, by the Ohio State Journal, 1S65; The New Hampshire Peace Democracy, n. d. 18 The Peace Democrats cept by force, was beyond the ken of the Peace Demo- crats. And that other great fact of democratic govern- ment, that a majority must rule and the minority bow when the decision has been made by the constitutional authorities or Republican government become the weakling which autocrats say it is the Peace Democrats ignored. They held to their peace illusions, and persist- ed in their assumption that the Confederates could be brought back into the Union by negotiations until the end. In dealing with them it is impossible to be patri- otic and charitable at the same time. It is too apparent that they saw back of the impending struggle an oppor- tunity to force on the American people a partisan theory of government. That they believed in their doctrines passionately, even piously, only convicts them of big- otry. Like the Bolsheviki of Russia in 1917 and 1918 the Peace Democrats were willing to force the accep- tance of a partisan policy, cost what it might. To the Peace Democrats the Abolitionists of New England were a peculiar sort of hete noir. It is true, the Abolitionists disturbed the settled order of historical compromises over slavery, and assailed the doctrine of States' Rights. But Confederates and Peace Demo- crats alike greatly erred in exaggerating the numbers and influence of the Abolitionists, and in identifying their policy with the homestead policy of the Republi- cans. They more greviously erred when they ignored the readiness of the Republicans and the War Demo- crats to guarantee slavery in the States where it existed from Congressional interference, ^ "^ and failed to appre- ciate the magnanimity of tJie constructive policy which Lincoln formulated for the future of slavery. ^ ' The confusion of the Republicans with Abolition in 18G1 was perhaps inevitable. There were enough radical Re- '* A thirteenth amendment put forth with the consent of Republican and Dem- ocratic leaders in March, 1861 would have effectually blocked any attack on slavery in a State by Congress. " See Message to Congress, December 3, 1861. Richardson, Messages and Papers, Vol. VI, p. 44. The Peace Democrats 19 publicans like Charles Sumner and John C. Fremont to confuse the most clear headed on the extent to which Abolition had captured the Republican Party. The Peace Democrats undoubtedly believed that the War was one of New England making'. They persistently charged that it was a Capitalists' War. And the ' "Shoddy "work of some wool manufacturers gave them an excuse for the charge. "Struck by "shoddy", and not by "shells", And not by shot our brave ones fall ; Greed of gold the story tells. Drop the mantle and spread the pall. Out on the vampyres! out on those Who of our life blood take a fill! "No meaner "traitor" the nation knows. Than the greedy ghoul of the shoddy mill!" So the Copperhead minstrel sang. -* As a chal- lenge to the Administration to clean its stables it would have been a service of high patriotism, as a statement of the causes of the War it was stupidly false, to say the least. The Peace Democrats fitted their doctrine of the cause of the War into their political program. The War was interpreted as a sectional one. As New England business men were forcing a war for markets for wool, shoes, iron, etc. in the Northwest, the section should rise to its own defense. The Peace Democrats gave themselves over to the task of arousing the sec- tional consciousness of the Northwest. How far they were self-deceived and how far they were unscrupulous- ly fitting a situation to a political program is an insol- uble problem. It is probably wiser to give them the the benefit if the doubt, admit their sincerity of pur- pose, and leave the measure of their sanity of judgement and statesmanship to the tender mercies of a charitable posterity. '* ^ Choice Collection of Democratic Poems and Songs, New York, 1863, p. 28. 20 The Peace Democrats There is a great similarity in all the pronounce- ments of the leaders of the Peace Democracy. Vallan- digham spoke and wrote ceaslessly, and supplied his followers with material from which to draw inspiration. Samuel Medary, editor of the Columbus Crisis, con- ducted a weekly newspaper in the interest of the party. That the Crisis survived the censor or complete sup- pression for its billingsgate attacks on the Government and misrepresentations of every act is one of the puz- zles of the period. The Peace Democrats propagated their doctrines through a host of local newspapers and party conventions. The Cincinnati Enquirer, The Chicago Times, the Indianapolis Sentinel, and the Day- ton Empire, to mention only a few of the more conspic- uous journals, continuously voiced the sentiments of the faction of the Democratic Party. Wherever the Peace Democrats won control of the organization of the Democratic organization county and district and state conventions were made to pass resolutions which gave expression to the movement. There was no dif- ficulty in finding media of communication between the leaders and the people. In February, 18G1, the Cin- cinnati Enquirer took its stand. "If Lincoln's Admin- istration wants money, it must compromise Coercion is disunion, now and forever". The Fairfield (Ohio) county convention rang forth "millions for de- fense, but not one cent for the coercion of sovereign states". 2 ' When Lincoln called for 75,000 volunteers the Ashland Union replied, "Fight your own battles W^e have only to say to you, gentlemen, this is not our fight; you have followed your own councils; you must do your own fighting. . . . The Administration leaders have succeeded in their unhallowed work of destroying the Government and Union. They have robbed us of our National Union — and shall we (the Democracy) "A pamphlet, Complicity of Democracy with Treason, published by the Ohio State Journal, 1865, is an interesting compilation of newspaper declarations and local convention resolutions in endorsement of the platform of the Peace Democrats. TiiR Peace Democrats 21 give our blood to their service to consecrate the crime? . . . The Democratic newspapers of the country today, refusing longer, in any manner, to pander to the inter- ests of the abolition traitors of the North, will rise in their might and beat back the tide of desolation that threatens the land." The Coshocton Democrat said; "The North is in direct Rebellion against the Constitution and Laws of the United States ! . . . . We do not believe Southern Generals ever had any idea of attacking Washington — they desire only to protect their own rights, liberty, and property. If they cannot do it without dispersing the scoundrelly usurpers in that City, they may attempt to take it." The Crisis harped on the gross" criminality of New England measures and New England men in fomenting the sectionalism which has begotten this most unhallowed and barbarous war and destroyed the nation." ^ « The Old Guard, a monthly magazine, was published in New York to promote the views of the Peace Democrats — devoted, it announced to the prin- ciples of 177G and 1787. "Had Lincoln", it asserts in one of its early numbers, "confined his acts within con- stitutional limits, and attempted no deed not author- ized by that sacred instrument, not only should we have been spared all their bloodshed and debt, but the Union would have been saved". ^ ^ The same magazine de- scribed the War as one of "Abolition and plunder", conducted by the "besotted tyrants in Washington". ^ » Samuel Medary made the Crisis describe the "whole atmosphere of Washington City" as "bedimmed with error, mischief, and ideas of a future monarchy". ^ ' The Cincinnati Enquirer again and again referred to King Lincoln and the Revolution he had selfishly led. The Democratic Convention of Huntington County, " The Crisis, Columbus, August ;> 1863. "' The Old Guard, Vol. i, No. 2. p. 45. »« Ibid. Vol. I p. 23. Vol. II, p. I. »» The Crisis, April 9, 1862. 22 The Peace Democrats Indiana, solemnly resolved "That Tyranny and Cow- ardice are monsters of the same birth, and now as ever seek to entrench themselves behind the military; and that the keeping of the army lately so wickedly and un- constitutionally raised, and now under command of abolitionists and unscrupulous adventurers, is incon- sistent with the liberties of the people, and already presents the frightful proportions of a Military Despot- ism . "God save our wretched land, From Lincoln's traitor band. From wo and blight; Make all the people brave. To shout o'er land and wave. Arise, our homes to save, In freedom's might." All "patriotic families" were asked to sing these words ,set to the tune of America, every night. ' « It would be better to overlook a great part of the litera- ture of the movement as the work of disordered brains, of perverted imagination, or of opposition of a time when conventional language was more picturesque and less considerate than modern journalism were it not that it formed the material on which a great popula- tion was fed and misled. The newspapers of Peace Democrats gave little space to Union achievements and exaggerated Union disasters. The whole nation was represented as "in a state of consternation, and crying for peace, or something that will put a stop to the awful waste of life and property". ' ' The Crisis of July 8, 18G3, published' an article on "How the Con- federates Treat their Enemies", which gave concrete illustrations of the generosity of the South toward the wounded captives. The article was followed by an- " J Choice Collection of Democratic Poims and Songs, p. 51. »> Official Records,?,tT\c%ll,Vo\.Vl\, p. 724; The Old Guard, Vol. I, no. i, p.i; The Crisis, February II. 1863. The Peace Democrats 23 other one headed — "Barbarism and the War" — ^which charged the Government of the United States with a "terrible systematic ruining and beggaring of hundreds and thousands of innocent, helpless, and unoffending women and children". The silence of a newspaper on the achievements of the Union armies after a critical engagement had been foreshadowed was often made to serve the propaganda of the movement effectively. A collection of democratic poems and songs was published in cheap pamphlet form and widely circulated for the use of the faithful in political clubs and social circles. They were well calculated to break the spirit of a peo- ple. There was a monotonous strain throughout the series. Defeat, bloodshed, and woe, senseless and hope- less strife echoed and re-echoed from page to page. A stanza from the "Song of the Sword" as a parody on the "Song of the Shirt" may stand for the series. "Weary and wounded, and worn, Wounded, and ready to die, A soldier they left, all alone and forlorn. On the field of the battle to lie. The dead and dying alone. Could their presence and pity afford Whilst with a sad and terrible tone. He sang the song of the sword". Or this: "We are coming, Abraham Lincoln, From mountain, wood, and glen; We are coming, Abraham Lincoln, With the ghosts of murdered men. Yes! we're coming, Abraham Lincoln, With curses loud and deep, That will haunt you in your wakinf^. And disturb you in your sleep." 24 The Peace Democrats There's blood upon your garments, There's guilt upon your soul; For the lust of ruthless soldiers You let loose without control; Your dark and wicked doings A God of mercy sees; And the wail of homeless children Is heard on every breeze." ' ^ The remedy for secession and Civil War was most simple in form. "Withdraw your armies, call back your soldiers, and you will ]\ave peace", Vallandigham roared from the platforms of the North. The resolu- tions of a convention in Shelby County, Indiana, are typical of the constructive program of peace Demo- crats. "That we earnestly recommend a cessation of hostilities for such a period as may be necessary to allow the people of the North and the South to express through a National Convention, their desire for peace, and a maintenance of the Union as it was and the Con- stitution as it is". It was a line of thought that cavight quite a net full, what with pacifists, partisans and paltroons. A cursory reading of southern newspapers would have taught them all the self-deception in the remedy. The South scouted Vallandigham's North- western mediation so far as it had reunion as its goal. They naturally encouraged whatever of opposition to the Administration of Lincoln they found in the move- ment. ' ^ The Peace Democrats found nothing to praise in the conduct of the War by the United States. To turn the tables and class the Peace Democrats as pro-south- ern would be inaccurate. Just as the Confederates and •' ^ Choice Colteclion of Democratic Poems and Songs, New York, 1863, pp-S. I3- " See, for example, The Augusta (Georgia) Daily Constitutionalist, Jan 27, 1863; March 12, 1863, May 27, 1863, The Knoxville Daily Register, July 7, 1863; The Staunton Spectator, July 7, 1863. The only part of the South where the newspa- pers show any infercst in reunion along the line Vallandigham was leading is in those portions in close economic bonds with the Northwest, mainly the southern half of the Ohio Valley. The Peace Democrats 25 Peace Democrats constantly made the error of identi- fying Lincoln and the Republican Party with Aboli- tion during the early years of the war, the Republicans and the Abolitionists classed all Democrats with the Peace Democrats, and the latter as one with Confed- erates. The Peace Democrats sought the defeat of both Unionists and Confederates. A War without victory was vital to them. It was the only manner in which the old Union could be restored. The victory of the South, they clearly saw, meant permanent sep- aration. Such an alternative left the Peace Democrats in a new United States a hopeless minority A victory of the North they more clearly saw tlian did others at the time, meant a new Union-centralized, nationalized, with slavery abolished. If the War could be made a stalemate there was a way to make the Councils of the Peace Democracy count in a descisive manner. A patched up peace meant to them a restored Union. The cold clear logic of Vallandigham is unimpeachable. The Peace Democrats were approximately neutral on slavery. Vallandigham's wife was the daughter of . a Maryland planter. He had seen slavery at its best. He imagined the worst which the human imagination could conjure for society with the negroes as freedmen. His friends claim that he believed that slavery would gradually pass with time as the voluntary work of the slave states without any shock to our political system, and that this was the only logical or proper way for it to happen. ' ^ There is again in this position a wisdom of council which if timely offered would have done its author credit. But once that Civil War had begun it made it seem tliat the gospel of peace, which its author was preaching, was the cloak of indifference to to the issues with which cotton planters and anti- slavery people were struggling. Certain it is that neither Vallandigham nor any of the others in his party saw any possibility for good to come from the life and '* James L. Vallandigham, Life of Clement L. Vallandigham. 26 Thr Secret Political Societies death struggle between the oligarchic political and social system of the South and the democratic structure of the Northwest in which the whole nation had be- come involved. The Secret Political Societies The Peace Democrats were not content to depend on the loose and divided organization of the old Demo- cratic party for the promotion of their purpose. The perpetual struggle with the War Democrats in party councils easily turned the Peace Democrats into secret organizations which they fully controlled. There were precedents for the organization of secret oath- bound orders with signs, grips, passwords, and rituals in order to accomplish a political purpose. The Know- Nothing or Native American Party had flourished for a time like a green bay tree on tlic moflcl of tlic popular secret orders of the day. Southern Rights Clubs had sprung up from 1852 to 1855 in the South as a reply to the Personal Liberty Acts and the Underground Rail- way of the North. The Southern Rights Clubs did not rest their case with defensive measures, but they or branches of them like the order of the Lone Star, undertook the Americanization of the neighboring lands around the gulf of JNIexico-Cuba, Mexico, and Nicara- ugua by means of filibustering expeditions. About 1855 some of these secret societies of the South took the name of the Knights of the Golden Circle. The Peace Democrats borrowed the organization, ritual, name and all of the Knights of the Golden Circle for a movement that would have reason enough to resort to the protection of secrecy. Societies were formed in the North in 1861; it was not until 1802 that the spread of the secret societies over the Northwest reached the point where it alarmed the Unionists and stimulated in turn a counter organization of Union The Secret Political Societies 27 or Loyal Leagues. ' ' The organizing instincts of the American were never better illustrated in the rival activities of the two movements. The Loyal Leagues were open, public, advertised; The Knights of the Golden Circle or whatever the name, for there were many, were shrouded in the deepest mystery. ' » Even the fact of the existence of such associations were denied by the Peace Democrats throughout the early period of the War. ' ^ As government detectives gained entrance into the societies and the evidence which they gathered threatened to become the basis of prosecution of the more radical leaders for treason efforts were made to eliminate the federal agents and other undesireable elements by reorganization under new names, new rituals, and new passwords. In 1863 the prevailing name in the Northwest was the "Order of American Knights", in 18G4, the "Sons of Liberty". There was much looseness in the use of names by con- temporaries. Those wlio were not initiates in the secret orders commonly spoke of them as "butternuts" or "Copperheads", and jumbled Peace Democrats and Confederates and secret societies together in one happy family. ^ ' " The name taken by the organizations varied considerably, the prevailing one in the Northwest through' the first two years was the Knights of the Golden Circle. On May 7, 1861, twenty-five citizens of Bombay, N. Y., organized to oppose the War, and took the name Sons of Liberty. See Official Records, Series II, Vol. 2, pp.QS 1-952. Other instances of early organization will be found in the Official Records, Series II, Vol. 2, pp. 193-4, 223, 1247-9, 1253-4. See the excellent study of Dr. Mayo Yci\cr, "Secret Political Societies in the North during the War", in Indiana Magazine of History, Sept. 1918, p. 183(1. " Among the names taken by the secret societies were — "The Mutual Pro- tection Society", "The Circle of Honor", "The Circle", "The Knights of the Mighty Host", "The Corps de Bclgique" in Missouri, and the "Peace Organi- zation" in Illinois. " The Crisis, Columbus, August 13, 1862. The Crisis of February 18, 1863 declared that dangerous secret union leagues were being formed, and that the Dem- ocratic organizations were open, political bodies. " There is a mass of material, chiefly the reports of the Government detectives, in the Official Records of the Rebellion. Ben Pittman, Recorder to the Military • Commission edited under the title "The Trials for Treason at Indianapolis" the Proceedings of the Commission in the trial of the members arrested in 1S65, the testimony of the witnesses at the trial, and many documents connected with the history of the associations. Many articles were written in the newspapers 28 The Secret Political Societies "Whatever the name, the societies enlisted as many Peace Democrats as they could induce to pay the small admission fee of $1.00. They were never able to enlist all their numbers in such organizations. The secret orders were in fact a dual organization — politi- cal and military. The one was within the other. The pohtical organization had for its object the political success of the Peace Democracy. In so far the socie- ties were merely Democratic clubs, playing with the rituals and passwords of secret societies. But within the associations was usually a military organization composed of the more radical and violent elements that looked forward to the use of force. By 18G3 the societies had been wielded into a fairly homogeneous body. There was a Supreine Council of the Order, composed of the Grand Commanders of the States and, two delegates from each of the States in which the or- der existed. The Supreme Council chose the execu- tive officers — the Supreme Commander, a Deputy Supreme Commander, Secretary of State and Treas- urer — at an annual meeting on February 22nd. Val- landigham became Supreme Commander in February, 1864. Robert Holloway of Illinois was the Deputy Com- mander, and Doctor Massey of Columbus, a son-in-law of Samuel Medary of Crisis fame, was Secretary of State. The Supreme Commander was the military as well as the political chief. Each state where the order could gain a footing was organized in turn into a Grand Council of two representatives from each County Temple and one additional representative for each thousand members in the county. The Grand pretending to expose the orders, and pamphlets and books with the same purpose. All the evidence whether that of alarmists, witnesses or Government detectives must be sifted most carefully. The best contemporary account of the secret soc- ieties in the Northwest is the report of the Judge Advocate General, Joseph Holt, to the Secretary of the War on the Secret Associations and Conspiracies against the Government, 1864. The report of the Adjutant General of Indiana for the Civil War, Vol. I, contains much material. Mayo Fessler, "Secret Political Soc- ieties in the North duririg the /Far", Indiana Magazine oj History, Sept. 1918, and W. D. Foulke, Life 0} Oliver P. Morton, Vol. I, chs. 27 and 28, are critical accounts of the movement. The Secret Political Societies 29 Council chose the state executive officers. There were for the state a Grand Commander, a Deputy Grand Commander, a Grand Secretary, and a Grand Treas- urer; for each military district a Major General. County or Parent Temples and township lodges car- ried the organization down .0 the rank and file. An assembly of delegates from the township lodges formed a parent Temple. The township lodges were the ulti- mate glory of the Order. The oaths, invocations and charges, signs, signals,and passwords, solemnly recited by the galaxy of mysterious officers must have held the faithful masses entranced. The secrecy which the ritual enjoined satisfied an universal human foible; the "shameful death"and consignment to infamy "while this sublime order shall survive the wrecks of time, and even until the last faithfui brother shall have passed from earth to his service in the Temple not made with hands," pronounced in solemn accents, for those who violated the vows of the order, undoubtedly served a purpose in overawing the rustics whom curiosity, or adventure, or doctrines of government, or contemplated treason brought together. The rituals abounded in platitudes of history and religion eft'ective in satisfying an incipient idealism. Meetings for the initiates were held in the woods or in half- lighted barns in out-of the way places at night, added to the solemnity of the occasion. But the military or- ganization of the order was, contemporary observers said, the most significant feature and the secret of its strength. A military hierarchy was formed from the Supreme Commander's staft' down through those of the Grand Commanders, the District iNIajor Generals, the Brigadier General of the subordinate subdivisions of the districts, the Colonel of the county regiment, and the Captain of the township company. The order recruited in its membership white men of 18 years of age and upward. It succeeded in estab- hshmg Grand Councils in nine or ten of the northern states and scattered temples here and there in the 80 The Secret i?OLiTicAL Societies others. The main strength of the organization was naturally wherever the Peace Democrats abounded. The chief '-temples" were at Cincinnati, Dayton and Hamilton in Ohio, Indianapolis and Vincennes in In- diana, at Chicago, Springfield, and Quincy in Illinois, at St. Louis in Missouri, Louisville in Kentucky, and Detroit in Michigan. ' " In some counties in Indiana practically all Democrats were enrolled. * " Contem- porary estimates of the membership, whether by the Government agents or by the officials of the order, are undoubtedly exaggerated. The motives of the indi- vidual made him see numbers in large. Some placed the number near a million. Vallandigham claimed an active membership in 1804 of half a million. Joseph Holt, Judge Advocate General of the United States, accepted Vallandigham's claim as near the truth, and added the opinion that 340,000 of them were ready for military service. On the other hand, Thompson, the Confederate Commissioner in Canada placed the num- ber at 170,000 for Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois. The total in the Northwest would in that case not exceed 225,000. As a matter of fact the local organization was so loose and the membership so shifting and in- constant that contemporary estimates were little more than guesses, A half a miUion there certainly was not. The total vote for McClellan in Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Missouri, and Kentucky was just over 500,000 in 18G4; that vote was the combined strength of the greater part of the War Democrats and all the Peace Democrats. It is inconceivable that anything like the whole of the Peace Democrats were enrolled in the secret political societies ; much less a number equal to the combination of the two factions of the Democratic Party. The Adju- tant General of Ohio reported from the information which the state authorities gathered with some care that " Report oj Advocait General, Joseph Holt, p. 5. *" The Report of the Adjutant General oj Indiana,'Vo\. I, p. 303, says this was true of Brown, Huntington, Jackson, Marshall, Orange, Putnam, and Washing- ton counties. The Secret Political Societies 31 there were from 80,000 to 108,000 in Ohio. * ' The lower number (80,000) represents a little over 40 per cent of Vallandigham's vote for Governor in 1863, or less than one fifth of the voters in the state: The estimate is not unreasonable, but the evidence in its support is not convincing. If one accepts the figure for Ohio, and adds to it siniilar conservative estimates for the other states where the secret organization existed the result would give a membership of 325,000 in 18G4- when the movement was at its height. It is doubtful whether one will ever be able to make a statement more precise than this that there were two or three hundred thou- sand men in the Northwest banded together in a secret political and military organization hostile to the Fed- eral Government. How far the body was armed and drilled is a matter about which the evidence is even less trustworthy than the estimates of numbers. ^ - The oaths, rituals, and declarations of principles of the secret societies laid sti-ess on unswerving obe- dience of the members to the leaders and on the poli- tical doctrines of the Peace Democrats. And then they pushed the teachings of the more radical elements of Peace Democracy into fields that party resolutions, platforms, and speeches, being public, dared not touch. The right and duty of resort to force against the Gov- ernment was freely taught. The old Democracy of Jefferson and Calhoun had set up the States as the final authority in the place the Supreme Court came to occupy when the powers of the Federal Government were in question. Vallandigham's movement in effect set up the assemblies of the Sons of Liberty as the court of final appeal. The ritual of the order spread the doc- trine that "whenever the officials, to whom the people 41 Report of the Adjutant General oj Ohio, 1S64, p. 37. " Holt, Advocate General, p. 5: Oficial Records, (SeriesII), Vol.MI, pp. 228 630, 801; (Series III), Vol. 4, p. 579; Thompson in Southern Bivouac, Vol. 11, p. 509' Rhodes, History of the United Slates, Vol. V, p. 31S, seems to place the number near 200,000; Fcssler, Indiana Magazine of History, 1918, p. 230 reaches the con- clusion that the number was much less than these figures; he seems to doubt that it ever exceeded 100,000. 32 The Secret Political Societies have intrusted the powers of the government, shall re- fuse to administer it in strict accordance with its con- stitution, and shall assume and exercise po\yer and au- thority not delegated, it is the inherent right and imr perative duty of the people, to resist such officials, and, if need be, expel them by force of arms. Such resistance is not revolution, but is solely the assertion of right". Those who "exercise power not delegated . . . should be regarded and dealt with as usurpers". " ' And the Peace Democrats planned to appeal to force to over- throw the Administration when the ballot appeal ran against them. Both the Peace Democrats and the Secret Ordei's had a perfectly definite program. It could not have been otherwise. Their leadership was generally identi- cal. They were bent on the overthrow of Abraham Lincoln as a menace to the theorj'^ of government which they had set up. To do this it was necessary to defeat the Union armies in the field. The defeat of Union candidates at the polls would follow. The de- feat of the armies was essayed by a propaganda to undermine the morale of the soldiers, to discourage enlistment, to encourage desertion and protect the deserters. This was the program from the first days of the Civil War. Each successive War measure of Cong- ress lashed the Copperheads to a greater fury. The Confiscation Act of August, 18G1, the abolition of slavery in the territories, 18G2, and the draft act and Habeas Corpus act of iVIarch 3, 18G3, were especially condemned as acts of tyranny. President Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation, January 1, 1803, accept- ed the issue with the Peace Democrats which they had expected from the beginning, and changed the mean- ing of the War, The step rallied the anti-slavery forces * ' Indiana Treason Trials, p. 297. Report of the Union Congressional Committee under the title "Copperhead Conspiracy in the Northwest", p. 3. Report of the Spec- ial Committee of the House of Representatives of Kentucky on the Case of Joshua f. Bullitt, Feb. 27, 1865, p. i8fT. Report of Joseph Holt, Judge Advocate General, p. 8 iJ. Official Records, (scx\Qi\\),VQ\.V i\, p. 2ic)- /iiille Daily Register, May 28, June 7, 1863; Augusta Daily Constutitionalist, May 31, 1863. The Exile of Vallandigham 43 speak, while the Confederate authorities conferred on his case. The conclusion was to treat him as a citizen of the United States on parole, secure what information they could from him, and then send him on his way to a neutral countiy. The following selections from the Bragg Papers tell the story of the decision. Head Quarters Dep' No. 2. Shelby ville, Tenn May 31^' 1863 Hon C. L. Vallandigham Dear Sir The General Commanding instructs me to enclose you a copy of a dispatch just received from Hon. T. A. Seddon Secretary of War, Richmond, and to request you to give a response in writing in order that he may answer the inquiry contained in the dispatch. The General desires also that you will return the pass- port given you as pending further instructions from Richmond it is evident that its issue is in conflict with the views which have prompted the dispatch. (Braxton Bragg Genl) Shelbj-'ville, Tenn. May 31, 1863 Gen. Bragg, C. S. A. Com"^' &c, &e, Sir: In answer to your note of this morning, allow me to say that it was my offer upon first entering your lines, to surrender myself a prisoner; & the order or suggestion of the Secretary of War, is entirely consonant to my original desire & purposes, though I sincerely trust that the parole may allow my departure at any time, as this is most important to me every way. Please report also, that I came to your lines upon compulsion & against my consent, as a citizen of Ohio & of the United States, in exile banished from my country for no other offense than love of constitutional Uberty, my political opinions, & resolute, undaunted 44 The Exile of Vallandigham opposition to the principles & policy of the party & Administration in power in the United States. The order of the President was absolute, forbidding me to return under penalty of imprisonment during the war; & therefore left me no alternative; & it was executed by military force. It is better for me doubtless for sev- eral reasons, to be deemed a prisoner on parole while I remain in the Confederate States; but my most ear- nest desire is for a passport, if necessary, and permission to leave as soon as possible, either through some Con- federate port, or by way of Matamoras, for Canada, where I can see my family, communicate with my friends & transact my business as far as practicable, unmolested. I am still a citizen of Ohio & of the United States, recognizing my allegiance to both, and retaining the same opinions & position which I have always held at home. As the President of the United States will cer- tainly not exchange me, I trust I may be allowed to de- part on parole for the place which I have above des- ignated. Very Respectfully &c C. L. Vallandigham Shelbyville 1"* June 1863. General S. Cooper Adjutant General Richmond. Honorable C. L. Vallandigham is here on Parole. He was brought under Guard by the Enemy and Aban- doned in Front of my lines — With orders from his Government Not to Return Under Penalty of Imprison- ment for the War Fearing assassination from a licensed Soldiery he made his Way to My Outpost & Surrend- ered as an alien Enemy owing allegiance to the State of Ohio and the United States But Exiled by the pres- ent Government for Maintaining his Civil Rights as a freeman. He Awaits orders but desires to make his Way by the most Expeditious Route to Canada. I suggest a The Exile of Vallandighaji 45 Conference with him personally or by a Confidential Agent. Braxton Bragg Despatch to Genl S. Cooper Ans"* 1=' June South- Western Telegraph Company. Shelbyville, June 2nd, 1863. By Telegraph from Richmond 2d, 1863. To Genl. B. Bragg Your dispatch to Adj'^ Gen'l rec** Send Hon C. L. Vallandingham as an alien enemy under guard of an officer to Wilmington where further orders await him Jeffn Davis (27 pd.) (Penciled note in handwriting of General Bragg on bottom of telegram as follows: Upon Mr. Vallandigham's eavnest request he was per- mitted to go this morning to Lynchburg to Confer with a distinguished friend of Virginia. He reports from there on parole to the war department.) The decision of the Confederate authorities har- monized perfectly with the wish of the exile. He was ordered to report under parole at Wilmington, North Carolina. He journeyed by railroad through Chatta- nooga, Knoxville, Bristol, Lynchburg, and Petersburg to Wilmington. The Confederate Commissioner of prisoners joined him at Lynchburg. « ' What confer- ences Vallandigham held with Confederate authorities at the various stations en route are matters of specula- tion. A journey of a fortnight duration gave abundant time for them. John Jones, a clerk in the War Depart- ment at Richmond has left the record that he saw the memorandum of Mr. Ould, the commissioner of " There are some details in the "Biographical Memoirs'' by Vallandigham's brother, published in New York, 1864, which do not occur in the Life of Clement L. Vallandigham by the same author, J. L. Vallandigham, Baltimore, 1872. 46 The Exile of Vaixandigham. prisoners, of a conversation held with Vallandigham for file in the archives. Vallandigham was quoted as assuring the Confederates that if they could hold out for this year "the peace party of the North would sweep the Lincoln dynasty out of political existence". "He seems", the clerk continues, "to have thought our cause was sinking, and feared we would submit, which would of course, be ruinous to his party. . . Mr. Vallandigham is for restoring the Union amicably, of course, and if it cannot be so done, then possibly he is in favor of recog- nizing our independence. He says any reconstruction which is not voluntary on our part would soon be fol- lowed by another separation, and a worse war than the present one." * * On the night of June. 17 a blockade runner carried Vallandigham safely through the blockading squadron. His brother tells how the vessel avoided an unpleasant search with the certainty of captivity for crew and pas- sengers by an American man-of-war. On sighting the war ship the fleeing ship put on a bold front, dressed up a body of men in British uniforms, and paraded them on deck. The ruse succeeded. The man-of-war saw the brilliant scarlet uniform of the British army, and took the vessel for a British transport bound for the West Indies." Vallandigham sojourned a few days in Bermuda, and took ship for Halifax where he landed July 5. Ten days later a special train bore him with some signs of triumph to the Clifton House at Niagara on the Canadian side. Here he seems to have engaged quarters while still a prisoner in Cincinnati. "^ * In the meantime the Democratic party of Ohio had held its State Convention, June 11, adopted a Peace platform, and nominated the exile as its candi- date for Governor. Vallandigham took up his cam- paign from his quarters at Niagara Falls, little hindered '* John Jones, J Rfbd War Clerk's Diary, Vol. I, p. 357. •' Vallandigham, Liji of Clement L, Vallandigham, pp. 314-5. •• Official Records, (Series II,) Vol. VII, p. 725. The Exile op Vallandigham 47 by the international boundary which separated him from his followers. His manifesto for the Ohio Democracy, sent forth on the day of his arrival at the border, ac- cepted the nomination and skillfully described his exile. "Arrested and confined", he said, "for three weeks in the United States, a prisoner of state; banished thence to the Confederate States, and there held as an alien enemy and prisoner of war, though on parole, fairly and honorably dealt with and given leave to depart, — an act possible only by running the blockade at the hazard of being fired on by ships flying the flag of my own country, — ^I find myself first a freeman when on British soil. And today, under protection of the British flag, I am here to enjoy and in part to exercise, the pri- vileges and rights which usurpers insolently deny me at home". His party program was outlined. The peo- ple were told that he had not found "in all the Confed- erate States one who did not declare his readiness, when the war shall have ceased and invading armies been withdrawn, to consider and discuss the question of re- union. And who shall doubt the issue of the argument.'* I return therefore, with my opinions and convictions as to war and peace, and my faith as to final results from sound policy and wise statesmanship, not only unchanged, but confirmed and strengthened. And may God of heaven and earth so rule the hearts and minds of Americans everywhere that a Constitution maintained, a Union restored, a liberty henceforth made secure, a grander and nobler destiny shall yet be ours than that even which blessed our fathers inUhe first two ages of the Republic". « ' The address makes amazing reading a generation after the writing, amazing for its egotism and for its misinterpretation, or, let us say, misconception of the purposes and ideals of. the Government of the United States. An extensive popu- lation accepted it as almost a new gospel. ; The popu- larity of Vallandigham with his followers, if,'theTcon- " Vallandigham, Lift of Cltment L. F allandigham, pp.3l8, 321. 48 The Exile of Vallandioiiam temporary news reporters and editors had any truth in them, is a significant phenomenon. « * In August, Vallandigham moved his headquarters to Windsor, opposite Detroit, because it was more ac- cessible to the strongholds of his party in the Northwest. From all appearances he had successfully defeated the purposes of the Government in exiling him, and become a champion of free speech. The campaign of the Peace Democrats during the summer, and the course pursued by certain judges in defeating the draft law by dis- charging drafted men under habeas corpus proceed- ings worried President Lincoln. ^ ' Vallandigham was safely beyond reach. His political campaign must be left with the voters of Ohio. But the use of the writ of habeas corpus to defeat a law was another matter. President Lincoln called a Cabinet meeting on Septem- ber 14 for the discussion of ways of combatting the in- terference of the courts. The President was according to the testimony of Cabinet members aroused to the seriousness of the situation. Gideon Welles, the Sec- retary of the Navy, reported that the operations of the navy were also embarassed by the same abuses of dis- loyal courts, and that the practice might easily become a national disaster. The evidence of the provost-mar- shall on the means employed to defeat the draft con- vinced all members of the Cabinet with a cor- dial unanimity, says Welles, that a new policy should be adopted by the Administration. From time to time President Lincoln had suspended the writ of habeas corpus as though the suspension were an executive prerogative. The Democratic op- position, and particularly the Peace Democrats, had laid emphasis on the letter of the constitution, and "A book of songs to chant the praises of Vallandigham in fashion to please his followers was compiled in Columbus in 1863. The Vallandigham Song Book, Columbus, 1863. •» Gideon Welles, Diary, Vol. I, p. 432- 5; Warden, Account of the Pripate Life' and Public Sen/ices of S,almon P. Chase, pp. 543-5. The Exile of Vallandigiiam 49 bitterly criticised his policy. ^ • Lincoln's reply to his critics stated an important fact of the situation: that the enemy under the cover of liberty of speech, liberty of the press, and habeas corpus "hoped to keep on foot amongst us a most efficient corps of spies, informers, supplies, and aiders and abettors of their cause in a thousand ways. Tliey knew that in times such as they were inaugurating by the Constitution itself the habeas corpus might be suspended, but they also knew that they had friends who would make a question as to who was to suspend it, meanwhile their spies and others might remain at large to help their cause". ^ ^ In its earlier form the issue was whether the President could at his own discretion under the constitution suspend the writ of habeas corpus in sections where the civil courts were still open. President Lincoln was con- vinced that the power was committed to himself as one of the "exceptions to the constitution", though within his official family there were some dissenters. Secre- tary Chase, the chief of these doubters finally came to the President's conclusion. ' ^ The act of Congress, March 3, 1863, gave the Pres- ident the power to suspend the writ whenever in his judgement the public safety required. The Presi- dent and his advisors concluded on September 15, 18G3, that the interference with the enforcement of the draft law warranted the exercise of the powers committed to the Executive by Congress. A proclamation of the President suspended the writ for the duration of the War in all cases throughout the United States where persons were held by the military authorities '» See especially the protests of the New York and the Ohio Democrats after the arrest and trial of Vallandigham. New York protest, May i6 and 19, 1863. Official Records, (Series II,) Vol. V, p. 654; Ohio FroUst, Official Records, (Series II,) Vol. VI, pp. 48-53. ' ' Officictl Records, (Series II,) p. 4, Reply to New York Democrats; See pp. 56-9, Reply to Ohio Democrats. " Lincoln's Reply to New York Democrats, Official Records, (Series II,) Vol. VI, p. 5; Warder , Life of Salmon P. Chase, p. 545; Welles, Diary, p. 432. 50 The Exile of Vallandigham as "spies, or aiders or abettors of the enemy". » » The proclamation put an end to the issue as to the powers of the Presidency; but a new one took its place: had the Congress power to authorize the suspension when the civil courts were open? It was an annoying issue for the Administration. The Confederate States had adopted conscription in 1862, and conferred on the Executive the power to suspend the writ of habeas corpus in cases of interference with conscription as well as other enumerated offenses. For more than a year President Davis had been suspending the writ in large sections of the South. ' ^ Were the enemy to have full power to enforce universal service in time of war, and the Executive of the United States find his hands tied by a difference of interpretation of a clause of the con- stitution with a minority party out of sympathy with the War'.'' Or as Lincoln said on a similar occasion: "Are all the laws but one to go on unexecuted and the Government itself go to pieces lest that one be vio- lated.?" ^ * How far the extraordinary conditions of war times ever make necessary the interference with freedom of speech and action is one of the problems of demo- cracies as well as autocracies. The interference does not in itself transform the authorities into an autocracy as so many assume so long as its conduct is that of the responsible agent of the majority of the people in free elections; and so long as the interference is done in a constitutional manner. No one has in recent years challenged the motives and spirit of President Lincoln's use of extra legal powers. But his policy during the " Nicolay and Hay, Complete Works of Abraham Lincoln, Vol. IX, p. 121. " Moore, Rebellion Records, VoI.X, p. 227; Daily Richmond Whig, March 22, 1862; October 11, 1862, Feb, 19, 1864. The act of the Confederate Government for the suspension of the writ was not so sweeping as that of the United States; nor its use so extensive; it was severely criticised at the South; and was abandoned in August, 1864; but these facts from the History of a community fighting in large measures for States' Rights may well have given those in the North who were opposing the Administration food for thought. " Nicolay and Hay, Abraham Lincoln, Complete IVorks, Vol. VI, p. 309. The Wxile op Vallandigham 51 early years of the civil War of suspending the writ in emergencies and his later policy of suspending the writ under an act of Congress throughout large sections of the country have both been condemned. ^ ° The Su- preme Court by a vote of five to four in 18G6 pronounc- ed judgment against the policy of President Lincoln during the Civil War. ' ' The constitution provides explicitly that "the privilege of the writ of habeas cor- pus shall not be suspended, unless when in cases of Re- bellion or Invasion the public safety may require it". The Congress and President interpreted the clause freely, with the effect of strengthening the central gov- ernment; the Supreme Court after the crisis was passed read into the clause a strict construction. It is a fact of some significance that the five justices who pronounc- ed against the suspension of the writ in regions where the civil courts were still open or, in other words, gave the clause a narrow construction were all Democrats; while three of the four who favored a liberal construc- tion were Republicans. A decision so distinctly on party lines cannot be said to have settled the consti- tutional issue. IVIay it not be said that the policy of the President with regard to the use of the writ of ha- beas coprus was, so to speak, playing safe in meeting the large responsibilities which were his.'' To a states- man who had watched one State after another sweep away Federal Government, root and branch, and set up a new nation, while President Buchanan sat help- lessly by, his hands tied by strict construction doc- trines; to one who, later, had with difficulty managed in 18G1 by the use of martial law and arbitrary arrests to stop the spread of the rebellion in Maryland and the isolation of the national capitol, the news from the Northwest in the summer of 1803 was naturally more then disquieting. '• Sec Mr. Rhodes' discussion, History of the Uiiitid States, Vol. IV, p.229; Willouyhby, Constitutional Law, par. 733. " 4 Wallace 3 ex parte Milligan, Dec. 1866. 52 The Exile of Vallandigham The alternative policy which President Wilson adopted in 1918 — ^that of strengthening the powers of the Administration to deal with the disloyal by new legislation — rests for its success on the loyalty of the civil courts. But President Lincoln was dealing with cases where the civil courts were the very agents weak- ening the nation's military power. President Wilson has had the support of courts ready to sentence those who violated the selective service act to life imprison- ment or long terms. The usual penalties of the Civil War military courts were for the duration of the war, though in many cases executive clemency shortened the sentence or annulled the sentence altogether. Sen- tence of life or twenty year periods were almost un- heard of. The historical problem of the Civil War is to know whether the questionable constitutional procedure in the suspension of the writ of habeas corpus was justi- fied by the conditions in the North, though the civil courts were still open. In short, whether in certain districts it was safe to wait until the process of break- down had reached the point of civil war. The over- whelmidg majority of Congress authorized the act of which the historians and the majority of the Supreme Court have been critics. The President and his Cabi- net reached the unanimous conclusion that the use of the power was necessary. The charge that the Admin- istration exaggerated the disaffection in the Northwest proves nothing. The collapse of the Northwest conspir- acy in 18G4 is only partly a sign of inherent weakness; it is also a striking evidence that the vigorous Administra- tive policy adopted in 1863 was bearing fruit. Was not the conflict of the peace Democrats with the administra- tion an attempt to stay a constitutional revolution — one which every crisis in American History has made clearer.'' That is, the development of the President as the responsible representative of the people, like the English Prime Minister. The American constitti- tional system, which was derived from the British The Exile of Vallandigham 53 and strained to an artificial system of separation of powers has been slowly swinging back nearer the British practice whenever the moorings of peace times are broken by the unusual conditions of war time. President Lincoln's' early suspension of the writ was closely parallel to the occasional procedure in emergencies of the British Prime Minister. When' an English Prime Minister acting without authority from Parliament suspended the writ as an emergency measure he afterwards turned to Parliament for the legal protection of an indemnity act. Congress failed to give Lincoln the endorsement of an indemnity act until March 3. 18G3, but the belated act completed the analogy. President Lincoln, by his courage as an executive, saved the Union. It is true his call for the state militia to repress state rebellion repelled the middle group of slave states, but it rallied the national forces. It is true his Emancipation Proclamation alienated the pro- slavery element on the border, but it inspired with moral courage the democratic instincts of the North. It is true the assumption of power to suspend the writ of habeas corpus in 1861, and again the use of the power authorized by Congress in 1863, alienated still farther the Peace Democracy, and consolidated it as no other act did, but the same act heartened the other elements of the nation. Buchanan by strict adherence to the letter of the constitution as it may be interpreted without grave danger in peace times, cost the nation four years of War and nearly lost the Union, con- stitution and all. A judicious student of history may find it difficult to endorse formally acts of questionable constitutionality; a grateful nation will in its judg- ments cleave through strict legalism, and endorse the acts of an agent whose, like Lincoln's, were so tempered with justice, and served no selfish purpose. May it not be true that the use of such powers in an emer- gency which a people cannot foresee is the supreme test of statesmanship? 54 A Northwest Confehedacy A Northwest Confederacy to Force Peace The movement represented by the Peace Demo- crats slowly drifted toward the end of 1863 and early in 1864 under the direction of the more radical or re- volutionary elements of the party. The state election in Ohio occurred October 13, 1863. It tested the popular strength of Vallandigham. The Union candi- date who was himself a War Democrat drew toge1;her the Republican and the War Democrat vote, and won. It was a substantial defeat of Vallandighamism. The civil population was nearly evenly divided in the vote, but the soldier vote ^y^s about twenty to one against , Vallandigham. ' « The defeat of the Peace Democrats in the choice of members of the state legislature was more decisive. No election for local officers occurred in 1863 in Indiana and Illinois. General John H. Mor- gan's Raid into Indiana and Ohio in July, 1863, was a more striking test of the Peace Democrats and the secret organizations of the Northwest than the elec- tion. As the events showed the invasion was a reckless military adventure, but Morgan counted on a panic among the people and some direct aid from the armed bands of Knights of the Golden Circle. In both of these expectations he was completely deceived. Over- whelming forces of local militia were mobilized against him, first by Governor Morton in Indiana and then by Governor Tod in Ohio. His attacks on property of friend and foe offended the Peace Democrats as well as others and rallied all in the local militia in local de- fense. This position was inherent in the nature of the Peace Democratic movement. They exalted local freedom above everything else. They resented the invasion of the South by northern armies, of Kentucky by Confederate forces in 1861, of Indiana and Ohio by " The citizen vote for Brough was 247,190, for Vallandigham, 185,274; the soldier vote for Brough, 41,467, for Vallandigham, 2,288. The Annual Cyclope- dia, 1863, p. 731- A Northwest Confederacy 55 Morgan, of Pennsylvania by Lee in 1863. ^ » The Peace Democrats in the summer of 1863 were serving partisan ends and not the Confederacy, except in in- direct ways Vallandigham had intended, it seems, to return to Ohio in September, 1863, for an active part in the poli- tical campaign in open, defiance of the Administration, but events which he interpreted as providential turned him from the project. ' ° Finally in June, 1864, after an absence of almost exactly a year, he brought his exile to an end. He passed the border at Detroit in disguise, journeyed by rail nearly across the state of Ohio, and in a dramatic fashion, characteristic of the man, revealed himself to his friends in a district convention in session in Hamilton, Ohio, for the purpose of nominating a de- legate to the Democratic convention in Chicago.*^ Thereafter Vallandigham threw himself into the Pres- idential campaign. His speeches were as defiant as ever. The Administration allowed him to bluster and scold either convinced that' he was not a revolutionist or hopeful that his selfish partisan appeal would become a boomerang. * ^ In fact by June, 1864, the loyal ele- ' » Vallandigham in the South in May and June in 1863, advised strongly against the invasion of Pennsylvania by the Confederate armies on the ground that it v/ould weaken the Peace Democratic forces. President Davis endorsed across the note which expressed Vallandigham's views his own that experience had proved the contrary. J. B. Jones, A Rebel Clerk's Diary, Vol. I, p. 357. *" Vallandigham, Life of Clement L. Fallandigham, Vol. I, p. 347-9. " Vallandigham, Life of Clement L. Vallandigham, pp. 351-4. " Two letters from the Vallandigham Papers at the Western Reserve Historical Society will throw some light on Vallandigham's life at this period. Dayton, Ohio, July 7/64 My Dearest Dear Mother:- That I cannot with safety start to see you in your present illness, is the sorest of afflictions. But while I feel perfectly secure A^rc, I think the Administra- tion would be but too g]ad to find me alone at a distance from home. . This danger, too, will pass by before long; but at present it may be too imminent to risk, & I know, my Dearest Mother, terrible as the trial is to both, you would not want me subjected to imprisonment again. And besides I cannot help hoping & indeed believing, that you will yet be spared this time; so that I can come & spend a happy time with you yet in the dear old (home) But give yourself no uneasiness in any event about me. "The Lord's my Shepherd". Neither fear 56 A Northwest Confederacy ment had regained confidence; the turn in the military- tide had come; the preponderance of the Northern armies had begun to tell; the newspapers were able to find humor in "Vallandigham redivivus" and the "Great Dug Up". « ' A large faction of the Peace Dem- ocrats, those conspicuous at the same time in the mili- tary activities of the secret orders, were convinced by- June, 1SG4, that the movement to force a peace with- out victory would fail at the polls, and Lincoln and a Union Congress be re-elected. These elements saw no hope of success except in a resort to force. The loss of confidence of the Sons of Liberty, as the orders called themselves by this time, in a political revolution was for Elizabeth nor Rebecca. I will do all for them in my power, & they will remain at the old Homestead. Oh how great is the denial which keeps me away from you! But Louisa and Charlie go, & she will tell you all, & do all for you that I could. So goodbye, dearest, dear Mother. Still hoping & expecting to see you this Summer on earth, I am yet, as all my life, your devoted, affectionate Son Clement. Mrs. R. Vallandigham, New Lisbon, Ohio. I Dayton, Ohio. Nov. 14, 1864. Miss Rebecca Ann Vallandigham, New Lisbon, Ohio. My Dear Sister: I find it impossible to visit New Lisbon this fall. I could not go between the elections, because I was absent from the State. But will meet you at Lima on the Pittsburg Ft. Wayne & Chicago Road, any day this week or next, which you may fix, giving me notice by letter, of the day. You will have no change of cars or baggage from Salem to Lima, & but one meal. The train which leaves Salem between 6 & 8 o'clock in the morning, reaches Lima at 2.34 p. m. & connects with the down train to Dayton on the Dayton & Michigan road. Brother G. wrote me in July that mother's outstanding bills (funeral &c in- cluded) amounted to about 75$. I enclose a draft for 100? in the name of John Robertson, which he will get cashed. Retain 20$ for yourself and 20$ for sister Elizabeth, & pay the remaining 60$ on outstanding bills, & bring me a statement of the balance due before Mother's death, & also since due from you and sister E. for household expenses &c. I am very sorry that I cannot go on now, but it so happens. My best love to sisters E. & M.; to Mr. R's family & brother George & family; & kind regards to all friends. Ellen Bell and MoUie go on to Cumberland on Thursday & will be gone some two months. So we shall be alone till you come. Very affectionately your brother Clement P. S. I wish you would collect all letters &c of mine about the house & have proper care taken of them, so I can have them at any time. »» Ohio Stale Journal, June 17, 1864. A Northwest Confederacy 57 probably a result of a growing entanglement of the same forces in a conspiracy for a Northweist Confeder- acy. It is a noteworthy fact that at the same time other elements of the Democratic Party were confident and the Republicans despondent. The Administration needed a great outstanding victory, commensurate with the military efforts it had expended.*^* Division within its own ranks, indicated by the nomination of Fremont by radical Republicans for the Presidency, and the reports from the Northwest of a gathering storm of violence were cause enough for alarm. It WAS natural that the Confederate authorities should make the most of any revolutionary turn among the Peace Democrats. ' * Such a developement had long been expected. General Braxton Bragg was led on to an invasion of Kentucky in September, 1862, with visions of becoming the liberator of Kentucky and the entire Northwest "from the tyranny of a des- potic ruler". He carried along arms for 20,000 men whom he thought would rally to his standards. A pro- clamation was sent forth as a broadside appeal to the sectional interests of the Northwest, emphasizing the defensive position of the South, the community of '^' For the despondency of the Republicans during the summer of 1864, see Rhodes, History of thi United States, Vol. IV, p. jaoff. Thompson's letter in Southern Bivouac, Vol. II, p. 508; also report of J. Thompson, p. i. ** It is possible to piece together the narrative of the Revolutionary Move- ment in the Northwest in 1864 from the reports of the Government agents in the Official Records, especially; in (Series II), Vol. VII, and the testimony of detec- tives and prisoners ,\vho turned states' evidence in the various trials for treason which occurred, especially that edited by Benn Pitman, Recorder of theMilitary Commission of Indiana, under the title. Trials for Treason, but all these are vi- tiated by exaggeration and passion. An account of the conspiracy was constructed from these sources by the Federal Judge Advocate General, Josiah Holt, in a report to the Secretary of War. A brief, but judicious and exceedingly valuable report was made by the Confederate Commissioner in Canada to Judah P. Benjamin, the Secretary of War of the Confederate States. A longer account of much inter- est was prepared some years after the Civil War by Captain Thomas H. Hines who represented the Confederacv in the conspiracy, and published in the Southern Bivouac, Louisville, (new series,) Vol. 2, nos. 7,8,9, and 11. For histories of the episode sec Rhodes, History oj the United States, Vol. V, pp. 320-9; Foulke, Life of Oliver P. Morton, Vol. I, ch. 29. pp.399 if; \Vm. C. Cochran, The Dream of a Northwestern Confederacy, Proceedings of The Historical Society of IVisconsin, IQJO, p. 213 ff. 58 A Northwest Confederacy interest with the South, and throwing the blame for the War on the East. « ' Braggs generalship was faulty, and his army was stopped before Louisville. The accretion to his army from Kentucky barely equaled a brigade, less than his causalties in the under- taking. The proclamation had no appreciable effect. Yet the doctrine that only minor misunderstandings separated the Southwest from the Northwest would not down. It was a common theme with newspaper writers of the Southwest that the principle one of these was commercial. Those who held this view urged that the Confederate States remove the difficulty by pledg- ing to the Northwest the free navigation of the Missis- sippi whenever the independence of the South should be acknowledged. * • As a matter of fact the Confeder- ate Congress had done so at the beginning of the War. But writers had in mind a special pledge to the North- west as an allied republic. As the Confederate armies felt the pressure of the Union armies in 1864 the Peace Democrats of the North- west became the last string of the three in the Confed- erate bow. ' ' The southern interest in the possibilities of the Northwestern situation gained momentum with experience and the increasing desperateness of its cause. A writer in the Knoxville Daily Register main- tained as early as May 12, 18G3, that the War could not be ended until the Northwest was separated from the rest of the United States. Some saw the forces of "The proclamation was published In the newspapers and . circulated as a broadside. (See inset in fac-simile.) It was published in the Chattanooga Daily Rebel, Oct, 19, 1862. See Official Records, Vol. XVI, part i, p. 1088, part 2 p. 822. '• Knoxville Daily Register, March 11; March 26, April 24, 1863; The Chattanooga Daily Rebel, March 27, May 30, 1863; The Staunton Spectator, July 7, 1863; Augusta, Daily Constitutionalist, February 15, 1863; Athens (Tcnn.) Post, February 13, 1863. " (i) The military resources, dash, courage, and homogenous white popula- tion. The contempt of the South for the military qualities of the northern popu- lation was a part of this view; (2) the mediation or intervention of Europe on account of a cotton famine; (3) the community of economic interest of the Southwest and the Northwest. rO THE. ■ PEOPLE OF TiiE i rx\ ., . , HEADQUARTERS; ^ -Confederate States Army in Kentucky, "'<' ^ BAIiDSTOWN, KY., Sept.. 36. 18(.!9. ■\ On approaching your liorilers 'tit tV.e liead of a CoiifeiJerato Army, it is "proper to amioiiiioe to you t!ie motives - anJ the purjioscs of my prebeace. 1 ■ therefore luaho hnovvn to you 1st. That the Confeilcrato Gove jnent i-s waging this war solely for sui tlefence — that it has no designs of cor quest, nor any other purpose, than.,:- Bectire peace ami tlie abanilonment by i be recoiveJ with the respect naturally | i; the United States of its, pretentions to govern a people who never Inve been their subjects, and who prefer self gov- ernment to a union with them. 2nd. That the Confederate Govern- ment and jieojile. dcjii'ecatiiig civil s;iif;! fiom the beginning, and luixior.s !ur a peaceful ad_),nstment of' all ilili'.itn.H's growing out. of apoliu'cal 5.:.ic;':;: ion. which they deiui'.d c»si';. Jjappincss and well-leiug. ; ' ■■ of its inniignjpt.ion' selii (■f.;;a.i)--.-i!j:;.'i s to AVashingltnlo {lo i^,iO)i iji" •' ■-'.•;•■/■(-. 'Cut that their fL-'^iniis-icVui^V: :,rii'. mand that the people of the United fanatical disposition of the sarao pcoplo States cease to war iipou us and, permit who Imvc imposed upon you and lis aliko us iif pe?c!6'fp pursnc our path to iiappi- those lariflV, inleina! iniprove:ncnt, and uess. wi^ilo they in peace, pursue theirs. 1 iishing boirV.y lav.'S," whereby wo h.iv-j' ^Ve are. however, debarred from the: bi-en tH.\..';i for ihei'r .'!gguiniy/;e!iic!it-,— ■ wal of former proposals for peace. | It is from tiio Ka-.t thai, will coino ihit ;,^e the relentless spirit that actu,ates j lax gat'ier.-r to collect fi-oni von th' s'v government at \Yashington, leaves j aiighly. debt which is being amassed "no leason to expect that they would : mountain high fer the j iiij,u.-u ul'.i\iin.- yonr best cri-.tonieis o;d nitnrd di'.e by nations in their intercourse, | jricniis. V.'hen this waren^U. the suno- whether in pea-co or war. It is under : antagonisms of ijiti'V. ■>'_. policy and'fecl- thc^ocirenmstances that we are diiven to j ing which have been ;,ic.sscJ upon \\\ piotect our own countiy by transfeiing ' by tb'clL.ist and forced us fiom a noliti- iho teat of war *^ •'■ * "•" "" .i">»n- ' • to 1 wl;o ],iii.-ues ns with an implacable and appaiTiidy aimless bottiiily. If the war mii^t <'OUtiniie. its theatre mn^t be cb.r.rgid, a;..s will}!;, the policy that " .'iitore:--! bc'it Its on the di i'.i;-iv> th.it of an enemy cul union, wheie'we hail cea.t'd t „„ ; 1 1,!.. ..„]'-. r ... . *. find s tfety for our interests or respect for oi ;iL;b;s will bear down !?po:i von and se; yon liom a pe: ■V it is to live iiv t! v,';;oso ti.ua- ov,- >ii. :0 It ■\\ l.ib! wa.sle In male I ottr lioltls t!;..: have b.-ci pCi pie Ici'li'd. our \\-,: a!,d our f'onticrs ra\ r.'.-l by lapine muitler. Tiia sacicii'' liijht ol^"" 'I'i. ';'.'^.'";-ft':pa!"!s lh..f> liemefouii ,- lonTi-'ii'.en.-es xfr~the war ■ icceivcd or evc:v-'„f'in'.'ed'to .; fate the object o' tiicir ini^s : that on a subsc!p:c/'-'',.tc(^asi^n muaicatiou' trcm FWl'rc-ldcn!>-r<'-r'rj: fnU cM^ri tji.) .•.■_whS p'jM-t in / " ; 'jC'cJeOtilitS Oviae^To il-e-s;tttiu '.,'. ,.'..', .'rT.T:': a. hi"\.i7is.r'^^^^, Vi'il ii ^., .:• ..fi,- -■"ranineil withont .^^ns'ver. altl (,ti;;;i a ; ik'oji'c c-f ilieiCi vtii Vo'.st te-'s the pv'w.>;- ' ., •-=,«. iij ,inl an ejid to thei invasion of tuc-iriiy^.: ;•, bonu-s"; fur. if unaKo to prevail upon ; jjj ^ij, '•l-.ols ". . ■ 7\ ..■::jo -:■ " ""if ■■ «^;:1- v! ■ ■ ^ilic-- Ck,' t*.i '". tiie goveinm c luciinl" a Male (;„ve; liicii sovet.i .cply y;;;s promised bv Gen. Scot;, iati'i whose 'hands the counnuuiealion. Wa-- dcliv^rcd. Sid. That amoi-.g the I'.telcx.'s'urgcd for iLe ct'ntihnanco. of Ihe wa". is the . as.'^fertion that the Confcdei-atc Govc.i.- mcul desires to depri pie of the Confeder- ' '" ate Slutes. And in • (i. 3 natne of rea- son and hucinnily, ] cdl upon p:o.tn:jt!',i g.ilhcrcj' i; t:oii!-.ni t nicely .€.-.; vonr tra lo o,.i.!i vour ;d t:v 'it.atiag tiic gam a! !.sJ^:dppi. Ic iud hr.j always ii'g a bio '.v. 'io ,'ii,L;ing to maintain lli union is a t'ii-'g of the of co:i-:c;;t was tho o, you to jvvoi'h a drop of blood l-'roni these declaratoin^, people tlie No;th-west,itis nuaJojuanifest thai by the invasion pf ofu; (Jditoiics by land and from sea, wo have been unwil- lingly forced into a, war for self-defence, nml to- . vindicate a great ptinci]dio once ar"to nil Americans, to-vvit : that no ■people can-bo lightly governed excep^t 'by thcii*riTMi-con:e;it. AVedcsiie pt'ace - now. \Vc dcsiio to SCO a stop pot to a- 'iwtdesS and ciiie! f'!i>,^>ion of blood, and -Ih.it Wa:,!o of National wealth ra)iid)y leading to aiid.Muelo end in Xaiinnal banlunptcy. .We aie (hyi>.-'|.,io now. as ever, riady to tieat witlf'tlic United i-itates or any one or more c^f them up jii terms of inutuid justice and liberality. A'fld nl this juncture,Mhin oiu arm-, liavo hcen i iicccssful t id fields, wlieu our p i.y hard ha^ e vx- !c and a Kdf ,"0V- hibited a constancy', a i..il.l i:il;-,-":a;.;e worthy of tho boon o (.-t,i'iiH'lil, worctvltici 1)1111 el vest') I ho;.:, mo niod''i;'.t(! di't..ia!n!.s '.hut wo tu' dc = t ihc daikc'.t. pt'iiod of our reverv.s— tli^> do- .il ,ia siy _ rivig-aiun of s yoiir; bee- b..'e:i v,-::;Mar, s'y you a;i! I'nion. Tliac i.ist. _Am.i..i ''" nnioti evi-,- " \\ hen fo, >-.\ le.mio !0 bo substituted '^r; cm-jt'c,!, i.;.>' eashet v.-asbroI;en and tho etia-.iiinttond jc'c'cl of your patti-jtic adoraii.;ii wa.i can^o (f (111 so blooiiy ij.iveyou a:j:i;:ist these .Slatis, and what aio )oii to gain iby it.' Xa- tu:e has ret her sea! -diion tlr^so !-'tatc8. ; .„,^,v^,. „,.,;,(, andt,:;>rl;edtbemoul tobo your friends ; j oon^'lbtn .(o you with th.i olive -'.'.-li- ■''•uehasbounalhemtoyou|,„,.,„,.i, of ;.,„,,.,, ^n 1 (a;.r it to your acci'jit.'.ncc. in tho ii,\nie ol' th-i memories of the p.ist an I t!ui lio^ of the pseseut and hitnie. \Vi;li yon :■■• n-stins the lesponsibility end th; opltoa of continuing a cruel and wa.-tting w.ir, l-'V'all fbelics of g '0;-.;:rp!ucal coiitig- ni-y e-ud ccufoimalion .imi the gre.it niii- tfi'i! inleti;.-!-- (if eoninierce and pi'o.inc- iieus. ^\'i-■'' hig tt.ites of the Xorth '>'^'" d.-H'i''' ''"' <■"' Ion, toba''co, and i^n- gar le-'^'*'.'a^'o^ ihoS.julh. 'Idio Jlissis- sippi lic'.r is a gland ar!ci_? of thidng and w;ii(di sierifiv'3 in now off^r; of peaCi can 01.1 V en anci- •ater t ". V t,.<...'y ui' ]ie.n.'e as \\ \ r of pie'crvin,; I'le bbrssings by the simple abm-loninenl of the de.^lgn of nibjng.il iiig a people over wdiom no tight; of loininion has bee'n ' conferred on yon bv God or ma'i. ijnAXbi.).\ ii!;.\G(;. Gcit. (.,' !-'. -\iniv. A Northwest Confederacy . 59 the Northwest in truer proportions. "Of all the huni- bugs of the age", one southern iconoclast wrote, "this Northwestern hobby is the most absurd, and at the same time the most dangerous. Newspapers, having exhausted themselves on the European intervention, are now trying to raise our hopes by the promise of a new alliance". ' ' An article by a southern planter, published in the Chattanooga Daily Rebel, attracted considerable attention. It outlined the plan of those who would nurture a new secession in the United States. The document is here reprinted entire as a type of the point of view of those in the south who were looking to the Northwest with hope. "Hon. H. S. Foote, Richmond: Dear Sir:- Your efforts to suggest some plan by which the war might be shortened have been praise- worthy. So little had been indicated north of the Ohio river that it left every move open to serious objections. Time and efforts produce by the valor of our troops, seem to have given existence to a sentiment which de- serves a watchful attention from statesmen of the South. This sentiment is found among the agricultural in- terests in the "Northern" Valley of the Mississippi river, and mainly among the old Democrats of that region. We occupy a position now, and have always done so, that we could not make i)roposuls to the Lin- coln Government. That is the true position slill. To that, we bid defiance; but to the legislatures of Indiana and Illinois, and other states of the Nortliern Viilley of the Mississippi, which may come to their conchisions, I hold a different policy to be correct. We should meet their resolutions with all the concessions which we can consistently make in trade and general commprce, including, (jf course, tlie free navigation of theMississippi river, upon conditions thus: "» KnuxvilU Daily /ler. May 5, lH(5i; a wariiiin; wan also published in the /tu^ujta Daily C'oniUluliunalist Jan. 27, 1863. 60 • A Northwest Confederacy 1st. Indiana, IllinQis, Wisconsin, Iowa, Kansas and Minnesota, and perhaps Ohio, shall form the "North- ern Confederacy". 2d. Both Confederacies, "Southern" and "North- ern", to be politically independent. All the slave states to belong to the "Southern Confederacy." 3d. A league between the two, offensive and de- fensive, and runaway slaves to be returned; the navi- gation of the Mississippi river and free trade, and "imports"at our tariff. Advantages to both "Confederacies," The "South- ern Confederacy" obtains peace. A strong Ally in War and protection to slavery. Her independence acknow- ledged by the Northern Confederacy, which will be be sufficient. She obtains for her seabord cities the importations for both Confederacies, and their freight on her rivers and railroads. The "Northern Confederacy" gets rid of the re- sponsibility of slavery. It may assume whatever por- tion of the immense war debt now existing, they may decide upon. It secures importations at our low tariff. It secures its former market in the South for its agricultural pro- ductions and the same use of the great Mississippi river. Its political independence gives position and place to its rising statesmen. Its topography and unity of pursuit, institutions and labor; secure harmony and legislation, and promise great prosperity. The two together secure the adjacent territories, a very impor- tant point; as they cannot be united to the remnant of the old United States, lying East; including New England which brought on the war. The two Confed- eracies would become the great "powers"of the Amer- ican Continent. The "Southern Confederacy," based upon slave labor, would always preponderate in intellect; and would control. I present this to your well stored, prolific mind, as an outline of what may come out of a wise course in A Northwest Confederacy 61 meeting the sentiment of the "North West", hereto- fore alluded to. It is true they have fought us; invaded our country; and wronged us terribly; but that is done, "and cannot be recalled. It is a matter of incalculable advantage to our Confederacy — to stop the sacriiSce of life, and of some importance to limit the debt, and restore our citizens to their homes. Concession can be made to the "Northern Confederacy" formed of the States named; which will stop the war and will benefit us at the same time. As a cotton planter, and slave owner, I would greatly prefer the league, on the terms men- tioned, to separate independence, with the enemy of that people, to the institution of slavery. As soon as they are disconnected from slavery, it will cease to be discussed, everywhere. If we are not strong, it may generate another war. The League gives great strength. Under this league, can be embraced what they mean by reconstruction. That is, their position will be as good, or better than before.and 22 States will be in the league instead of 33, But the New England States, New Jersey, Delaware, &c., are of no importance to them. They have secured the market and trade, and for these they were fighting; and are also politically disconnected from slavery. Indeed they thus obtained all they are contending for. They say they are not fighting to free the slaves. We obtain all we are contending for. I find ultra men, unwilling to do anything, but fight on. They are not in the army, I have been with the army since its organization. I know the opinion and sentiment of the army. They have suffered suf- ficiently, and desire peace. If the North-west are met on the basis proposed herein, I think we will enter the wedge which will sun- der the present authorities conducting the war. Lin- coln will carry on the war during his administration, if he can get the support of these states. We then should be on the alert, and if possible, deprive him of 62 A Northwest Confederacy this portion of his army. The balance we can whip, very soon, if necessary. We can conquer a peace from them; but that will not be necessary. If Indiana and Illinois withdraw the war will close. With these pro- posals before them, they won't fight longer. The other States named will follow, or some of them at least. If this be neglected on our part, the leading men may be offered positions, which would neutralize their efforts. These States are a part of the Mississippi Valley and their true alliance is with the South. They are an agricultural people, and so are we; but their products are different from ours, and hence the advantages in a commercial league. Negotiations must begin sometime — fighting alone won't adjust a difficulty. I have seen so little of the proceedings of Congress, that I am ignorant of what has been discussed. The prominent idea is this. We make no proposi- tion to the Government, but we should put in some shape what we will do with certain States, so as to in- duce them to cease waring." * » A considerable correspondence arose between those in the Southwest and the Northwest who had become interested in the Northwest Confeder- acy. ' " Undoubtedly Governor Morton of Indiana had the economic conditions, which caused this project, in mind when he urged on President Lincoln a vigorous campaign on the Mississippi River. ' * Political as well as military expediency prompted the campaign which opened the Mississippi to the Gulf by mid-summer of »» From the Chattanooga Daily Rebd, March 13, 1863. See also an article under the heading "A Grand Programme jor Forming a Northwislern Confederacy in the Richmond Enquirer, February 16, 1862; and General Beauregard's letter, May 26, 1863, on the proper policy of the South in Official Records, (Series I,) Vol. XIV, p. 95S- »" A collection of such letters was published in the Cincinnati Commercial in September, 1865. «» Morton to Lincoln, October 27, 1862, in Foulke, Life of Oliver P. Morton Vol. I, p.2II. A Northwest Confederacy 63 1863. The counter stroke of the Administration un- doubtedly weakened the movement among the Peace Democrats of the Northwest which was rising in the South. At the very time when the South was becom- ing anxious for a Northwest Confederacy, the economic foundations of the Peace Democracy were crumbling. Such are the vicicitudes of history. Oblivious of the declining interest of the farmers of the Ohio Valley in secession as a method of recover- ing river markets, the radical leaders of the Peace Dem- ocracy prepared their cohorts during the spring of 1864 for revolution. At the same time Confederate author- ities yielded to the growing pressure of those at the South who had confidence in the opportunity to em- barass the United States with a Northwest Confeder- acy. Three commissioners, among them Jacob Thomp- son who was Buchanan's Secretary of the Interior, were sent to Canada. One function of the commission was to nurture the peace factions of the United States, and weaken the will to continue the War. The ap- proaching Presidential campaign was unquestionably the particular occasion of President Davis' peace drive. But the military function of the Commissioners was in no sense secondary. The loss of Missouri, Arkansas, Louisiana, Tennessee, and Texas, as well as the great- er part of Mississippi and northern Alabama had seriously reduced the population from which the Con- federacy was able to recruit its armies and garner its supplies. The prison camps of the Northwest and the Confederacy of the Northwest held out tempting pos- sibilities. Captain Thomas H. Hines who had been captured in Morgan's raid and with his chief escaped from prison was detached from the Confederate army to organize the military activities entrusted to the commission. Other officers were detailed to co-oper- ate with Captain Hines. The Confederate commissioners achieved one result from the peace drive. They drove a wedge which threatened the unity of the Union Party. Horace 64 A NoBTHWKST Confederacy Greeley had never ceased to believe in a negotiated peace, one without victory. In 1862 and 1863 his faith was pinned to mediation. He corresponded with Val- landigham and the French minister at Washington in his efforts to "drive Lincoln into it". « ' In July, 1864, he became interested in a report that Confederate Com- missioners were in Canada with powers to negotiate for peace. President Lincoln sent Greeley to Niagara Falls to look into the matter. "I not only intend", said the President, "a sincere effort for peace, but I intend that you shall be a personal witness that it is made". » ' Greeley bore the President's terms. (txtcniive {Mansion. tX> ^yy^ar<^ iX7^/?tu3y ca^xjc,*'^-- ' " See Vallandigham, Life of Clement L. Vallandigham, p. 223; the Diary of H. H. Raymond, Scribner's Monthly, Vol. XIX, March 1880, pp.yoS. 7o6, 708; The New York Tribune, Dec. 27, 1862, Jan. 9, 14, Feb. 13, 1863; Nicolay and Hay Lincoln, Vol.VI, p. 83. " Nicolay and Hay, Lincoln, Vol. IX, pp. 185 189. Holcorab, one of the Commissioners, Report to J. P. Benjamin, Nov. 16, 1864, p.ii. A Northwest Confederacy 65 They were reunion and tKe abandonment of slavery. The would-be peace-maker found the Confederate com- missioners without authority to negotiate peace. That was not their commission in Canada. The episode alienated Greeley still more; it gave offense to those in the Union Party who thought the abandonment of slavery made the terms of peace too harsh. ' * Greeley's point of view was that of the theoretical pacifist. He followed the illusion that if the Administration would talk peace, gently and tactfully, enough, the enemy would yield all. As a matter of fact President Lincoln made every reasonable effort to save needless warfare. If the Confederate Commissioner, Jacob Thompson, is a creditable witness, the Secretary of War, Stanton, sent Jeremiah S. Blacky to Toronto to confer with him- self and his associates on the subject of peace. Black, Stanton, and Thompson had all been members of Bu- chanan's Cabinet, and intimate friends. Black, like Greeley, was apparently trying to become a mediator. ' ' The report of the two /..gents from Lincoln to Davis directly in the summer of 18G4 showed how vain was the view that a peace could precede a complete victory. ' * In THE meantime the inilitary project of the Com- mission had not been overlooked. When Thompson and Captain Hines arrived in Canada they found Val- landigham still at Windsor. A conference with him taught them that he was friendly disposed but still de- termined not to allow his cause to be identified with that of the Confederate States. A year of exile in Canada had not moved him from the resolution he had taken when sent from prison through the Confederate lines. Thompson and Hines were liberally supplied with money, and ready to promote Vallandigham's '• Nlcolay and Hay, Life of Lincoln, Vol. IX, p. 196; Greeley, American Con- flict, Vol. II, p. 664; See Rhodes, History of the United States, Vol. IV, pp. 513-4. " Thompson's Letter, August 23, 1864 in Southern Bivouac, Vol. II, p. 500. •• For the story of the irregular mission of the President's agents. Col. James F. Jacques and J. R. Gilmore, see Rhodes, History of the United States, Vol. IV, P. qi?. 66 A Northwest Confederacy cause. The Supreme Commander of the Sons of Li- erty would accept none of the Confederate fund; sub- ordinates among the Sons of Liberty were found who were less scrupulous. ' ' Vallandigham confined his activities, consistent with his representations, to the political phases. He never spoke of the use of force to help the South; he did to defend the civil liberty of his section. It was his opinion on the eve of his return to the United States in June, 18G4, that the Administra- tion would arrest him, and the Northwest rise in revolt in his defense. So he expressed himself to the Confed- erates at the conference. They had in fact a delicate task in using money to promote the revolutionary movement in the Northwest. Thompson claimed to have half a million dollars for the purpose, but it seems from his report that he actually spent only $200,000 of it. Boxes marked "pick-axes," "hardware," "nails," "household goods," "Sunday school books," and the like carried revolvers, rifles, and ammunition from Canada to the officers of those bands of Sons of Liber- ty who could be trusted. ' * The Commission would seem to have wasted no small part of its resources in visionary schemes of well meaning persons and in satis- fying the claims of vicious unworthy refugees about the headquarters in Canada. The result of the conferences between the revolu- tionary leaders in the Northwest and the Confederate agents in Canada finally took the form of a plot for an uprising on July 20, 1864. » » »' Hincs in Southern Bivouac, Vol. II, p. 506; Report of J. Thompson, p. «; Foullce, Life of Morton, Vol. I, p. 401. »» Pitman, Indiana Treason Trials, p. \i; Report of Judge Advocate General, J\ Holt, p. 6; Repo t of the Adjutant General of Indiana.Vol. I, p. 298; Official Records, (Series II,) Vol. VII. pp. 63/ 646, 728. ' » A report from a federal agent in the Northwest says the Order of American Knights had planned an uprising in March, and another July 4 1864. If so, these were separate movements of the secret societies and not the larger project of the Confederate agents and the Radical Peace Democrats. See Official Records, (Series III.) Vol. IV, p. 579- A Northwest Confedekacy 67 The Confederates were to furnish a few score from the bands of refugees in Canada. These were to make their way to the prison camps in Indiana and IlUnois, and in co-operation with the local revolutionaries set free the prisoners. The whole would then form the nucleus of a gathering army. Provisional Governments take the place of State Governments; a Northwest Confederacy be created; and alliance be made with the Confederate States. Such was the dream of the Con- federates and Sons of Liberty. As the date for the revolt approached, the confidence of the officers of the Sons of Liberty in their own preparations sank. Public meetings held over the Northwest to prepare the way only emphasized the faith of the masses in the ballot rather than the rifle. The local orators said little of an appeal to force, and much of a partisan victory. A new con- ference of Confederates and Copperheads assembled. The date for the outbreak was put off until August 16. This time an opportune seizure by federal authorities of the arms intended for the use of the Sons of Liberty in Indianapolis; the arrest of Judge Bullitt of the Ken- tucky Copperheads; the outspoken opposition in Indi- ana within the Democratic Party to revolt; all had a share in the failure of the Peace Democrats to become revolutionists when the new crisis came. An intimate knowledge of the crudeness of the organization of the military side of the movement was a depressing force. ' " " The Confederates were getting desperate for results. The Peace Democrats still thought time was with them. "By patience and perseverance in the work of agitation", one of them said, "we are sure of a general uprising which will result in a glorious success. \Ye must look to bigger results than the mere liberation of prisoners. We should look to the grand end of adding an empire of Northwestern States". ' " • The Confed- »o» Hincs, in Southern Bivouac, Vol. II, p. 508. Report of W. H. H. Terrell the Adjutant General of Indiana, Vol. I, p. 309. "" Hines, in Southern Bivouac, Vol. II, p. 507. 68 A Northwest Confederacy erates were ready to depend on the resources in sight; The Peace Democrats, estimating these more accurate- ly, insisted that the movement could only succeed in case the Confederate States diverted considerable armies in co-operation with the revolt in the North- west. Information of the new conditions imposed by the Northwestern leaders was passed on to the Confed- erate Government, but the day was past for a Confed- erate invasion of the Northwest, whatever the promises might have been. * " ^ August 16 passed without an outbreak. A third effort of the parties to the conspiracy to get together was made under the cover of the Democratic Conven- tion which assembled in Chicago, August 29. The Con- vention adopted a Peace platform and nominated a War candidate, thus attempting to carry water on both shoulders. The platform makers under Vallan- digham's influence declared the War a failure, denoun- ced violations of the constitution and attacks on civil liberty under the pretense of military authority, and announced the Democratic plan that "immediate efforts be made for a cessation of hostilities, with a view to an ultimate convention of the States or other peaceable means, to the end that at the earliest practicable mom- ent peace may be restored on the basis of the Federal Union of States." ' " ' The nomination, however, of George B. McClellan, a popular Union General and War Democrat, who promptly repudiated the peace plan of the platform, showed the confusion of party councils at Chicago. * " * The Compromise represent- ed the clash in leadership of Vallandigham with Gov- ernor Seymour of New York. The Convention adjourned and a third time the rumors of revolt died away. The evidence records a "" Hines, in Southern Bivouac, Vol. II, p. 508. 108 McPherson, History of the Rebellion, p. 419. »"* McClellan' s letter of repudiation, September 8, 1864, Appleton's Annual Cyclopedia, 1864, p. 794. A Northwest Confederacy 69 flocking into Chicago hotels during the Convention of Confederate fiUbusters in the confidence of the revolutionary faction of the Peace Deraocrats. Captain Hines claimed to have . sixty Confederate officers and soldiers. The Copperheads claitoed they could muster 5000 members of secret societies in and about Chicago, for co-operation. Estimates' of the number actually available have little value The conspirators met in the Richmond house and laid the plot. At Camp Douglas, a sixty acre camp on the Chicago river, was a body of 4377 Confederate prisoners guarded by 2974 Union soldiers. According to the plan the conspirators were to charge the camp, release the prisoners, and from Federal arsenals nearby arm and supply the whole. The project was nothing less than a foolhardy one. A conference on the night preceding the appointed day, and a calm stock-taking sobered the architects of a Northwest Confederacy. Federal detectives had dogged every step of the con- spirators. The force on guard at the camp had been nearly doubled for the occasion. A disorganized mob however well led was no match for the organized and alert forces on guard. In short, the vigilance of the Administration saved a costly encounter, nothing more. There never was a chance of success, for every step of progress the radical forces had made toward revolu- tion had been known and met by counter measures of the Government. The Confederate authorities in Canada were conr vinced by the experience of July and August, 1864, that no direct military advantage was to be gained for the Confederate cause from the Peace Democrats by longer delay and devoted their efforts to embarassing the United States through undertakings which were based on their own strength. Each was scarcely more than a small filibustering expedition on a loosely guard- ed frontier. In September a gang of Confederates op- erating from Canada attempted to seize the single ship of war of the United States on Lake Erie, the Michigan, 70 A Northwest Confederacy and with it liberate the prisoners at Johnson's Island in Sandusky Bay, advance on Cleveland by land and water, and thence cut the way across the state of Ohio to Virginia, spreading demoralization on the way. ' <• ' The adventurers succeeded in capturing two passenger steamboats as the first steps toward the control of the naval forces on Lake Erie. But, as had been the case on earlier occasions, detectives had pursued the tracks of the leaders, and timely arrests foiled the co-opera- tion anticipated. In reality the crew of the Michigan outnumbered the conspirators five-fold, and moreover were not to be taken off their guard. The Confederate crews took discretion to be the better part of valor, re- fused to risk a battle with the Michigan, destroyed their embryonic fleet, and scattered in Canada. Confederate agents and lawless elements under the cover of the state of the times, it is not possible to determine which it was, conducted a constant attack on property throughout the Northwest. Gunboats and freight boats on the rivers mysteriously took fire. Houses and barns were burned. ' " ^ A propaganda was carried on by the Confederates in Canada in order to discourage enlistment in the Union armies and the subscription to federal bonds. The people were given the gratuitous advice to convert greenbacks into gold for safety. Agents in New York city bought gold, shipped it to Canada, and sold it for sterling bills of exchange, only to repeat the operation, in order to embarass Federal financing. But there is no evidence that any of these efforts were significant factors in the great struggle. The danger of civil war in the Northwest passed in September, 1864. The Treason Trials of six of the leading Sons of Liberty in Indiana in September and October, and the death sentence of three demonstrated ">' Nicolay and Hay, /.iff of Lincoln Vol. VTII, p. i8; Hincs, In Southern Bivouac, Vol. II, p. 699; Thompson to Benjamin, p. 2. io< There is a great deal of testimony on this subject in the Original Record s, (Series II,) Vol. VII. See also (Series III,) Vol. /V, pp. 579, 79«- A Northwest Confederacy 71 the power of organized society. '■ ' ^ The capture of Atlan- ta on September 3 gave the he in a spectacular manner to the declaration of the Peace Democrats in Conven- tion in Chicago that the War was a failure. The re- election of Lincoln and the decisive Union victory at the polls in the Northwest in particular drove home the illusion of those who counted on the overthrow of Lin- coln by any means. The Sons of Liberty sought shelter in the fall of 1864 under new names like the "Order of the Star," etc., but their force was gone. The march of events in favor of the Union went steadily, over- whelmingly on. Sheridan's devastation of the Shen- andoah in October, and Sherman's in Georgia in De- cember foreshadowed the approaching end. In Jan- uary, 18G5, Vallandigham made a final appeal for a negotiated peace. ' " * He appealed to Horace Greeley who was reported to have renewed his pressure on Lincoln. Vallandigham had not changed his attitude in the slightest in four years. The war v/as still de- scribied as the work of a self-willed, self-seeking group of Republican politicians; the South could never be subdued. The letter concluded that the suggestion that useless loss of blood could be saved by a combina- tion of the Peace elements of the Republican and Dem- ocratic parties. But the prestige of the leaders of these elements, Greeley and Vallandigham, was waning fast, along with the declining Confederacy. A few days after Vallandigham made his appeal to Greeley, President Lincoln and Secretary Seward met representatives of the Confederacy at Hampton Roads. The story of the origin and temper of the. conference is a striking record of the genuine pacific purposes of Lincoln, linked with sound national pol- '"' Lambdin P. Milligan, one of these, was the appellant in whose behalf the Supreme Court in 1866 pronounced the particular military commission which had tried him invalid, and against Martial Law when Civil Courts were open. "" Vallandigham, Life of CUmtnt L. Vallandigham, p. 402 72 A Northwest Confederacy licy. » « » The conference was of no avail. Jefferson Davis and his advisors were undismayed by the march of events. They were still unwilling to drink of the bitter cup of reunion and emancipation. The terms spelled a humiliating defeat. Davis assumed that the conference was "for the purpose of securing peace to the two countries;" Lincoln, "to the people of our one common country." It would seem that peace on some other terms than those Grant gave Lee of uncondition- al surrender were the great phantom that pacifists, States' Rights, partisans, and pro-southerns chased throughout the Civil war. As a matter of historical fact the "Union as it was" disappeared as American society adjusted itself to the freedom of the black race; "the constitution as it is" ceased to trouble the con- servatives when it became apparent in peace times that civil liberty and the new nationalism were not irre- concilable. »•• Rhodes, History of the United States, Vol. V, p. 59. General Index Abolition ; 7. 18, 19, 25 Abolitionists 3. 7, 8, 17, 25 Abolitionists of New England, The 18 Alabama .■ 63 Arkansas 4, 63 Army of the Potomac, The 36 Arrest for Desertion , 34 Arrest of Peace Democrats 37, 89 Arrest of Vallandigham 37 Aehland Union, The 20 Atlanta, Capture of 71 Beauregard, General 62 Beden, Thomas 15 Becclier, Henry Ward 3 Benjamin, Judah P 57, 64 Bermuda 46 iJinney, Claudius Horace ; 15 Black, Jeremiah • 65 Blackford County, Ind , 34 Bolsheviki of Russia 18 Bombay! N. Y : 27 Border States ; 5, 6 Bragg, General Braxton 40, 41, 43. 45, 57 Bragg, General Braxton, Broadside of 58 Bragg, General Braxton, Papers .'.40, 43 Breckinridge, W, C. P 3, 10 Breckinridge Democrats 1 Bristol, Tcnn. . .'. ; 45 British, The , 52, 53 British Possessions 16 British Prime Minister 52, 63 Broadside of General Brarton Bragg , 58 Brough, John Si Brown, John 7 Brown County, Indiana SO Buchanan, James 53 Bullitt, Joshua E., Report in the Case of 67 Burnside, General Ambrose E 36, 37, 88, 39, 40 Butternuts 10, 27 Calhoun, John C 17, 31 Camp Douglas 69 Canada 4-1 Capitalists' War ; 19 73 74 Index Causes of the Civil War 1, 19 Chase, Salmon P 49 Chattanooga, Tenn 45 Chicago, 111 SO, 55 Chicago Conspiracy 09 Chicago Times, The , 20, 39 Chillicothe, Ohio , 11 Cincinnati, Ohio 11, 30, 40 Cincinnati Enquirer The ; 20, 21 Cincinnati Gazette, The , 12 Circle. The 27 Circle of Honor, The 27 CivU War, The 1, 3, 6, 8, 9, 14, 24, 25, 52 Civil War in Northwest, Danger of 54-70 Clifton House, Niagara 40 Columbus, Ohio 28 Commissioners of Confederacy 67, 63, 64, GO Compromises in Congress 2, 17 Concurrent Majority, Vallandigham's plan of 17 Confederacy, The ; 4, 12, 34 Confederacy of Northwest 54, 63, 60, 67, 09 Confederate Army , 6 Confederate Commissioners 67, 63, 64, 60 Confederate Commissioner of Prisoners 45 Confederate States, The 40, 44, 47, 50 Confederates The 1, 6, 10, 18, 25, 27 Conference at Hampton Roads 71 Conference at Niagara Falls '. 04 Congress 14, 32, 51, 52. 53 Convention of Democratic Party, 1864, The 68 Cooper, General S 44,45 Copperheads 10, 11, 27, 34, 35, 67 Corps de Bel^que 27 Coahocton Democrat, The ; 21 Cotton Planters, The 1. 2, 4, 17 Cotton States 2 Cuba 20 Davis, Jefferson 9, 84, 45, 60, 65, 05, 72 Davis, Jefferson, Peace Plan of 63 Dayton. Ohio 11, 30, 37, 65, 50 Dayton Empire, The : 14, 20. 39 Delaware 5. 61. Democratic Convention. The 1864 68 Democratic Convention. Chicago . . . ; 55 Democratic Party. 7, 10, 20, 67, 07 Democratic Party in Ohio, State Convention of the 46 Ikdex 75 Democrats ■ 51 Department of the Ohio, The .30, S8 Desertion, Arrest for , 3-i Detroit, Mich .' • • ■ -SO, 48, 55 Draft Act, Influence of 32 Draft Law 48 Draft System i 34 Economic Sectionalism ; 15, 19, 21 Election of 18G1 ■ ; 71 Emancipation Proclamation 32, S3 England 9 Exile of Vallandigham 40, 65 Fairfield (Ohio) County Convention, The 20 Foote, II. S., Letter of 59 Forces in the Civil War ' 1 Fort Sumter 3, 4 Fort Warren ' 33 France 9 Fredericksburg, Va SS Freedmen 25 Freedmen, Fear of 11 Fremont, John C 19, 57 Garrison, William Lloyd 3, 7 Georgia 10, 40 Gillespie, John • 15 "Great Dug Up" 56 Greeley, Horace 2 3 9, 65, 71 Greeley, Horace, Peace Plan of 22, 64, 71 Gulf of Mexico 26 Habeas Corpus, Writ of. Suspension of 38, 48 Habeas Corpus Act , 32 Halifax 4G Hamilton, Ohio 11, 30, 55 Hampton Roads, Conference at 71 Henry, John 15 nines, Capt. Thomas II 57, 63, 65, 69 llolloway, Robert 28 Holmes County, Ohio ■ 34 How the Confederates Treat their Enemies 22 Hughes, Archbishop 9 Huntington, County, Indiana SO Huntington County, Indiana, Democratic Convention of 21 Illinois 11, 27, 28, 34, 35, 54, 60. 62. 67 Indiana '. 11, 30, 34, 54, 00, 62. 67, 70 Indiana. Adjutant General 34 76 Index Indiana Treason Trials 82, 70 India'napolis, Indiana 30, 07 IndianapolU Sentind, The 20 Iowa eo Jackson County, Indiana , 30 Jefferson, Thomas i 31 John Anderson My Jo John , ■. 33 Johnson's Island 69 Johnston Gen. A. S.'. ; 84 Jones, John 45 Kansas. 3, 60 Kentucky 5. 11, 12, 84, 39, 64, 57, 67 Knights of the Golden Cirde, The 26, 27, 54 Knights of the Mighty Host, The 27 Know-Xothing Party, The ." 20 Knoxville, Tenn'. 45 Labor System, Rivalry of 12 Laird, Francis H. L 15 Laird, Mrs 15 Lake Erie 16 Lee, Gen. Robert E 55 Lieber, Francis 35 Lincoln, Abraham 1. 2, 3, 4, S, 7. 8, 9, 11, 18, 20, 21, 23, 25, 32 S3, 35, 39. 40, 42, 44, 48, 49. SO. 51. 52, 53. 56, 64, 65, 71 Lincoln, Abraham Peace Terms of 64 Lincoln Dynasty ' 46 Lincoln, Re-election of 71 Logan, W. T '. 89 Lone Star, Order of 26 Louisiana 63 Louisville. Ky 30 Loyal Leagues. The 26, 27 Lynchburg >. 45 McClellan, Geo. B , 30, 68 Manifesto of Vallandigham 47 Marshall County, Indiana 30 Maryland 6, 6, 13. 16, 51 Massey, Dr, 28 Matamoras ** Medary. Samuel 20, 21, 28 Mexico 2" "Michigan",- the War Ship 09, 70 Middle States, The 4 Milligan, Lambdin P, Trial of 71 Minnesota ^0 Index 77 Mississippi 16t 63 Mississippi Valley, The 62 Missouri 5. U, Vt, 34. 63 Morgan, Gen. John H 54, 55 Morgan's Raid 54, 55, 63 Morton, O. P., Governor (Indiana) 54, 62 Mt. Vernon S7 Mountain Whites 8 Murfreesboro, Tenn 40 Mutual Protection Society, The , 27 Native American Party, The .' 26 New England 19, 21, 61 New Jersey 61 New Lisbon, Ohio 15, 56 New Orleans, Archbishop of 9 New York, Archbishop of 9 New York, Mayor of ; 10 New York City ; 10 New York News 10 Newspapers, Attitude of 42, 59 Newspapers of the Southwest 42 Niagara Falls 46 Niagara Palls Conference ; 64 Nicaragua 26 Northwest The 12, 15, 19, 24, 26, 31, 34, 35, 36, 38. 51. 52, 57 North Carolina ' 4, 10, 11, 12 Northwest Confederacy 54, 57, 63, 66, 67, 09 Numbers in Secret Societies 30 Ohio 11, 12, 16, 31, 35, 36, 40, 41, 43, 44 48, 54, 55. 60, 70 Ohio. Adjutant General 30 Ohio River 11 Ohio River, Commerce on ; ... 12 Ohio Valley. The • 11. 12. 24, 34, 63 Ohio Valley Democracy .16 Old Northwest, The 10 Oligarchy 6 Orange County, Indiana SO Order of American Knights ■ 27, 66 Order of the Star 71 Oiild, Mr 45 Palmer, \Ym. P., Civil War Collection 40, 65 Passport of Vallandlgham ' 41, 44 Paxson, Frederick L.. the Railroads of the Old Northwiat, etc 16 Peace Democracy 20, 31, 53 Peace Democratic Party 10 Peace Democrats 0, 8, 10, 12, 15, 22, 24-28, 30-37, 39, 48, 52-58, 63, 07-C9. 71 78 Index Peace Democrats, Peace plan of .35 Peace Democrats, Songs -of 19, 22, 23, 83 Peace Organization, The 27 Peace Party, The 42 Peace Plan of Horace Greeley 22, 01 Peace Plan of Lincoln 64 Peace Plan of Peace Democrats 35 Peace Plan of Vallandigham 42 Peace Plan of Secret Societies; 32 Peace Policy of Vallandigham 16, 24 Pennsylvania 65 Personal Liberty Acts 26 Petersburg, Va 45 Phillips. Wendell 7 Pitman, Ben 57 Poor ^^'hites -. 3, 6, 11, 12 Pope Pius IX 9 Port Tobacco 14. 15 Prince George Co., Md 16 Prison Camps of the Northwest 03, 07 Putnam County, Indiana 30 Quincy, 111 30 Radical Democrats 3 Radical Republicans 3, 18. 57 Raid by Gen 1 Morgan 54, 65, 63 Railroads, trans-Alleghany 16 Republican Party. 7, 19, 25 Republicans 1, 7, 18. 51. 57 Revolutionary Movement in the Northwest 57, 00 Richmond House 09 Robertson, John , 56 St. Louis, Mo SO Secret Political Societies, The 26 Secret Societies, Estimates of Number 30 Secret Societies. Peace Plans of 32 Sectional Economics 15, 19, 21 Seddon, LA 43 Seward, Wm. H 3 Seymour, Governor, of New York 08 Shelby County. Indiana, Convention 24 Shclbyvillc, Tenn 40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45 Sheridan. General, in Shenandoah Valley 71 Sherman's Campaign '. 71 Shoddy. Use of 19 Slavery. Lincoln's Policy on 8, 18 Slavery in Territory 2 Index 79 Song of the Sword, The 23 Songs of Peace Democrats .' , 19. 22, 23 33 Sons of Liberty. : 27. 31, 56, 65. 66. 67 70, 71 South Carolina 1> * Southern Rights Clubs , 2. 20 SpringBcld, 111 30 Stanton, E. M 39, 05 States' Rights 5, 6, 8, 12, 17, 18 Sumner, Charles .... 19, 35 Tennessee 4, 8, 11. 34, 40, 63 Texas 63 Thompson, Jacob :30, 57. 63, 65, 66 Tod, David, Governor (Ohio) 54 Treason Trials of Indiana 70 Trial of Vallandigham ' 33 Trimble, Judge 39 Trinity Parish, Charles County, Maryland... 13, 15 Underground Railway 26 Union Party 63, 65 Unionists, The .1. 8. 10 12, 25, 26, 35, 30 U. S. Supreme Court 50 52 Uprising in Holmes County 34 Vallandigham, Arrest of 37 Vallandigham, Attitudes to Confederacy 67 Vallandigham, Charlie 56 Vallandigham, Clement L 12-17, 20, 24, 25, 28, 30, 31, 36-48, 54-56, 64-66, G8, 71 Vallandigham, Clement L., Arrest of 37 Vallandigham, Clement L., Report of the Trial of 37, 38 Vallandigham, Elizabeth 56 Vallandigham, Exile of 40, 65 Vallandigham, Louisa 56 Vallandigham, Manifesto of 47 Vallandigham, Mrs. Clement L 25 Vallandigham, Mrs. R 56 Vallandigham, Passport of 41, 44 Vallandigham, Peace Plan of 42, 71 Vallandigham, Rebecca ; 56 Vallandigham, Rev. Clement 13, 15 Vallandigham, Trial of 38 Vallaiidigliam's Collection of Manuscripts, etc : e 13 "Vallandigham's Redivivus" 50 Vinccnnes, Ind 30 Virginia 4, 8, 11, 12, 16, 35, 45, 70 War Democrats, The 7, 18, 20, 30, 54, 08 War Ship "Michigan" ' 69, 70 Washington, D. C 21, 37 80 Indbx Washington County, Indiana 30 Welles. Gideon 4,8 West Indies 40 Western Farmers 3 Western Reserve Historical Society '. 40 Western Reserve Historical Society, Collections of 13, 55 Whitacre, Mr 15 Wilful Obstructionists 14 Wilmington 45 Wilson, President 52 Windsor, Canada 48 Wisconsin GO Wood, Benjamin 10 Wood, Fernando, Mayor of New York 10 Ye "sneak" 10 PAMPHLET BINDER Syracuse, N.Y. [ Stockton, Calif. &:-.:: ■g.-^' ■ ^^^H fmm^ ■ : ■ \' 1 DATE DUE 1 1 MA>J^ Stthh H til An o 1. 1CMH— ^ > H H 'mmshim mm. H mi !^ f^^ ^ m ^ H <