18
DEMOCRATS HAD EVERY REASON to be optimistic during the dog days of August 1864. Union battle losses from January to August stunned the North, nurtured both the peace crusade and defeatism, and gave Democrats new rays of hope. Secretary of State Seward candidly told Lincoln that he could not be reelected, and others close to the president expressed the same fear. Greeley, whose views changed with his moods, headed an abortive Republican movement to shove Lincoln aside and put a prominent general in his stead on the presidential ticket. Caught up in the gloom surrounding him, Lincoln wrote that famous memorandum of August 23, supposing that he would not be reelected and promising to cooperate with the president-elect.
Samuel Cox, meanwhile, worked night and day to convince Midwestern Democrats that McClellan had the best chance to gain the nomination and defeat Lincoln. Cox, McClellan’s “chief manager,” was so successful in his efforts that astute observers conceded that the aspiring general had the nomination in hand.
Although he was personally indebted to Cox, Vallandigham and other Peace Democrats refused to jump aboard McClellan’s bandwagon. The onetime exile spoke at a Dayton “peace rally” at which he publicly stated his opposition to McClellan and demanded that a “peace man” be nominated in Chicago. If McClellan gained the presidency, Vallandigham said, the war would drag on and more blood would be shed. Still advocating peace and reunion, he hoped peace petitions signed by two million Americans would be placed on Lincoln’s desk.1
Vallandigham also felt bold enough to leave the confines of Dayton and take a train trip to New York. He shared the platform at a Syracuse peace rally with Fernando Wood of New York City. Both made a public plea that Democrats nominate a peace man at Chicago.2 Wood promised Vallandigham that he would stop in Dayton on his way to the Democratic National Convention.
When Wood arrived in Dayton on August 24, Vallandigham’s friends and followers gave him a “grand reception” at the depot and turned out en masse for the rally that evening. Mixing history and conjecture, Wood made a good case for conciliation and reunion. He must have spoken convincingly, for next day one of Vallandigham’s young admirers wrote, “You may rely upon it that the masses of the people are tired of the war and want it stopped at once on the best terms we can get. Whoever is nominated at Chicago must stand on the platform of an armistice and Convention of the States for the settlement of all difficult questions—otherwise there will be a fourth candidate [Frémont was still in the field] who will be elected. The people have at length become appalled and disgusted with blood and carnage and demand cessation.”3 Evidently many Peace Democrats, afflicted with defeatism, had a way of deceiving themselves and misjudging the public mood.
Vallandigham and Wood entrained for Chicago on August 26 to attend their party’s national convention. They found the “Windy City” seething with excitement; gamblers were giving four-to-one odds that McClellan would gain the nomination on the first ballot. Each faction employed strategy to further its goals. War Democrats held a preconvention caucus, usurping the name “Conservative Union National Convention” for their gathering, and recommended the nomination of McClellan. Peace Democrats organized some preconvention peace rallies which featured prominent antiwar speakers. Both Vallandigham and Wood had a chance to air their views.
The Daytonian, introduced as “the Honorable Exile and Patriot,” proved he had not forgotten how to persuade an audience and gain their applause. First he lauded the historic role of the Democracy in America. Then he attacked the Lincoln administration, reciting its sins. He had returned from exile, he said, to claim his rights. Next he spoke at length on the peace-and-compromise theme, criticizing those who had misrepresented his views. Finally, he felt compelled to talk again about the Sons of Liberty and convince his audience that its purpose was to counteract the Union League, protect rights which Lincoln’s “minions” and “the reign of terror” threatened, and elect Democrats to office. Yes, the order was involved in a “conspiracy” as Republican propagandists charged, but this “conspiracy” consisted of no more than using the ballot boxes to defeat the administration. The leader of that “conspiracy,” Vallandigham added with a twinkle in his eye, would be made known when the Democratic National Convention selected its presidential candidate.4
Political maneuvering characterized the evening of August 28. Cox visited as many delegations as he could, trying to convince or cajole members to support McClellan. The divided New York delegation, meeting in caucus, debated the general’s candidacy long after midnight. Peace Democrats gathered informally in Vallandigham’s room; the door was never locked and friends and delegates walked in and out constantly. Such Ohioans as Chris Hughes of Hamilton, Dr. Edson B. Olds of Lancaster, and Alexander Long of Cincinnati wanted Peace Democrats to support Governor Horatio Seymour of New York even though he had publicly endorsed McClellan. Several viewed Thomas Seymour of Connecticut as a possibility although no one expected he could effectively challenge McClellan for the nomination. Other callers, including Harrison H. Dodd of Indiana and S. Corning Judd of Illinois, talked of making the Sons of Liberty a potent political force. Later, propagandists characterized this informal, open meeting in Vallandigham’s room as a conclave of the Sons of Liberty to promote a conspiracy. Even General Heintzelman, commanding the Northern Department, called at Vallandigham’s room to visit with Democratic leaders, smoke cigars, and engage in political banter.5
Ill-found rumors made the rounds. One was that Peace Democrats would bolt the convention if McClellan gained the nomination. Another was that treason-minded Democrats might use the Chicago convention as a means or opportunity to establish a “Northwest Confederacy”—the O.A.K. exposé of July contributed considerably toward convincing the credulous that many Democrats conspired behind locked doors.
The meeting in Vallandigham’s room broke up rather belatedly. It proved that the Sons of Liberty was little more than a paper organization and that Vallandigham, despite a year spent in exile, had a host of friends and sympathizers. And it proved that Peace Democrats were disorganized and divided, lacking a national leader. The meeting broke up without a single resolution being adopted or a single peace candidate endorsed.6
Next morning the forty-two Ohio delegates met in caucus. They named Chris Hughes to represent Ohio on the Committee on Organization and Vallandigham to represent the state on the Committee on Resolutions. These two appointments were clear concessions to the peace men. Cox spoke out boldly for McClellan. Many dissented. Some of the dissenters said they favored Horatio Seymour despite his forthright statement that he was not a candidate. Long and Olds spoke out in behalf of Thomas Seymour. After a round of argument, the chairman called for a preferential poll. The tally indicated that 17 favored McClellan, 4, Horatio Seymour, and 21 (including Vallandigham), Thomas Seymour. Cox expressed his disappointment, both at the lack of McClellan support and at the intensity of peace sentiments in Ohio. The caucus adjourned, but Cox badgered Vallandigham and insisted he promise support of the convention’s nominee, whoever it might be. In time, Cox and Samuel L. M. Barlow gained such a private pledge from both Vallandigham and Wood, in return for reasonable concessions regarding the party platform.7 It was easier to make the bargain, though, than to carry it out.
After Vallandigham and Wood returned to their quarters at the Sherman House, a crowd gathered outside and called for a speech. The two stepped out on a balcony and each spoke briefly. Vallandigham demanded that the party platform include a peace-and-compromise plank and pledged himself to support the nominee of the convention. Wood parroted what Vallandigham had said. Perhaps Cox was right when he characterized Peace Democrats as the “fiercest disciplinarians” whose loyalty to party would make them swallow any medicine, no matter how bitter it might be.8
Late in the morning, delegates and visitors drifted over to the convention hall, soon filled to overflowing. Vallandigham received considerable applause as he walked down the aisle toward his seat. He mixed and talked with other members of the Ohio delegation.
At twelve-thirty the temporary chairman banged his gavel for order. After some of the preliminaries, Cox asked that Amos Kendall, a Democrat whose political prominence dated back to Jackson’s day, be given permission to report on the recommendations of the “Conservative Union National Convention” which had met several days earlier. When Kendall read the resolution recommending McClellan’s nomination, many delegates stamped their feet and tried to stampede the convention in the general’s favor. Cox, pleased with the noise and cheers, cleverly and quickly moved that Kendall’s report be referred to the Committee on Resolutions.
The Kendall-Cox stratagem caught Vallandigham and the peace men by surprise. After a very brief huddle, Dr. Edson B. Olds protested against the technique used in bringing McClellan’s name forward before the convention was formally organized. He said that “another body,” Democrats organized as the Sons of Liberty, then “in session in Chicago,” would also have a recommendation to make to the convention. If Kendall’s resolution went into the minutes, so should the recommendation of the Sons of Liberty—even though the “communication” from that body was neither ready nor formalized. Pressed for further information, Dr. Olds, caught bluffing, retreated and said he would drop the matter.9
While Horatio Seymour, who had been chosen to preside over the convention, was making the opening speech, the Committee on Resolutions held its organizational meeting in a side-room. James Guthrie of Kentucky gained the chairmanship, getting twelve votes to Vallandigham’s eight, with three scattering. Guthrie asked members to submit proposals for the platform, then the committee recessed and its members filed back into the main hall to hear the rest of Seymour’s address.
After the applause ceased, Seymour asked Guthrie when his committee expected to have its report ready. Guthrie answered that he expected the committee would finish its work before four o’clock and that “industry” and “harmony” would bear early fruit. Vallandigham arose to disagree, emphasizing that the committee faced a difficult assignment. Perhaps it would be best, the dissenter added, if the convention did not meet again until next morning. Guthrie, fearful that the anti-McClellan forces might use the overnight recess to advantage, insisted that his committee should and would finish its work by four o’clock. Vallandigham said no more, but he and other antiwar men recognized that the pro-McClellan crew was using urgency as an ally.
Guthrie then asked the members of the Committee on Resolutions to follow him to the assigned room. Walking side by side, Guthrie and Vallandigham led the other members down the aisle and through the rear door of the main hall. Guthrie wasted no time in putting his committee to work. Since the committee membership of twenty-three might slow down progress, Guthrie suggested that he name a subcommittee of seven to get the job done, and named Vallandigham to this subcommittee.
Most of the resolutions were routine and produced little disagreement. Only one, the so-called Second Resolution, tested the temper of the subcommittee. This resolution, framed by Vallandigham and Dr. John McElwee, declared that the Lincoln administration had failed to restore the Union by “the experiment of war” and that “justice, humanity, liberty, and public welfare” necessitated making “immediate efforts . . . for a cessation of hostilities, with a view to an ultimate convention of the States.” It was a watered down version of Vallandigham’s peace-compromise-reunion views. William Cassidy, editor of the Albany Argus and an avowed McClellan man, led the attack upon Vallandigham’s resolution. Others had their say, some for and others against the controversial plank. In the end Vallandigham’s obstinacy, abetted by able arguments, carried the questionable resolution through the subcommittee—it was endorsed by a majority vote.
Vallandigham faced a more difficult task in convincing the twenty-three-member Committee on Resolutions to accept his handiwork. Cassidy again led the fight against the Second Resolution, providing a “most desperate [and] persistent opposition.” He offered several substitutes, always gaining the support of several other McClellan men. But none of the substitutes received more than three votes. Time and again, Vallandigham valiantly defended his resolution. He succeeded in carrying it through the full committee as he had earlier pushed it through the subcommittee. He had, in effect, scored a personal triumph.10
When the convention reassembled at four o’clock, Seymour called upon the chairman of the Committee on Resolutions to present the party’s platform. Guthrie arose to read the resolutions. The first, which lauded the Constitution and asked that it be a “guidepost” for all executive and legislative action, brought nods of approval from the hushed assemblage. Vallandigham’s so-called Second Resolution, however, produced considerable audible dissent and angered some McClellan supporters. Guthrie, ignoring the dissension, finished reading the resolutions.
Actually, Vallandigham’s peace plank pleased neither the War Democrats nor the peace-at-any-price men. Alexander Long, one of the best known of the latter group, gained the floor and condemned the Second Resolution, saying it was too vague and too compromising. He asked for a more forthright statement, one that would demand an immediate cessation of hostilities, the recognition of the Southern confederacy, and the incorporation of the Virginia Resolves of 1798 into the party platform. He then offered a substitute resolution expressing his own extreme views. War Democrats, who thought the Second Resolution already too much of a concession to the peace men, had to defend a plank they did not really favor lest Long’s proposal prevail. Samuel Cox, a master of parliamentary maneuvers, cut off debate and prevented a vote on Long’s substitute measure. The presiding officer then put all of the resolutions which Guthrie had read to a voice vote. Only four delegates (Long was one of them) cast negative ballots against the resolutions which came to be known as the Chicago Platform. Vallandigham’s controversial peace plank thus won a reluctant acceptance, although it pleased neither the War Democrats, such as August Belmont and Manton Marble, nor the extreme peace men of the stripe of Alexander Long, William M. Corry, or Samuel Medary of the Crisis. Even the mildest war men viewed Vallandigham’s peace plank as left of center.11
With the platform out of the way, the delegates turned to the task of naming their presidential candidate. As the clerk called the roll of the states, it was obvious that McClellan had gained strength. Astute observers awaited the announcement of Ohio’s forty-two votes: McClellan, 17; Thomas Seymour, 21 (including Vallandigham’s); and Horatio Seymour, 4.
Later, as McClellan’s vote approached the majority mark, Ohio asked for recognition and an opportunity to change her vote. Vallandigham and other realistic delegates had decided to bow to the inevitable and put expediency above principle. Ohio’s revised vote read: McClellan, 30 (including Vallandigham’s), and Thomas Seymour, 12. Scattered applause greeted the announcement, while Long and the extremists groaned.
When all the votes were in, Vallandigham capped his fence-straddling by moving that McClellan’s nomination be declared unanimous. The motion carried in spite of the protests of Long, Corry and several other peace-at-any-price delegates. Then the delegates completed their work by naming George H. Pendleton, an Ohio peace man, as the vice-presidential nominee, another sop thrown to the Vallandigham faction. The newspaperman who had predicted that the Democratic convention would “nominate a Peace Democrat on the war platform, or a War Democrat on a peace platform”12 proved to be a good prophet.
McClellan’s nomination pleased most of the delegates, except the few of the Alexander Long stamp. “Everybody,” one delegate recorded in his diary, “seems satisfied.”13 But there was considerably less enthusiasm for the Chicago Platform. Vallandigham’s Second Resolution chilled the optimism and ardor of the “conscientious War Democrats,” many of whom viewed it as a millstone around McClellan’s neck. Nevertheless, the delegates left for home hoping that McClellan’s star was rising and Lincoln’s setting.
As the Democratic presidential nominee, McClellan found that a political campaign was beset by as many problems as a military one. He disapproved of the peace plank in the Chicago Platform, regarded it as a barrier to his election, and listened to War Democrats who urged him to repudiate it when accepting the nomination.14
When Vallandigham heard rumors of the advice McClellan was receiving, he seized his pen to exhort the general not to acquiesce. “Do not listen to your Eastern friends, who, in an evil hour, may advise you to insinuate even a little war in your letter of acceptance,” Vallandigham begged. For good measure he added a threat, “If anything implying war is presented, two hundred thousand men in the West will withhold their support, and may go further still.”15 Did he mean that Peace Democrats might then nominate their own candidate?
McClellan chose to ignore Vallandigham’s advice as well as his threat. In his letter of acceptance he threw the peace plank overboard and raised a war flag over the pilot house. Most Democratic editors expressed satisfaction with “Little Mac’s” letter, some declaring that it was composed of noble ideas, golden words, and stirring phrases—“beautiful and appropriate.”16
Alexander Long and other ultras, however, were furious. A handful of dissidents sponsored a meeting in Cincinnati in October to consider launching a new party with a peace platform and a peace candidate. The movement fizzled, but several of the malcontents went home vowing to sit out the campaign. Samuel Medary typified the Peace Democrats who complained that the nomination of McClellan was “a sell-out” to Wall Street and the Rothchilds and the revised platform a “fraudulent sale,” not binding in law.17
McClellan’s letter of acceptance proved especially embarrassing to Vallandigham. After returning from Chicago, he had spoken at two McClellan ratification rallies, one in Dayton, one in Hamilton. At each he had dwelt at length on the Chicago Platform and explained that the alternative to McClellan would be four more years of taxation, confiscation, conscription, and despotism. It was evident, however, that Vallandigham felt uneasy about boosting McClellan while preaching peace.
Shortly after this, the telegraphic wires carried the news that McClellan had repudiated the peace plank. The report struck Vallandigham like a thunderbolt. Not only had “Little Mac” discarded Vallandigham’s peace plank, but he had also disregarded his personal advice. Furious and frustrated, Vallandigham engaged in some “tall cussing.” He told Cox he had been hoodwinked and insulted. He would not raise a finger in McClellan’s behalf. In fact, he would cancel all of his speaking dates and thus repay McClellan for the public insult.18
Washington McLean, the “big boss” of the Hamilton County Democracy and co-owner of the Cincinnati Enquirer, personally intervened to get the sulking Daytonian out of his tent and back in the battle line. He convinced Vallandigham to come down to Cincinnati on September 10 to meet with some of “the party faithful.” Still angry at McClellan, Vallandigham bluntly told the meeting that he had already cancelled all his speaking engagements scheduled by the Democratic State Central Committee. Members of McLean’s clan tried to reason with Vallandigham, but to no avail—he remained caustic, critical, and belligerent. In answer to a plea of cooperation, he threatened to bolt the party, joining Medary and Long on the sidelines. Someone in the group cut the dissenter short with the bald assertion that a Vallandigham-led bolt would help the party and enhance McClellan’s election chances—it would purge the party of its evil genius. Vallandigham fumed, then threatened to take the stump against McClellan. One of the quick-witted, sharp-tongued listeners offered to pay Vallandigham’s expenses if he carried out his threat, for such action would aid the Democratic party and McClellan’s candidacy. Just when it seemed that the meeting might blow up, Washington McLean deftly applied some salve to Vallandigham’s wounds. Before the evening ended, the ruffled peacock agreed to support the McClellan-Pendleton ticket. Jubilant, McLean reported his success in effecting a rapprochement to Manton Marble of the New York World in a terse telegram: “Difficulties all arranged. Vallandigham all right. Have no fears.”19
In mid-September, George H. Pendleton, the vice-presidential nominee, quietly slipped into Dayton to visit Vallandigham and verify McLean’s assumption. Yes, the onetime exile stated, he would speak out openly for McClellan when the opportunity presented itself, despite injured pride and the “unpalatable letter of acceptance.”
To prove his conversion to the cause, Vallandigham arranged for a serenade for his house-guest. The ever-serving Dayton Empire urged Democrats to participate in the rally. In the evening a good-sized crowd gathered at the Vallandigham residence and sent up a chant for Pendleton. The distinguished visitor, with his smiling host at his side, appeared at the front door. Pendleton spoke briefly, thanking the serenaders for their “sentiment” and “hospitality.” Pendleton then called upon his host to speak, giving the author of the peace plank a chance to profess publicly his loyalty to the party and its official nominees.
It was a rather awkward situation for Vallandigham. Some in the audience had heard him condemn McClellan several days earlier, even promising not to lift a finger in behalf of the nominee. He justified his support with such phrases as “party loyalty” and “practical necessity.” He praised the Chicago Platform, saying it still expressed his true sentiments. Then he turned to the main theme of his talk—the historic role of the Democratic party in the nation’s history. He laid tributes to Thomas Jefferson, Andrew Jackson, and Stephen A. Douglas on the Democratic altar. He eulogized the party’s principles, its record, and its history. He exhorted his fellow Democrats to be faithful to their party, too, and prayed that God might give the Democracy success at the polls in November.20
Republican editors and cartoonists had a field day caricaturing Vallandigham’s dilemma. Dayton Republicans, especially, enjoyed their fellow townsman’s discomfiture. The caustic editor of the Dayton Journal ridiculed him for “selling out” his principles under “pressure”—Vallandigham had “crawled upon his belly” like a snake and had “eaten dirt at McClellan’s feet” like a worm.21
During the remaining days of September, Vallandigham gave half a dozen speeches in Ohio for the McClellan-Pendleton ticket, so that McLean could not accuse him of sulking in his tent. Unsavory incidents occurred frequently. In some places, local War Democrats shied away from him. In others, local Republican rowdies or furloughed soldiers threatened, intimidated, and insulted him or disrupted rallies while Vallandigham was speaking. At Sydney, for example, a regiment of soldiers from a nearby camp lined the road and gave “three hefty groans” when Vallandigham, at the head of a Democratic procession, passed by.22
During the closing weeks of September the Democratic tidal wave began to ebb. Republicans healed their party schism; John C. Frémont withdrew from the presidential sweepstakes as a result of a backstage bargain.23 Union military victories undermined defeatism and made the Lincoln administration respectable again. “The success of Sherman at Atlanta, following on that of Farragut at Mobile,” Gideon Welles wrote in his diary, “has very much discomposed the opposition.”24 General Sheridan contributed two victories. “Phil Sheridan has made a speech in the Shenandoah Valley,” one jubilant Republican wrote, “more powerful and valuable to the Union cause than all the stumpers in the Republic can make—our prospects are everywhere heightening.”25 Economic prosperity, “so enormous as to challenge disbelief,” also helped quash discontent. Bounteous crops and high farm prices brought smiles back to the faces of Midwestern farmers. Prosperity served as “the lance of Achilles, healing by its touch the wounds of war and desolation.” “Nothing is strange,” an English newspaperman noted, “nothing is unusual, nothing is unconstitutional, nothing is wicked to people who are prospering upon the war.”26
Encouraged, Republican editors and orators attacked McClellan, Vallandigham, and the Democracy with new vigor. They repeated old lies and invented new ones. Horace Greeley, for example, averred that the Chicago Platform was “concocted by Rebels in Richmond, . . . agreed to by disloyal politicians at the North in a conference with Rebels at Niagara Falls,” and “taken to Chicago and adopted by a convention expressly chosen to adopt it.”27 One respected Republican editor claimed that Jefferson Davis had much to do with the writing of the platform,28 while others embroidered the tale by claiming that Vallandigham had helped Davis write the cursed document while he was in exile in the Confederacy.29
Vallandigham, of course, came in for more than his fair share of the abuse. Some Republican speakers railed against Vallandigham more than against McClellan. Was not a vote for McClellan really a vote for Vallandigham, anarchy, and treason? One wag suggested that Vallandigham would become secretary of war if McClellan won the presidency. A liar named Émile Boulier claimed he had seen Vallandigham in Richmond, closeted with Jeff Davis and other rebel leaders and pledging himself to the Confederate cause. Boulier’s “Startling Revelations” circulated as propaganda and made the headlines in most Republican newspapers. The popularity of Boulier’s tall tale prompted Vallandigham to write an open letter and nail Boulier’s hide to the wall. “I did not see Jefferson Davis, Seddon, or Benjamin, or any other member of the Southern Cabinet,” the onetime exile wrote in a card published in the Cincinnati Enquirer. “I was never ‘closeted’ with any of them anywhere, never was a visitor or had any ‘conferences’ with Mr. Benjamin, and in short, was not in Richmond at all—as the fellow asserts.”30
Republican editors and orators ignored Vallandigham’s denials. They were using treason as a campaign issue and gaining popular support. Traitorous blood, one imaginative Republican asserted, flowed in McClellan’s as well as Vallandigham’s veins. They were brother traitors, the only difference being that the Daytonian’s treason was “more open and noisy”; McClellan’s was “just as real and earnest.”31
The first election tests occurred in early October, for half a dozen states held gubernatorial and congressional contests at that time. Republicans won every test, disheartening Democrats everywhere. In Ohio, Samuel Cox lost his bid for reelection. “It is evident,” wrote one despairing Democrat, “that there is no use in trying to save Ohio [in the presidential contest].”32
Heartened by the October election returns, Republicans intensified their effort to keep McClellan out of the White House. Propaganda agencies such as the Union Congressional Committee and the Loyal Publication Society ground out new campaign documents. Even the secretary of war had a hand in the production of a propaganda piece. Judge Advocate General Joseph Holt, on instructions from Edwin M. Stanton, investigated “subversive secret societies” and produced a report that linked the Sons of Liberty and the Order of American Knights to perfidy and treason: encouraging the peace movement in the North, abetting Southern independence, resisting the draft, and establishing a “Northwest Confederacy.” Vallandigham, Holt insisted, commanded the Northern half of the subversive organization while General Sterling Price headed the Southern half. Although Holt’s report borrowed heavily from Sanderson’s exposé of the Order of American Knights, he succeeded in dragging McClellan’s name into his fairy tale. He ended his 14,000-word report with a literary flourish: “Judea produced but one Judas Iscariot, and Rome, from the sinks of her demoralization, produced but one Cataline; and yet, as events prove, there has arisen in our land an entire brood of traitors, all animated by the same parricidal spirit, and all struggling with the same ruthless malignity for the dismemberment of the Union.”33
Holt’s handiwork, published as a Republican campaign document,34 damaged McClellan’s presidential ambitions. It also maligned Vallandigham, portraying him as a “conspirator” and “traitor.” Vallandigham felt compelled to make explanations and denials. In two public speeches he talked at length about the Sons of Liberty and its objectives as he understood them. Its aims, he said, were to counteract the Union Leagues, to “promote Jeffersonian doctrine,” and to “protect individual rights.” It was, he added, “a militant Democratic group” within the great national [Democratic] party” and he compared it to the Sons of Liberty of pre-Revolutionary War days.35
Vallandigham also wrote the editor of the New York News to debunk Holt’s composition and some fantastic comments which Greeley had published in the New York Tribune: “As to the charges of ‘conspiracy’ set forth in Judge Advocate Holt’s pamphlet and the eleven specifications summed up by Horace Greeley, I have only to say that, as far as I am concerned, they are absolute falsehoods and fabrications from beginning to end. They are false in the aggregate, and false in detail. More than that, they are [as] preposterous and ridiculous as they are without foundation; and all this Mr. Judge Advocate Holt . . . and Mr. Horace Greeley know very well.”36 In a large measure, Vallandigham was correct. The report was compounded of lies, conjecture and political malignancy, designed solely to discredit Vallandigham and McClellan and help reelect Lincoln.
Democratic editors joined Vallandigham in denouncing Holt’s report. They characterized the author as “a deliberate and atrocious liar,” “a modern Titus Oates,” and “a man who is ready to commit any folly to please his employer.” They labeled his report “a conglomeration of falsehoods,” “a precious pottage cooked in the cauldron of his imagination,” “an electioneering document,” and “a cold-blooded piece of campaign propaganda, printed and circulated at public expense.”37 They were right on most counts, but their denials and disapprovals had little effect either in checking the circulation of Holt’s report or in undermining public credulity as to its contents. “The exposé of the Sons of Liberty,” wrote a jubilant Republican, “is tearing the ranks of the Democracy all to flinders. McClellan stock is not quoted at all.”38
Democrats who feared the worst from the November 8 election returns found their fears realized. Lincoln defeated McClellan by 400,000 votes and grabbed 212 electoral votes to McClellan’s 21. Lincoln received the electoral vote of every Northern state, losing only the border states of Kentucky, Delaware, and New Jersey, although his margin in New York State was less than 7,000 votes out of 730,000 cast.
Democrats held election post-mortems, tried to console each other, and grasped at straws. Some blamed their defeat upon fraud, forgeries, threats, and intimidation. Others suggested that “blind fanaticism,” stirred up by Republican propaganda, prevented the people from knowing the truth. Men like Alexander Long blamed party delegates for ignoring the wishes of the people who wanted peace, nominating McClellan rather than a Peace Democrat. Still others believed that Vallandigham’s presence at the Democratic National Convention had stigmatized the party and given Republicans a chance to make treason a campaign issue. Those looking for a scapegoat pointed their fingers in Vallandigham’s direction.
Chastized but not chastened by the election returns, Vallandigham returned to his law practice. He nevertheless retained his interest in national affairs. Generally, he backed Lincoln in his quarrel with radical Republicans over reconstruction policy. He did not, however, favor the Thirteenth Amendment, viewing it as another step toward centralization of the government and “another deadly blow at the rights solemnly reserved to the States.”39
Grant’s defeat of Lee’s army and the capture of Richmond forced Vallandigham to give up his stubbornly held views of compromise-and-peace. C.L.V. then wrote to Greeley, urging him to take the lead in promoting a liberal reconstruction policy, one free of confiscation, execution, and subjugation. A vindictive policy, Vallandigham asserted, would bring “ages of mischief and agitation.”40
For once, Vallandigham and Lincoln saw eye to eye on an issue. Lincoln’s advocacy of a moderate reconstruction policy made him grow in Vallandigham’s esteem. Suddenly, like an electric shock, the news that Lincoln had been assassinated reached Dayton. Vallandigham characterized the act as “the worst public calamity which could have befallen the country.” He praised Lincoln’s “liberal and conciliatory” reconstruction policy. And he said that those who did not shudder because of “the most horrible of all crimes” were really “no better than the assassin.”41
Midway in the war Vallandigham had viewed Lincoln as a blind partisan and had even convinced himself that Lincoln sought the despot’s scepter. Yet before the war’s end he had gained some respect for the president. Certainly Lincoln’s feud with the radical Republicans and his advocacy of a reasonable reconstruction policy convinced the Dayton Democrat that Lincoln was not the evil genius he had pictured him to be. Perhaps the fact that Lincoln had not ordered his rearrest affected Vallandigham’s point of view. The public’s reaction to the assassination certainly mellowed and molded his once rigid anti-Lincoln views. C.L.V.’s persistent belief that time would vindicate him, however, prevented him from accepting the contention that the Civil War transformed Lincoln the politician into Lincoln the statesman. Nor could he agree with the prophecy, written by a radical Republican critic of the president: “This murder, this oozing blood . . . opens to him immortality.”42
1 Thomas O. Lowe to his brother William, 14 August 1864, Thomas O. Lowe Papers, Dayton and Montgomery County Public Library; Dayton Daily Journal, 15 August 1864.
2 Dayton Daily Empire, 17 August 1864.
3 Thomas O. Lowe to his brother William, 25 August 1864, Lowe Papers.
4 Chicago Times, 27, 28 August 1864; Dayton Daily Empire, 27 August 1864.
5 Entries of 27-29 August 1864 in “Diary,” and 30-31 August, 1 September 1864 in “Journal,” Samuel P. Heintzelman Papers, Library of Congress.
6 Testimony of Vallandigham before the Cincinnati Military Commission, 29 March 1865, published in the Cincinnati Daily Enquirer, 30 March 1865.
7 Dayton Daily Empire, 29 August 1864; Barlow to Manton Marble, 21 August 1864, and Cox to Marble, 7 August 1864, Manton Marble Papers, Library of Congress.
8 Cox to Barlow, 21 November 1863, Samuel L. M. Barlow Papers, Henry E. Huntington Library, San Marino, California; Dayton Daily Empire, 30 August 1864.
9 Chicago Times, 30, 31 August 1864; Dayton Daily Empire, 29, 30 August 1864.
10 C.L.V. to editor of the New York News, 22 October 1864, published in Dayton Daily Empire, 29 October 1864; Chicago Times, 28-31 August, 1 September 1864; Missouri Republican (St. Louis), 28-31 August, 2 September 1864.
11 Missouri Republican, 31 August 1864; Dayton Daily Empire, 31 August 1864.
12 Noah Brooks, Washington in Lincoln’s Time (New York, 1895), p. 180; Samuel Cox to Manton Marble, 6 September 1864, Marble Papers.
13 Entry of 1 September 1864, “Diary, 1864,” George B. Smith Papers, State Historical Society of Wisconsin, Madison.
14 William H. Aspinwall to McClellan, 4 September 1864, and George T. Curtis to McClellan, 1 September 1864, George B. McClellan Papers, Library of Congress; Col. Durbin Ward to Samuel S. Cox, 2 August 1864, Samuel S. Cox Papers (microfilm), Hayes Memorial Library, Fremont, Ohio.
15 4 September 1864, McClellan Papers.
16 Entry of 9 September 1864, “Diary, 1864,” Smith Papers; New York World, 8 September 1864. See Charles R. Wilson, “McClellan’s Changing Views on the Peace Plank of 1864,” American Historical Review 38 (April 1933) : 498-510.
17 Crisis (Columbus), 8 September 1864.
18 Cox to Manton Marble, 6 September 1864, Marble Papers; Dayton Daily Journal, 10 September 1864; Dayton Daily Empire, 7, 9 September 1864.
19 13 September 1864, Marble Papers.
20 Dayton Daily Empire, 16 September 1864.
21 Dayton Daily Journal, 17 September 1864.
22 Dayton Daily Empire, 24 September 1864. The refusal of John Hough James to share a platform with C.L.V. is related in William E. and Ophia D. Smith, Buckeye Titan (Cincinnati, 1953), p. 516.
23 Zachariah Chandler to his wife, 24 September 1864, Zachariah Chandler Papers, Library of Congress.
24 Howard K. Beale, ed., Diary of Gideon Welles: Secretary of the Navy under Lincoln and Johnson, 3 vols. (New York, 1960), 2:140.
25 James A. Garfield to his wife, 23 September 1864, James A. Garfield Papers, Library of Congress.
26 William H. Russell, in London Times, 17 March, 24 September 1864.
27 New York Tribune, 22 September 1864.
28 Boston Daily Journal, 29 September 1864.
29 Dayton Daily Journal, 1 September 1864.
30 Émile Boulier to “Members of the Union League, Philadelphia” [1864], in William P. Palmer Papers, Western Reserve Historical Society, Cleveland; report, Clement C. Clay to Hon. Judah P. Benjamin, 12 September 1864, published in Official Records, ser. 4, 3:637-38; Dayton Daily Journal, 24 September 1864; C.L.V. to editors of the Cincinnati Daily Enquirer, 21 September 1864, published 24 September.
31 Gerritt Smith, Gerritt Smith on McClellan’s Nomination and Acceptance (New York: Loyal Publication Society, 1864), p. 12; George H. Otis to Lucius Fairchild, 10 September 1864, Lucius Fairchild Papers, State Historical Society of Wisconsin, Madison. Also see William Frank Zornow, “Treason as a Campaign Issue in the Re-election of Lincoln,” Abraham Lincoln Quarterly 5 (June 1949): 348-63.
32 Samuel L. M. Barlow to Cox, 15 October 1864, Cox Papers.
33 Report, Joseph Holt to Edwin M. Stanton, 8 October 1864, published in Official Records, ser. 2, 7: 930-53.
34 Report of the Judge Advocate General on “The Order of American Knights,” alias “The Sons of Liberty”: A Western Conspiracy in Aid of the Southern Rebellion (Washington: Union Congressional Committee, 1864).
35 Chicago Times, 22 October 1864; Dayton Daily Empire, 7 November 1864.
36 22 October 1864, undated clipping in “O.A.K. Scrapbook,” John P. Sanderson Papers, Ohio Historical Society. The letter was published in the Dayton Daily Empire, 29 October 1864.
37 Cincinnati Daily Enquirer, 16, 20 October 1864; Detroit Free Press, 23 October 1864; Illinois State Register (Springfield), 18, 21 October 1864.
38 William H. H. Terrell to John T. Wilder, 6 October 1864, John T. Wilder Papers, Indiana Division, Indiana State Library.
39 Dayton Daily Empire, 25 January 1865.
40 11 April 1865, Horace Greeley Papers, New York Public Library.
41 Dayton Daily Empire, 16 April 1865.
42 Count Adam Gurowski, Diary . . . from March 4, 1861, to November 10, 1865, 3 vols. (Washington, 1862-1866), 3:398.