12
ABRAHAM LINCOLN and Clement L. Vallandigham had several things in common. Both were successful lawyers possessing the typical barrister’s high regard for property rights and law and order. Both served their political apprenticeships in the arena of state politics; Lincoln served four terms in the state legislature, Vallandigham but two. Both served in Congress, Lincoln one term and Vallandigham three. Both cultivated their political ambitions; neither could resist the siren song of “Dame Politics.” Political campaigns exhilarated both, for they found matching wits with clever and capable antagonists a stimulating challenge. Both possessed the ability to develop rapport with an audience, learning to blend wit, sincerity, and argumentation into an effective formula. Both associated themselves with the common man, shunning sophistry and pretense. Yet neither had the vices of the common man of the upper Midwest; neither smoked, cursed, or drank whiskey, though at one time Lincoln had tended a still.
Although Lincoln and Vallandigham held common views regarding slavery in 1850, believing it “a domestic institution which was morally wrong, yet protected by the Constitution,” the two went in opposite directions in the years that followed. Vallandigham repressed the belief that slavery was morally wrong into the recesses of his mind and came close in later years to defending that “peculiar institution.” Even at the time of his arrest he still dreamed of a federal union with slavery. Lincoln, on the other hand, discarded his inaugural pledge that he would not and dared not “touch” slavery. His proclamations of emancipation, which Vallandigham bitterly opposed, proved that the president had changed his views and shifted his ground.
Actually Lincoln and Vallandigham were unlike in more ways than they were alike. Lincoln, like Douglas, was a Western nationalist; Vallandigham called himself a Western sectionalist. Lincoln became a servant of New England and industrialism; Vallandigham resented the efforts of New England to impose her cultural patterns, social ideas, and economic domination upon the West. From his earliest days in politics Vallandigham advocated states’ rights, opposed banks and tariffs, and imagined he was promoting Jacksonian Democracy. States’ rights evolved from an abstraction into an integral part of Vallandigham’s philosophy, becoming a political dogma. Lincoln, from the first, moved in an opposite direction. As a young man he memorized Clay’s speeches, accepted Clay’s ideas about the national welfare, and followed Clay into the Whig party. As a Democrat in the Ohio legislature, Vallandigham gave his full support to the Mexican War; as a Whig in Congress, Lincoln opposed “Polk’s War.” Vallandigham came to accept Douglas’s doctrine of “popular sovereignty” for the territories; Lincoln took a positive stand against it.
Vallandigham read all the standard works in the field of political economy and considered himself a disciple of Edmund Burke. He developed a rigidity in his political ideas, and was prone to believe his views right and those of others wrong. He could not shift his ground, so he revered the past and worried about the future. Lincoln, on the other hand, had a limited knowledge of political theory; he gained his knowledge of politics from the newspapers and by active involvement. In fact, he was a political pragmatist, less intransigent than Vallandigham and willing to adopt “new views” as soon as he regarded them to be “true views.” Lincoln knew how to bow graciously to pressure, and he could retreat from a position without qualms of conscience. Yet there were some basic principles he would never surrender. He believed slavery morally wrong and he held tightly to the no-slavery-in-the-territories doctrine. He believed in democratic government—“of the people, by the people, and for the people.” He regarded states’ rights doctrine as a political heresy, and believed in the destiny of the nation. And as a pragmatist, he convinced himself that coercion was the most realistic road to reunion.
Partisanship, practiced by both Lincoln and Vallandigham, drove the two farther apart. Vallandigham blamed the Republicans for the failure of the Crittenden Compromise and became one of the most outspoken critics of the extraordinary measures Lincoln believed essential to the prosecution of the war. Lincoln’s emancipation measure widened the rift, and so did Vallandigham’s role as a gadfly in Congress. When the Dayton congressman, on January 14, 1863, took steps to assume the leadership of the ill-organized peace crusade, the two became more than partisan enemies. To complicate matters, Lincoln believed what he read about Vallandigham in the Republican newspapers, failing to allow for the distortion and misrepresentations in their anti-Vallandigham campaign. The New York Times report of Vallandigham’s Newark speech exemplified irresponsible reporting and misled Lincoln as to what Vallandigham had really said. Lincoln’s views of Vallandigham were also shaped by the statements of prominent men in Lincoln’s confidence. Horace Greeley believed Vallandigham “a moral traitor” if not a legal one. Benjamin F. Wade, influential chairman of the Joint Committee on the Conduct of the War, bluntly called Vallandigham a traitor in his public speeches, as did United States Senator Zachariah Chandler. Salmon P. Chase and Edwin M. Stanton, members of Lincoln’s cabinet, also believed that Vallandigham gave aid and encouragement to the enemy.
Lincoln found himself on the horns of a dilemma when General Burnside arrested Vallandigham early on the morning of May 6, for Lincoln was reluctant to interfere with freedom of speech and press in the republic, even in time of war. From the first, General Burnside had acted high-handedly. He had failed to report his action immediately to his superiors, so President Lincoln, Secretary of War Stanton, and Maj. Gen. Henry W. Halleck knew only what they read in the newspapers. Lincoln and Stanton wondered if the rash general had jumped into water way over his head, and they feared that his summary action might bring public wrath down upon the administration.
After Lincoln read of Vallandigham’s arrest, he telegraphed Burnside to ask if the newspaper stories were correct. At the same time he assured the general that he would give his full support to the maintenance of law and order. Burnside replied promptly, “Your dispatch just rec’d. I thank you for your kind assurance of support & beg to say that all possible effort will be made on my part to sustain the Gov’t of the United States in its fullest authority.”1 The reply, however, made no mention of Vallandigham’s arrest nor of his plans for a speedy military trial.
Lincoln still had to rely on newspaper reports for information about events in Cincinnati. General Burnside sent no official report on the arrest or trial to Washington. “Gen’l B. [Burnside] has acted without any special instructions from me or the Scty of War,” General Halleck complained as late as May 18, “and as far as I know, he has made no official report of the charges, trial, or sentence.”2
Burnside’s solitary course, plus rumors that Judge Noah H. Swayne might hear Vallandigham’s application for a writ of habeas corpus, worried Lincoln and Stanton. Judge Swayne, sitting in the U.S. Circuit Court for Ohio, had been purged by the state’s Republicans five years earlier, and Stanton therefore feared that he might render a pro-Vallandigham decision, repeating the story of Ex Parte Merryman. In an effort to forestall such a decision, Stanton prepared an order suspending the writ in Vallandigham’s case and drafted an accompanying dispatch to General Burnside. He put the two documents on Lincoln’s desk for his consideration and signature. Lincoln solicited advice from William H. Seward and Salmon P. Chase. Both warned him that such special action would stir the Ohio beehive even more and both advised him against Stanton’s proposal. Chase also reported that he had heard Vallandigham’s plea would be made in Judge Leavitt’s court, not Swayne’s. When newspaper reports verified this, Lincoln and his cabinet members breathed easier. They evidently expected Judge Leavitt to give a decision favorable to Burnside and the federal government. Stanton’s special proclamation, therefore, never received Lincoln’s signature.3
Although he had not yet had an official report from General Burnside, Lincoln took up the Vallandigham case at a cabinet meeting on May 19. The secretary of the navy, Gideon Welles, bluntly called Burnside’s summary action a grave “error”—it had embarrassed the administration. The other cabinet members seemed to agree, most doubting that there was a real necessity for it. But, since it had been done, all favored giving the government’s support to the ill-advised general. Someone suggested it would be more judicious to exile Vallandigham to the Confederacy than to confine him to a cell in Fort Warren, and the rest of the cabinet endorsed the proposal. Imprisonment might make him a martyr, whereas exile to the Confederacy might carry the implication that he was among friends. Lincoln liked the suggestion. He therefore changed the sentence from imprisonment to banishment and instructed his secretary of war to send Vallandigham “beyond the lines.”4
Stanton took immediate steps to carry out the president’s directive. First, he inquired of Burnside where Vallandigham was at the moment. Burnside replied that the prisoner was “under guard” and still in Cincinnati. Stanton then ordered the prisoner sent to General Rosecrans, “to be put” by him “beyond the lines.” Stanton also sent a letter to Rosecrans, instructing him to “receive” Vallandigham and keep him in “close custody” until he was turned over to the Confederates. If the prisoner returned, he should be rearrested, and Rosecrans should then await further orders.5
Before taking steps to carry out his orders, Burnside appealed to his superiors not to change the sentence. “In making up a verdict in the case,” Burnside argued, “the sentence to send the prisoner South was . . . fully discussed and decided against.” Would not some view the change in sentence as a challenge to the validity of the military trial? Judge Leavitt’s decision, in a sense, gave approval to the summary action and it was best to leave well enough alone.6 Lincoln, however, having a better grasp of factors affecting public opinion, refused to give in to Burnside’s request. He asked that the reluctant general carry out his instructions “without delay.”7
Even before Lincoln instructed his secretary of war to send Vallandigham beyond the lines, the contest for public opinion had begun in earnest. Burnside’s summary action had caused a storm of protest. Lincoln and his cabinet felt the gusts in Washington as winds of remonstrance swept the prestige of the administration to an all-time low. The Union defeat at Chancellorsville, of course, also helped undermine public confidence. So did the ever-intensifying spirit of defeatism which nurtured the peace movement. Greenbacks slipped in value, reflecting dwindling confidence in eventual success. Copperheads grew in number and boldness. The movement reached high tide in May and June of 1863. Gloom settled over Washington as public opinion swung against the administration.
Democratic editors led the blistering attack upon Burnside and Lincoln. They recognized that the general’s action was a threat to their rights as well as to Vallandigham’s. “For when his right goes down,” stated one editor who had no special love for Vallandigham, “there goes down with it my right, and yours, and every man’s.”8 Some Democratic editors declared the prisoner both hero and martyr. The editor of the Iowa City State Press, for example, wrote: “Noble Vallandigham! Doubly noble in your imprisonment! When this wild storm of fanaticism shall have spent itself, the people—chastized into the exercise of their ‘sober second thought’—will do justice to your motives and your actions.”9 John J. Jacobs of the Ashland Union expressed his indignation in strong language in dozens of editorials, including one entitled “The Reign of Terror”; he predicted that the Democratic press would be silenced, elections controlled by the bayonet, and a dictatorship established in Washington.10 Samuel Medary of the Crisis ranted and raved against both Burnside and the Lincoln administration. “Would to God,” he wrote with great feeling, “that the authorities were fully sensible to the great blunder they have made [and] of the slumbering volcano underneath.”11 Impolitic editors coined new epithets for Lincoln and refurbished old ones: “usurper,” “flat-boat tyrant,” “demagogue,” “dictator,” “fool,” “Caesar,” “bumblehead,” “despot,” and “a mere doll, worked by strings.”12
Democrats who expected the Dubuque Herald to excoriate Burnside and Lincoln were not disappointed. The editor had a reputation for using a stiletto effectively. “A crime,” the editor wrote, “has been committed against the most vital right of the poor and the rich, and humble and the exalted—the right to think, to speak, to live. When this thing is consummated, then plainly before the American people does Abraham Lincoln stand—the murderer of the nation. The plea of military or governmental necessity is a flimsy screen that will command no respect. No necessity can justify the monstrous outrage.”13 No one, perhaps, summed up the case as succinctly as Henry N. Walker of the Detroit Free Press. “Vallandigham was arrested for no crime known to law,” he wrote, “tried by no tribunal recognized as having any cognizance of crimes committed by man in civilized life, sentenced to a punishment never heard of in any free country, and arbitrarily changed by the President to one not recognized in the Constitution.”14
Even Democratic editors who had disapproved of Vallandigham’s antiwar views joined the chorus of protesters. Manton Marble of the New York World, for example, wrote several strong articles condemning General Burnside’s high-handed tactics. Furthermore, Marble viewed Burnside’s defense of his action as both ridiculous and execrable.15
Democratic orators joined the party’s editors in attacking Burnside and criticizing Lincoln. Party chieftains sponsored protest rallies or indignation meetings to intensify public reaction to the arrest of a civilian by army authorities and to his trial in a military court. Nearly every city in the North witnessed such a meeting. The Detroit protest meeting of May 25 typified these well-organized affairs. Orators took turns depicting Vallandingham as hero or martyr and flaying Burnside and the Lincoln administration. An emotionalized audience gave three lusty cheers for the man who had dared defy military proclamations, and its “resounding approval” to resolutions which denounced the arrest, glorified civil rights, and arraigned the administration for backing Burnside.16
The Indianapolis indignation rally attracted national attention because of the size of the crowd and the remarkable speech of Daniel W. Voorhees, one of the finest orators in the Midwest. Voorhees repeatedly referred to Vallandigham as his “friend”; he eulogized liberty and deplored the demise of “the first and most sacred right of the citizen.” “A man can die for a cause like this without grief or sorrow,” cried the impassioned speaker, “but to prolong life at the expense of liberty our proud race cannot and will not do.”17
The protest meeting sponsored by Fernando and Benjamin Wood in New York City also attracted considerable attention. The New York News and the New York World, at odds on most issues, both urged that Democrats turn out en masse to express their displeasure with Burnside’s repressive action. The “immense attendance” startled Republicans and heartened Democratic critics. An imposing array of speakers took turns at the four different outdoor stands to abuse President Lincoln, General Burnside, and Judge Leavitt. One of the spirited speakers imagined he was the Patrick Henry of his day. “Let us remind Lincoln,” he said with a show of emotion, “that Caesar had his Brutus and Charles the First his Cromwell. Let us also remind the George the Third of the present day that he, too, may have his Cromwell or his Brutus.”18 The crowd cheered lustily and the sound waves reached Washington.
In the light of later developments, the protest meeting held in Albany on May 16 was the most important of all. That rally, in the hands of conservative Democrats such as Erastus Corning, took a remarkably strong stand against the summary treatment of Vallandigham. Loyal Democrats wanted to know if the war was being waged to put down rebellion in the South or “to destroy free institutions at the North.”19 After several able addresses, the audience ratified the “Albany Resolves,” ten resolutions which stated the case against the Lincoln administration: Liberties of the citizen must be honored and constitutional government maintained at all hazards; arbitrary arrests by misguided military commanders and the use of courts-martial to try citizens violated time-tested principles of democratic governments; Vallandigham had been arrested and tried by an illegal commission “for no other reason than words addressed to a public meeting”; the president “must” be “true” to the Constitution, and must “maintain the rights of the States and the liberties of the citizens.”20 After the meeting, the presiding officer, Erastus Corning, sent the “Albany Resolves” to President Lincoln with an accompanying letter which asked the president’s “earnest consideration” of the resolutions.21
The popular reaction to Vallandigham’s arrest and trial caused even some prominent Republicans to speak out against Burnside, for he had scarred their party. The misguided general had been rash and impolitic. The Anti-Slavery Standard of New York characterized Vallandigham’s arrest and trial as “a blunder,” and the influential New York Independent labeled it “a great mistake.” “The Union can survive the assaults of all the armed and disarmed Vallandighams of the South and North,” wrote the clever and perceptive editor of the New York Sun, “but it cannot long exist without free speech and free press.”22 Noticing Vallandigham’s new prestige, one astute Republican editor summed up the situation with true discernment. “Vallandigham was fast talking himself into the deepest political grave ever dug,” he noted in an editorial, “when Burnside resurrected him.”23
Vallandigham’s Democratic friends expressed satisfaction with the wave of reaction sweeping all before it. He did not come out the scheming politician resorting to a stratagem to refurbish a fading career in politics. Instead, public reaction transformed him into a martyr—the champion of civil rights and the symbol of free speech. Vallandigham’s friends assured him, before he was exiled to the Confederacy, that the Democratic gubernatorial nomination was his for the asking. They predicted that public indignation would also gain him the governorship of Ohio. Some visionaries even supposed that the wave might carry him into the White House.24
President Lincoln, always aware of public opinion, recognized that Vallandigham’s newly won popularity threatened his own political future, the future of the Republican party, and the future of the country. He realized that Burnside’s impetuous action had bruised the Republican party and evoked a Democratic revival. It harmed unity on the home front and affected the war effort.
Erastus Corning’s letter and the “Albany Resolves” gave Lincoln a chance to put his side of the controversy before the public. He therefore prepared a long and carefully-worded reply. It was much more than a letter to “Hon. Erastus Corning & others”; it was a well-reasoned rebuttal, a state paper, intended for publication and extensive circulation. Moreover, it constituted a deliberate effort to check the rising tide of public indignation caused by Vallandigham’s arrest, trial, and exile.
Lincoln’s long, long “open letter” stated that the enemies of the government were seeking to destroy the Constitution while relying upon its guarantee to protect them. The civil courts had proved most inadequate (“utterly incompetent”) in dealing with the serious threat posed by the insurgents and their Northern sympathizers. (It was evident that the president believed the partisan charges made by the Republican press.) Arbitrary arrests which had been made, he argued, were “preventative” rather than “vindictive. . . . I think the time not unlikely to come,” Lincoln wrote with all seriousness, “when I shall be blamed for having made too few arrests rather than too many.”25
As for Vallandigham, his crime was not merely the “words addressed to a public meeting.” He had been arrested, the president maintained, because of his “open hostility” to the war for the Union. “He was not arrested,” Lincoln insisted, “because he was damaging the political prospects of the administration, or the personal interests of the commanding general; but because he was damaging the army, upon the existence of which, the life of the nation depends.” Then, with a stroke of genius, Lincoln asked that famous question which Democrats found quite impossible to answer: “Must I shoot a simple-minded soldier boy who deserts, while I must not touch a hair of the wiley [sic] agitator who induces him to desert?”26
Lincoln’s contention that he endorsed only that action which was necessary for the public safety seemed more valid after he revoked General Burnside’s suppression of the Chicago Times. On June 1, 1863, at the very time the president was struggling with his long answer to the “Albany Resolves,” Burnside ordered the Times suppressed and two days later sent soldiers to occupy the plant, stop publication, and put the premises under guard. Noting the consternation caused by the action and needing to regain prestige lost as a result of Vallandigham’s arrest, the shrewd president promptly revoked General Burnside’s order. Thus, with the stroke of his pen, he regained some of the favor he had lost earlier by endorsing Burnside’s summary action in the Vallandigham case.
While Lincoln wrestled with the problems which General Burnside created, Ohio Democrats took steps to elect delegates to their party’s state convention, scheduled to meet in Columbus on June 11. Vallandigham’s name was on nearly every lip, party leaders damning him and his friends shouting his praises. All of the party leaders favored Hugh J. Jewett’s candidacy for the governorship; he had carried the party’s banner two years earlier and merited a second chance—party tradition so dictated. Leaders such as Samuel S. Cox and George W. Manypenny of the Ohio Statesman believed that Vallandigham’s nomination would “ruin” the party, and that it would provide Republicans a chance to make a patriotic or emotional appeal for their candidate.27
Members of the Democratic State Central Committee, all favoring Jewett’s nomination, let affairs slip out of control. Many delegates, anxious to repudiate Burnside and Lincoln, favored Vallandigham because he was a “martyr.” Other delegates, impressed with the widespread sentiment for peace, believed that Vallandigham symbolized the peace movement. The two forces gathered momentum, and, like a snowball rolling down a mountainside, turned into an avalanche.
When Jewett recognized that the pro-Vallandigham boom would push him aside, he offered to withdraw from the canvass and let the nomination go to Vallandigham by default. Cox and Manypenny then pulled the name of General George B. McClellan out of the hat and urged him to become a candidate for the governorship; it was a desperate effort to sidetrack Vallandigham. But McClellan still thought President Lincoln might call him back to reorganize the defeated and demoralized Army of the Potomac, so he refused “to let his name be put forth” as a gubernatorial candidate. Cox and Manypenny then urged Jewett to stay in the race, hoping that in some mysterious way the pro-Vallandigham forces might still be checked. But the groundswell for Vallandigham and the zeal of his supporters (one radical can always be counted on to do more work than ten moderates) assured Vallandigham’s nomination even before the convention met on June 11.
Delegates and would-be spectators began to arrive in Columbus the day before the convention. The large number of “interested observers” indicated the convention could become more a mass meeting than a deliberative session. A tone of defiance prevailed in many quarters, and it was evident that Vallandigham’s supporters might disrupt the convention if “Valiant Val” failed to gain the prize. Delegates and visitors, especially those representing “the great unwashed Democracy” of the backwoods area, spoke excitedly of events of the past and of their expectations while drinking toasts to “the martyr.”28
Delegations continued to pour into Columbus early on the morning of convention day. Many brought their own bands and banners and loads of hickory branches. The streets were filled with wagons, buggies, men on horseback, and many men carrying walking sticks. The sidewalks were crowded with excited men, as if it were a pentecost of politics. Delegates jostled in long lines when they registered.29
It was soon evident to those in charge that no hall in Columbus was large enough to hold a tenth of those who wanted to attend. They decided therefore to hold the convention on “the east front of the State-House.” Since most of the “spectators” happened to be Vallandighamers, those in charge inadvertently changed a convention into a Vallandigham rally.30
Jewett’s supporters succeeded in getting William Medill elected as “permanent chairman,” despite the fact that some Vallandigham men favored George E. Pugh. After accepting the chairmanship, Medill bowed to the inevitable. In his acceptance speech he intimated that “public sentiment” decreed who the standard-bearer would be—the convention could do no less than endorse Clement L. Vallandigham. Bedlam reigned, with Vallandigham supporters giving cheer after cheer. The pro-Jewett delegates groaned or sat stunned and silent.
In time the permanent chairman restored order, appointed the usual committees, and called for nominations. Judge William C. James of Muskingum County nominated Vallandigham, setting off a “noisy demonstration.” When Henry B. Payne nominated Jewett, boos and jeers by Vallandighamers drowned out the applause of Jewett’s supporters. During the roll call, the pro-Vallandigham “spectators” cheered when county delegations cast their votes for their hero, booed when votes were cast for Jewett. One county delegation after another, bowing to pressure from the “galleries,” jumped on the Vallandigham bandwagon. It proved to be a one-sided victory. Jewett received only eleven votes.31 It was proof that public reaction to Vallandigham’s arrest had emotionalized Ohio, sweeping conservative Democrats aside. Vallandigham, in seeking arrest, had taken a calculated risk. Events of June 11 proved that the gamble paid off.
After the totals were announced, the delegates followed the usual procedure of making the nomination unanimous. The convention then named George E. Pugh as Democratic candidate for lieutenant-governor, entrusting him to do most of the campaigning while Vallandigham was in exile.
The delegates also gave their resounding approval to “Twenty-three Resolutions.” The first stated that free government, endangered by military decrees and presidential proclamations, really rested upon “the will of the people.” The second assailed the Emancipation Proclamation and the suspension of the writ of habeas corpus. Others denounced abolitionism and radicalism, condemned the arrest of Vallandigham, and criticized Governor David Tod. The so-called “peace resolution” stated that the return of the seceded states would be “hailed with delight” and recommended “a convention of the States” to provide against future wars. The final resolution called for the appointment of “a Committee of Nineteen,” one representative from each of the state’s congressional districts, to call upon President Lincoln, present the resolutions, state the case against him, and demand the release of Vallandigham.32 Perhaps the mood of the convention was best reflected in the statement of an articulate farmer who said, “In Vallandigham my rights have been violated, and in Vallandigham my rights shall be vindicated.”33
The following week the Union Party Convention met in Columbus, with Republican strategists again pulling the strings. The fact that some conservative Democrats expressed their displeasure with Vallandigham’s nomination heartened Republicans. They drummed up a good attendance for the convention and put on a spirited show. Although David Tod sought renomination, the wire-pullers pushed him aside and secured “Honest John” Brough, also a former Democrat, as their candidate. While Vallandigham’s nomination had its basis in a grass-roots movement, Brough’s was a shrewdly calculated and carefully planned affair.34
On June 22, fifteen members of the Committee of Nineteen, named at the Democratic State Convention, gathered in the Neil House in Columbus to discuss their proposed meeting with President Lincoln. Twelve of the fifteen were either congressmen or congressmen-elect. They chose Judge Mathias Birchard, formerly a member of the Ohio State Supreme Court, as their chairman, and decided to entrain the next day for Washington, D.C., to seek an appointment with the president.35
The committee members arrived in Washington on the evening of June 24, and the chairman took steps to arrange a meeting with the president. When Secretary of the Treasury Salmon P. Chase heard that Lincoln had scheduled an appointment with the Committee of Nineteen, he wrote a note of admonition: “What is said to them or replied to them should be only in writing.”36
President Lincoln held a brief meeting with Birchard’s committee on the morning of June 25. He already knew several of them and shook hands with the others as if he was happy to see them. But before they had a chance to make an oral request for Vallandigham’s “release,” Lincoln, heeding Chase’s advice, asked them to put their supplication in writing.
Later that day President Lincoln took up the Vallandigham question at a meeting of his cabinet. Gideon Welles expressed the opinion that members of the Committee of Nineteen were more interested in manufacturing factious party propaganda than anything else. Most of those who spoke out opposed pardoning Vallandigham. Montgomery Blair thought it was politic to let the exile return to the United States—he would damage his own friends and his party more than the administration. The president stated he had no special objection to Vallandigham’s return, but he feared that a pardon might have an adverse effect upon army discipline. It might also antagonize “patriotic sentiment.”37
On the morning of June 26, Judge Birchard delivered the long epistle of the Committee of Nineteen to President Lincoln. It listed, in abridged form, the twenty-three resolutions adopted at the Democratic State Convention of Ohio on June 11. Another section of it countered some of Lincoln’s “answer” to the “Albany Resolves.” Several sentences reminded Lincoln that, as a congressman and citizen, he had opposed the Mexican War. Now, as president, he and his “agents” denied to others the same rights and freedoms he had practiced then. General Burnside and others had been guilty of violating basic rights of American citizens. Ohio citizens could no longer put up with intimidation and suppression—the administration should be aware of the slumbering volcano. Justice demanded that the order banishing Vallandigham be revoked, the military commission’s verdict reversed, and all of the other rights restored. “The undersigned assure your Excellency,” one line of the epistle read, “. . . that the public safety will be far more endangered by continuing Mr. Vallandigham in exile than by releasing him.”38
The president spent a good part of the next several days working on his reply to the Committee of Nineteen. He was aware that he was writing another state paper; he also recognized that his reply would be a Republican campaign document, used to counter and undermine the popular reaction to Vallandigham’s arrest, trial, and exile. Lincoln went so far as to convene his cabinet on Sunday, June 28, at ten o’clock, to read his reply and to solicit suggestions for its improvement. The cabinet members approved of the carefully-worded statement; Gideon Welles considered it well written and well conceived. Neither Lincoln nor his cabinet members favored giving “the graceless traitor” the “notoriety and office” which he sought.39
The president’s reply resurveyed some of the ground he had covered seventeen days earlier in his long response to the “Albany Resolves.” He stated again that he did not want “the public safety” to suffer because of the irresponsible acts of individuals. Democrats erred, Lincoln added, in reserving for themselves the right to decide what the Constitution meant, nor did they have the right to twist facts in their favor. Somewhat sardonically he expressed a willingness to “release” Vallandigham, paroling him to the Committee of Nineteen if its members would keep him from infringing upon the public safety.40
Judge Birchard wrote a rejoinder to Lincoln’s “reply” on behalf of the Committee of Nineteen, expressing surprise that the president impugned the loyalty of those who did not agree with him or who opposed administration measures. Loyalty should be to the Constitution rather than an administration. Clement L. Vallandigham was entitled to his rights—they were not a favor held in the hands of the president.41
Lincoln chose not to answer Birchard’s rejoinder. He knew he had defended the administration ably in his two “open letters” —his responses to the “Albany Resolves” and to the epistle of the Committee of Nineteen. Both were well-reasoned documents, which would help to roll back the high tide of Copperheadism.
Lincoln’s effort to hold the dikes against pro-Vallandigham sentiment received an assist from General Ulysses S. Grant and George B. Meade. Meade commanded the Army of the Potomac when it turned back Lee’s army at Gettysburg in a memorable battle on July 1-3, 1863. Grant captured Vicksburg and a beleaguered Confederate army on July 4. These two Union victories did more than shatter the dreams of Southern leaders. No longer could Copperhead critics say the war was a failure. Defeatism began to retreat, too, and Copperheadism to ebb. Perhaps Gettysburg and Vicksburg did more to nullify the arguments in the “Albany Resolves” and the epistle of the Committee of Nineteen than President Lincoln’s excellent answers.
1 Telegram, 8 May 1863, Robert Todd Lincoln Papers, Library of Congress. Lincoln’s inquiry seems to be a lost item.
2 Halleck to Francis Lieber, 18 May 1863, Francis Lieber Papers, Huntington Library.
3 Lincoln to Stanton, 13 May 1863, Edwin M. Stanton Papers, Library of Congress. The two documents which Stanton drafted are in the Robert Todd Lincoln Papers.
4 Howard K. Beale, ed., Diary of Gideon Wells, 3 vols. (New York, 1960), 1: 306; idem, ed., The Diary of Edward Bates, 1859-1866 (New York, 1933), p. 306; telegram (in cypher), Lincoln to Burnside, 29 May 1863, Special Collections Division, Brown University Library, Providence; telegrams, Stanton to Burnside, both dated 19 May 1863, in Official Records, ser. 2, 5: 656-57.
5 Telegrams, Stanton to Burnside and Burnside to Stanton, both 19 May 1863, and letter, Stanton to Rosecrans, 19 May 1863, in Official Records, ser. 2, 5: 656-57.
6 Burnside to Stanton, 20 May 1863, Official Records, ser. 2, 5: 665.
7 E. R. S. Canby to Burnside, 20 May 1863, Official Records, ser. 2, 5: 666.
8 Detroit Free Press, 8, 26 May, 7 June 1863; Hamilton True Telegraph, 11 June 1863.
9 9 May 1863.
10 20 May 1863.
11 13 May 1863.
12 Chatfield Democrat, 23 May 1863; LaCrosse Democrat, 16, 23, 30 May 1863; See-Bote (Milwaukee), 13 May 1863; St. Paul Pioneer and Democrat, 26 June, 3 July 1863; Hamilton True Telegraph, 18 June 1863; Detroit Free Press, 8, 26 May 1863.
13 Dubuque Herald, 14 May 1863.
14 26 August 1863.
15 Vallandigham to Manton Marble, 12, 15 May 1863, Manton Marble Papers, Library of Congress.
16 Detroit Free Press, 26 May 1863.
17 Indianapolis State Sentinel, 21 May 1863.
18 Quoted in New York Herald, 19 May 1863.
19 The query was included in Horatio Seymour’s letter to the convention. (He did not attend.) Although the letter was read to the assembled convention, it was really a statement prepared for the press and published by nearly every Democratic newspaper in the North. See, for example, Cincinnati Daily Enquirer, 23 May 1863.
20 The “Albany Resolves” were published in Edward McPherson, The Political History of the United States . . . during the Great Rebellion (Washington, D.C., 1864), p. 163, and in [Appleton’s] Annual Cyclopedia and Register of Important Events . . . 1863, pp. 799-800.
21 Corning to Lincoln, 19 May 1863, Robert Todd Lincoln Papers.
22 N.d., all quoted in Crisis, 27 May 1863.
23 Harper’s Weekly, 30 May 1863.
24 Hamilton True Telegraph, 31 May 1863; Copperhead (New York, n.d.), quoted in Mount Vernon Democratic Banner, 23 May 1863; London Times, 24 July 1863.
25 12 June 1863, published in New York Tribune, 15 June. The autographed draft in the Robert Todd Lincoln Papers was somewhat revised before being released to the press.
26 Ibid.
27 Cox to Manton Marble, 1 June 1863, Marble Papers; Toledo Blade, 8 June 1863; Cleveland Leader, 8 June 1863.
28 William W. Armstrong, “Personal Recollections,” published in Cincinnati Daily Enquirer, 20 March 1886.
29 Ibid.
30 Daily Ohio State Journal (Columbus), 12 June 1863.
31 Ibid.
32 Crisis, 13 June 1863; Cincinnati Daily Gazette, 13 June 1863.
33 Quoted in Daily Ohio Statesman (Columbus), 1 July 1863.
34 R. H. Stephenson to William Henry Smith, 16 August 1863, William Henry Smith Papers, Ohio Historical Society; A. Denny to John Sherman, 25 April 1863, and James J. James to Sherman, 18 June 1863, John Sherman Papers, Library of Congress; Cleveland Leader, 17 June 1863; Daily Ohio State Journal, 16 June 1863.
35 Crisis, 24 June 1863. The members appointed to the Committee of Nineteen were: Mathias Birchard, David A. Houk (of Dayton), Thomas W. Bartley (an ex-governor of Ohio), William J. Gordon (a wealthy merchant from Cleveland), John O’Neill (president pro tem of the state senate in the previous legislative session), Louis Schaefer (of Canton), and Congressman George Bliss, Abner L. Backus, George H. Pendleton, Chilton A. White, Warren P. Noble, Wells A. Hutchins, Francis C. LeBlond, William C. Finck, Alexander Long, Joseph W. White, John F. McKinney, James R. Morris, and George L. Converse. Samuel S. Cox was one of the original nineteen appointed, but he refused to attend the organizational meeting, so Converse was named in his stead.
36 Chase to Lincoln, 24 June 1863, Robert Todd Lincoln Papers.
37 Entry of 26 June 1863, Diary of Gideon Welles, 1: 344.
38 Mathias Birchard and others to Lincoln, 26 June 1863, Robert Todd Lincoln Papers.
39 Entry of 28 June 1863, Diary of Gideon Welles, 1: 347.
40 Lincoln to M. Birchard and others 29 June 1863, Robert Todd Lincoln Papers; New York Tribune, 9 July 1863. Lincoln dated his reply 28 June; John Nicolay, one of Lincoln’s private secretaries, changed the date to 29 June.
41 Birchard and others to Lincoln, 1 July 1863, Robert Todd Lincoln Papers.