19
LEE’S SURRENDER AND Lincoln’s assassination did not bring an end to the Civil War era. The fruits of the war appeared on the mangled tree of reconstruction as the country tried to solve problems arising from the fratricidal conflict. Clement L. Vallandigham was as controversial a figure during the reconstruction era as he had been during the war years. His efforts to attain vindication and a seat in the United States Senate were adversely affected by his wartime record and the Republican practice of “waving the bloody shirt.” Personal animosities which had developed during the war years plagued him during the reconstruction era and helped to make him the stormy petrel of Ohio politics.
Vallandigham had strong convictions in regard to reconstruction policy and he presented them publicly at every opportunity. He wanted the Southern states brought back into the Union without rancor or revenge, without penalties or punishment, without test-oaths and trials for treason. He did not want an army dictatorship imposed upon the South, nor years of probation before normality prevailed. He accepted emancipation as a fait accompli, but he did not want the newly freed to have any political and social rights. He abhorred the doctrine of “Negro equality” as much during the reconstruction years as he had during the war, proving he was still a racist, for he advocated rights for the white man which he would deny the black man.1
At various party rallies or public meetings Vallandigham urged his fellow Democrats to give full support to President Johnson’s reconstruction policies, regarding them as moderate and reasonable. He shuddered at the demands of radical Republicans, for he believed it a simple choice between order and chaos, moderation and malevolence, reunion and continued conflict.2
He played an important part in the Democratic State Convention of August 24, 1865. As temporary chairman, he had a chance to make a speech and he talked about reconstruction. Democrats were the true Unionists, he asserted, because they sought to readmit the Southern states quickly and quietly, without imposing undue penalties or causing undue suffering. After defending President Johnson, he restated his racist views—he opposed social and political rights for all blacks, whether they resided in Ohio or in the Southern states.3 Later he endorsed the resolutions, tainted with racism,4 which the convention adopted, and he applauded the selection of George W. Morgan as the party’s gubernatorial candidate.
Vallandigham campaigned extensively for Morgan, a close friend of his boyhood days in New Lisbon. He recognized that Morgan’s election and the selection of a Democratic legislature might further his political rehabilitation. Simply stated, Vallandigham wanted John Sherman’s seat in the United States Senate, and that wish could not be realized if Republicans won the October elections. Not only did the onetime exile want the honor, but he craved the vindication the office would bring. He believed that political enemies had heaped “obloquy, persecution and wrong” upon him undeservedly and that a man of lesser character and fortitude would have broken under the “excessive pressures.” His insatiable desire for the senate seat made him rationalize; he convinced himself that the Ohio Democracy owed him the honor.5
The election returns of October 10 doomed Morgan’s hopes to serve his state as governor and deferred Vallandigham’s desire to sit in the senate. The Republican-controlled state legislature, meeting in early January 1866, returned John Sherman to the senate for another six-year term. Vallandigham, consequently, had to reset his sights and aim for Ben Wade’s seat. His chance of replacing Wade, of course, depended in part upon the election returns of 1867 as well as the support of his party’s hierarchy.
As time passed by, national politics became more complex, more confused, and more emotional. President Johnson and the radical Republicans drifted farther apart; Johnson’s veto of the Freedmen’s Bureau Bill and the Civil Rights Bill widened the rift. Some of the president’s supporters, such as Henry J. Raymond, editor of the New York Times, and James R. Doolittle, senator from Wisconsin, took steps to effect a coalition of conservatives, whether Republicans or Democrats. They arranged for a national convention in Philadelphia on August 15 to rally public support for President Johnson’s reconstruction policies and affect the elections of October and November. The call for the convention, however, simply stated that its purpose was “to hold counsel together upon the state of the Union.”
Ohio Democrats disagreed as to the desirability of sending delegates to the Philadelphia convention. Should they encourage the split developing within the Republican party? Would the Democracy be swallowed up in the fusion movement? Should not straight-laced Democrats boycott the Philadelphia meeting? After wrangling among themselves, Ohio Democrats, encouraged by Vallandigham, decided to endorse the election of delegates to Philadelphia.
The controversial Dayton Democrat actively sought to be named one of the two delegates from the Third Congressional District. Hugh J. Jewett and Lewis D. Campbell, on the other hand, openly opposed his selection. Jewett and Campbell claimed that Vallandigham had flirted with treason during the war, helping to taint the Democracy in the eyes of the nation. His very presence at Philadelphia, Campbell contended, would stigmatize the fusion movement and discredit the convention. Still claiming to be a Republican, Campbell insisted that C.L.V. watch the fusion movement from the sidelines. “We must squelch him,” Campbell wrote to another conservative Republican, Orville H. Browning. “He means mischief. . . . He is a dangerous man and must be watched. His motto is ‘rule or ruin’—particularly the ruin part. I know him well. He is as full of pure cussedness as an egg is of meat.”6 Evidently Campbell had not yet forgiven Vallandigham for depriving him of a seat in Congress eight years earlier and for preaching Copperhead doctrine during the war.
Yet C.L.V.’s strength in the party was such that his critics could not deny him a delegateship from the Third District. It was ironic that the fusionists of this district named Lewis D. Campbell as their second delegate. The two were strange bedfellows, neither having any personal respect for the other. Their political rivalry had degenerated into personal animosity bordering on contempt. Yet they traveled together to Philadelphia to boost Johnson’s political stock, undermine radical Republican reconstruction policy, and serve conservative interests. The wheel of fortune took strange turns indeed!
Vallandigham had little opportunity to partake in political maneuvering on the eve of the Philadelphia convention. After arriving in the “City of Brotherly Love,” he went to bed in his room at the Girard House, felled by a violent attack of dysentery, plus choleric symptoms. Later in the evening, however, he felt well enough to receive visitors. A steady stream of callers poured into his room, some concerned with his health and some with his politics. Philip Hoyne of Illinois and Montgomery Blair of Maryland called to ask Vallandigham not to claim his seat in the next day’s convention—he could stay in bed and offer an excellent excuse for missing the meeting. Hoyne told his host that many delegates intended to deny him his seat and that the fusion movement might collapse if an open fight developed over his presence. Blair, assigned to convince Vallandigham to withdraw, added his arguments to those of Hoyne, but he failed to secure a commitment from the bed-ridden delegate. Blair enlisted the aid of Benjamin F. Perry and Governor James L. Orr of South Carolina. They visited Vallandigham’s room and had a lengthy visit, but also came away empty-handed.7
Later that night, Vallandigham felt well enough to lock his suite and hunt up the committee room where the Ohio delegation was in caucus. As he entered the room and walked toward an empty chair, he realized that the delegates were discussing a resolution asking him “not to present himself to the Convention.” The argument was hot and heavy. A timid man would have excused himself and walked out, somewhat embarrassed. Vallandigham, rather brazenly, took a chair to listen to the discussion and insist upon his rights. The heated discussion lasted a full hour and produced only more discord. The caucus adjourned late at night without the resolution being put to a vote and with the question of Vallandigham’s participation in the next day’s convention still unresolved.
Seeking solace, Vallandigham drifted to Room 32 of the Girard House. There Samuel Cox and several guests were enjoying viands and cigars while debating the merits of fusion and the future of their party. Vallandigham’s entry served as an excuse for Cox to shift the discussion to a more practical question. Should not Vallandigham, in the interests of harmony and expediency, withdraw as a delegate? Cox bluntly asked the Daytonian to withdraw, occasionally pounding a table for effect. Others, including Benjamin Wood and James E. English, once a prominent Connecticut Copperhead, added their pleas and their arguments to those of Cox. James W. Wall of New Jersey, on the other hand, argued that Vallandigham was entitled to sit in the convention—certainly he had more right to a seat than out-and-out ex-Confederates or ex-rebels. Cox, who later characterized Vallandigham as “selfish as a mink and as stubborn as a mule,”8 bore down upon his latest caller as sparks flew. Vallandigham, of course, defended his right to sit in the convention and insisted that his conscience was clear. In time, Vallandigham ceased defending himself, but listened intently to the arguments and counterarguments of the others. The discussants consumed the last bottle of claret at about three o’clock in the morning and the informal gathering broke up. Although Vallandigham had made no pledge, Cox gained the impression that he would not seek his seat in the convention.
Early the next morning, most of the Ohio delegates, Vallandigham being one of the absentees, met again in a prebreakfast conference. Since the controversial Daytonian had failed to formalize his removal from the convention, the assembled delegates adopted “a ripping vote of censure,” accusing him of “sowing seeds of disharmony.” Word of the censure reached Vallandigham, still sleepy-eyed and thick-headed after the night’s ordeal. After shaking out the cobwebs, the Daytonian hunted up George W. McCook, a member of the Ohio delegation and a longtime friend. He asked McCook if there was any question of the legality of his election as a delegate. McCook replied that there was none. Vallandigham next asked if he could have a ticket to the convention hall. “Certainly,” said McCook, reaching into his vest pocket, “take mine.” It was a clever retort, one that left Vallandigham hanging in mid-air.9
Vallandigham decided to capitulate, saving what honor he could. By withdrawing, he would make some Ohioans indebted to him; he would need their help in future years to get that coveted senate post. He concluded a backstage bargain with William S. Groesbeck, chairman of the Ohio delegation. If the Ohio delegates would rescind their censure resolution and adopt one complimenting him for his voluntary action, he would write a “letter of withdrawal.”
Groesbeck hurriedly rounded up the Ohio delegates to carry out his half of the bargain. A delegate introduced a measure which withdrew the censure resolution and incorporated one which read: “Resolved, That we recognize the right of the Hon. Clement L. Vallandigham . . . to hold a seat in the Convention . . . yet for the sake of harmony and good feeling . . . we consent to his withdrawal from a seat in the Convention, if, in his judgment, his duty to his constituents shall justify such a withdrawal.”10 Groesbeck then sent the revamped resolution up to Vallandigham’s room.
The unwanted delegate then sent his “letter of withdrawal” to Groesbeck. Instead of addressing it to the chairman of the Ohio delegation, however, the foxy Daytonian addressed it to the “Chairman of the National Union Convention, Philadelphia,”11 making it nearly mandatory that his letter be read before the entire convention.
By retreating, Vallandigham gained more publicity than he would have if the delegates had allowed him to take his seat without a fuss. His action gained some stature for him. In addition, he made new friends, made some Ohioans indebted to him, and gave the impression that he had surrendered personal wants for the public good. He saw himself as a martyr to harmony, contributing immeasurably to the success of the Philadelphia convention.
Ohio Republican editors claimed to find considerable pleasure in the fact that Vallandigham had had his face slapped at Philadelphia. “It is worse to be booted out of the house of a friend,” wrote Murat Halstead of the Cincinnati Commercial, “than kicked out of the house of an enemy.”12 William D. Bickham also rubbed salt in Vallandigham’s wounds. “After all his blatherings and gasconade,” Bickham stated, “Vallandigham suffered himself to be ignominiously kicked out of the Philadelphia convention.”13
Other Republican critics were able to gauge Vallandigham’s withdrawal more realistically. Whitelaw Reid of the Cincinnati Gazette supposed that the recalcitrant delegate had gained stature, not lost it. He labeled the convention “Vallandigham’s triumph.”14 In a sense Reid was correct. Certainly, Vallandigham had outwitted and outmaneuvered his detractors in Philadelphia. Republicans also recognized the irony of the situation. Ex-Confederates, military officers in the rebel army, or civil leaders in the Confederacy, had been welcomed with open arms at the convention. Yet Vallandigham’s presence there embarrassed some convention leaders. If Vallandigham had raised a regiment and fought for the Confederacy, Joseph Medill of the Chicago Tribune stated, he would have been welcomed, feted, and applauded. Ex-rebels, he added, were more welcome at “the renegades’ convention” than ex-Copperheads.15
After returning home from Philadelphia, Vallandigham leaped into the maelstrom of Ohio politics. He campaigned extensively in the Third District for Durbin Ward, Democratic nominee for Congress, and criss-crossed the state to speak in defense of the Democracy and a moderate reconstruction policy.
Both of Vallandigham’s causes went down to defeat in the election of 1866, and it was time again for the defeated to seek explanations for failures. C.L.V. concluded that Democrats must discuss the current issues, face the future, and shut the trapdoor upon the past. The Civil War had imposed a veritable revolution upon the country—freeing the slaves, centralizing the government, and putting captains of industry and masters of capital in control of affairs. Times had changed, Democrats had not. The Democracy might as well bury the states’ rights principles of Jefferson and Calhoun and cease blaming Republicans for the Civil War. Since they regarded themselves as law-and-order men, Democrats must accept the Thirteenth Amendment and recognize the ascendancy of the Industrial Revolution. Only by introducing new issues could Democrats nullify the Republican practice of winning elections by “waving the bloody shirt.” “The past,” Vallandigham argued, “must be forgotten, antecedants ignored, and the great issues of the hour be made the sole test of present fellowship and cooperation.”16
Certainly no one had more to gain by shutting out the past than Vallandigham. If he could get Republicans to discuss such issues as Greenbackism, reform, monopoly, transportation, and agricultural surpluses, Democrats might score better at the polls. If Vallandigham could get Republicans to ignore his record as a Copperhead and forget the story of his arrest and exile, he too might effect a political rehabilitation. No Democrat had more to gain by asking the party faithful to look toward the rising sun rather than the setting sun, advocating a policy later designated the “New Departure.” In a way it was strange that a man who had so often gloried in the historic role of the Democracy and in the deification of Jefferson and Jackson should ask his party to cease arguing old issues and seek out the new. As a disciple of Burke he had favored evolutionary change, but the revolution which had occurred within the Civil War was very real. In seizing the distaff of the prophet, however, he was also proving himself an opportunist. In helping his party to emphasize the present and forget the past he was also helping himself. The more he reviewed the past and assayed the future the more he wanted Ben Wade’s seat. His desire was evolving into an obsession.
Vallandigham again took to the hustings during the gubernatorial campaign of 1867, partially to strengthen his claim to a seat in the senate if the Democrats gained control of the state legislature. He advocated the election of Allen G. Thurman, a rival within the party, over Rutherford B. Hayes, the Republican candidate. He invariably stated his opposition to the proposed Fifteenth Amendment, denounced Republican corruption and Yankee cupidity, condemned the harsh reconstruction policy of the radicals, and railed against Wall Street and “the money monopoly.”17 He gave eighty speeches in all during the two-month campaign, keeping old friends and making new ones.
In the October election, the Democrats lost the governorship by a narrow margin—Hayes edged Thurman by 2,983 votes out of 484,227 cast, but captured control of the state legislature. Vallandigham immediately cast his eye on Wade’s senate seat, and his supporters sponsored rallies or wrote editorials advancing his claims. The Democratic newspaper of Dayton spearheaded the move to put Vallandigham in Wade’s place. It would, stated the sympathetic editor, be “a fitting rebuke to the many who had abused him so long.”18
Vallandigham even took the train to the state capital to lobby in his own behalf when the state legislature met in January 1868. He buttonholed old friends and unabashedly advanced his claims to new members. Members of the party hierarchy, however, thought that Thurman merited the post. The Democratic caucus considered the claims of both contenders and chose Thurman over Vallandigham, 51 votes to 24. The next day the state legislature ratified the decision of the Democratic caucus and Thurman took Wade’s seat in the senate.19
When Vallandigham returned to Dayton he made no effort to hide his deep disappointment. He proved himself a poor loser by refusing to attend a Columbus reception in Thurman’s honor. Republican editors noticed Vallandigham’s bad political manners and personal pique. “He loves and hates with intensity,” wrote Murat Halstead of the Cincinnati Commercial, “concentrating his love upon himself and hating all who do not approve or uphold him.” With obvious delight, Halstead added, “Vallandigham, with diminished proportions, his comb cut and tail feathers pulled out, roosts low on the sour apple tree.”20
Vallandigham continued to sulk for more than a month, finding time, meanwhile, to rebuild his law practice. He also helped to reorganize the faltering Democratic newspaper in Dayton, acquiring a half-interest in the financial enterprise and full control of the editorial policy. Immersed in newspaper and law work, he even announced that he would not seek to represent his state or the Third District at the Democratic National Convention in New York City in July.21
As the meeting-date of the national convention approached, however, C.L.V. became restless and decided to renege on his promise. He headed for the convention as “an observer,” not a delegate. He soon reached the conclusion that Salmon P. Chase ought to be his party’s presidential choice and he quit observing and engaged in behind-the-doors arguments in behalf of the chief justice. Vallandigham argued that some of Chase’s decisions on the court proved that he had returned to the Democratic fold, and that only a candidate who could cut into the Republican vote had a chance to be elected. Chase, Vallandigham argued, was the only possible nominee who might beat Grant, named earlier by the Republicans as their presidential choice.
On the fourth day of the convention four Ohio delegates resigned to return home and Vallandigham was one of several “observers” who then became delegates. Vallandigham still favored Chase while Winfield S. Hancock, Thomas J. Hendricks, and George H. Pendleton remained as favorites. When it became apparent that none of the three favorites could gain the necessary two-thirds majority, Vallandigham evolved a scheme to swing the convention to Chase. Horatio Seymour would be put in nomination to drive off the three favorites, and when the New Yorker declined again, Chase’s candidacy would be pressed actively “and carried through with a whirl.”22
The first step proceeded according to plan. The Ohio delegation nominated Seymour and dozens of delegates stepped into line, developing a boom for the New Yorker. But the plan backfired when Seymour’s ardent supporters refused to let him withdraw his name, and in the end the reluctant candidate received the nomination “amidst the wildest enthusiasm” on the twenty-second ballot. Vallandigham and his fellow plotters were left holding an empty Chase bag. He had tried to play the kingmaker, but had bungled the job.23
Soon after, Vallandigham experienced the same frustrations as Seymour. Without his knowledge and against his wishes, Democrats of the Third District drafted the controversial Daytonian to oppose Robert C. Schenck, the Republican nominee, in the congressional contest. At New York, Vallandigham had urged Seymour to put the wishes of the convention ahead of personal considerations. Now others used the same arguments to prevent the onetime exile from declining to run for congress.
Rather reluctantly, Vallandigham hit the campaign trail. But applause, friendly handshakes, and the thrill of the chase soon made his blood stir anew and relit the old spark. He talked of the problems of the present and the challenges of the future, advocating his “New Departure” policy. He tried to make Republicans discuss problems then facing the electorate. But the Republicans were too wise to play Vallandigham’s game; they “waved the bloody shirt” vigorously, reminding the gullible that Southern rebels and Northern Copperheads were brethren of the same principles, and they used their treason charges effectively. William D. Bickham of the Dayton Journal, for example, argued that the ’68 contest was one between treason and perfidy, represented by Vallandigham, and patriotism and honor, represented by Schenck. Vallandigham could not be trusted in 1863; he should not be trusted in 1868. In fact, the former exile’s candidacy was “a direct challenge to the patriotism of all who fought for, labored for, and prayed for the salvation of the Union during its recent struggle for self-preservation.”24
The ’68 election returns brought little comfort to Vallandigham. Schenck defeated him by 475 votes in October and Grant handily whipped Seymour in November—214 electoral votes to 80.25 Yet he found some solace in the fact that he had polled 1,100 more votes in his congressional district in October than Seymour did a month later. The more he mulled over the matter the more his spirits rose, his ego spurring him on. He believed he was reestablishing himself in Ohio politics, regaining popularity with the people. Once again he cast his eye upon John Sherman’s senate seat and dreamt of a favorable election in 1871. He still wanted the vindication which would go with his election to the senate. Like a true martyr, he still thought his party owed him the favor for the wrongs he had suffered during the war.
After the election post-mortems, Vallandigham again concentrated upon the law. In December 1869, he formed a practice with Daniel A. Haynes, who had served as Montgomery County’s judge of the Superior Court since its creation in 1855. The new team proved to be “one of the best and ablest in the West.”26 Both were excellent lawyers; no one knew how to apply precedent better than Haynes, and no one researched a case better than Vallandigham. The latter had an excellent law library and possessed the knack of anticipating the arguments of opposing lawyers. He had few peers in Ohio when it came to convincing a jury, for he was eloquent, charming, and persuasive in court, possessing that intangible quality called charisma. He could charm a jury, amuse or solemnize them as the occasion required, and simplify complex points of law.
Vallandigham’s ability at the bar sometimes led to the miscarriage of justice. The firm of Haynes & Vallandigham won nearly every criminal case in which it was involved. At times villains gained their freedom when they deserved the noose, or, conversely, men paid the full penalty when justice demanded a lesser penalty. One case which attracted statewide attention concerned Eli A. Lecklider, an 81-year-old farmer who had let his uncontrollable temper get out of hand and shot his son in an argument. The Republican attorney general of the state employed Vallandigham to prosecute the charges against Lecklider in one of the most notable murder trials ever held in Darke County. The trial lasted for eleven days, with the courtroom always filled to overflowing. In his final plea Vallandigham was so persuasive that he had most of the jurymen in tears. He sealed the doom of an old man who had already paid in remorse, and the hangman’s noose claimed another life. It was a questionable victory for the state. There was no question, however, that the jury’s verdict was a personal triumph for Clement L. Vallandigham.27
In 1871 friends of Thomas McGehan, a Hamilton rowdy accused of murder, asked Vallandigham to take over his defense. Because feeling against McGehan ran so high in Hamilton, C.L.V. requested a change of venue, and the court set the trial in Lebanon, Warren County, for June 6.
The trial lasted a full two weeks and public interest was so extensive that several dozen Ohio newspapers published nearly complete transcripts of the testimony. Attorneys for the state tried to prove that McGehan, with a pistol in his right-hand coat pocket, had shot Tom Myers while the two were but a few feet apart during a barroom brawl. Vallandigham, on the other hand, contended that Myers, in drawing his pistol out of his pocket while trying to rise from a kneeling position, had actually shot himself. Defense witnesses contradicted prosecution witnesses, and under Vallandigham’s persistent questioning prosecution witnesses contradicted themselves.28
After the court adjourned about three o’clock on the afternoon of June 16, Vallandigham and a fellow lawyer took a brief walk in the country to check at what distance and to what degree powder marks were visible when a pistol was fired at a piece of cloth at close range—a point of contention in the trial. After the experiment, Vallandigham returned to his room at the Lebanon Hotel and placed his revolver, with three bullets still in the chamber, alongside a similar but empty pistol, on the bureau. During a conference with his fellow lawyers later in the evening, Vallandigham stated that he would demonstrate to the jury next day just how Tom Myers had accidentally shot himself while drawing a pistol as he tried to arise from the floor. Pretending he was Myers, Vallandigham took a pistol from the bureau and put it in his right trouser pocket, not realizing that he had taken the loaded one by mistake. Then he slowly pulled it out, cocking it as he drew it forth. When the muzzle cleared the pocket, he tried to place it in the exact position which he believed Meyers’s weapon would have assumed at the moment when it was discharged. “There, that’s the way Myers held it,” Vallandigham said, “only he was getting up, not standing erect.” At that moment he pressed the trigger. There was a flash and the half-suppressed sound of a shot. “My God, I’ve shot myself!” Vallandigham exclaimed in shocked dismay as he reeled toward the wall and tried to hold himself up.29
Consternation reigned in the hotel. Hurried telegrams to Dayton brought Vallandigham’s sixteen-year-old son and the family physician, Dr. J. C. Reeves, to the wounded man’s bedside. Dayton friends arrived to join in the bedside vigil. Even Thomas McGehan, handcuffed and escorted by the jailer, visited the death room and shed tears freely before he was led away.30
After twelve hours of pain, at about nine-thirty the next morning, life ebbed away. There was a sudden movement of the body, stretched full length, and a few gasps of the fast-failing breath; the lower jaw dropped, and the iris disappeared, leaving only the white of the eye to be seen. Clement L. Vallandigham, Ohio’s most controversial politician, “departed with life.”31
Vallandigham’s nephew, John A. McMahon, took charge of the funeral arrangements. He had the corpse, packed with ice,32 conveyed to Dayton. He had trouble contacting Mrs. Vallandigham, who had gone to Cumberland, Maryland, to attend the funeral of her brother, John Van Lear McMahon. He asked Masonic friends of the deceased to conduct the burial rites. The same shop which brought forth the Dayton Journal printed 1,000 handbills announcing the funeral plans and these were circulated in the community.33 During the war William D. Bickham’s Journal had persecuted Vallandigham mercilessly, even publishing forged documents to help destroy his reputation. Now the Journal publicized the funeral and helped to bring out a huge crowd.
The controversial Daytonian was buried on June 20, 1871, in the shade of a sturdy oak tree in Woodland Cemetery. Mrs. Vallandigham, brought back to Dayton after attending her brother’s funeral in Cumberland, missed the ceremonies, being confined to her bed in “a state of collapse.”34 But many of Ohio’s notable sons and thousands of her citizens came from far and near to pay their respects. Salmon P. Chase journeyed to Dayton from Washington to help bury the man who tried to make him president in 1868. The Honorable Samuel S. Cox, who had moved to New York City, arrived to pay his respects to Vallandigham the man, whom he liked much more than Vallandigham the politician. George W. McCook, boyhood friend and political colleague, came from Steubenville to pay tribute to the deceased. Allen G. Thurman, a rival within the Ohio Democracy, came from Chillicothe to honor the man who wanted to be a United States senator more than words could tell. George E. Pugh, who had fought many political battles at Vallandigham’s side, came for one last look at his courageous friend. Then there were the thousands from the countryside who, as Butternuts during the Civil War, had developed an admiration for their idol which even death could not efface. Workingmen in Dayton, Hamilton, and country villages took a day off from work to honor a man they regarded as their champion. It took the funeral procession a full hour and twenty minutes to pass the Court House steps where Vallandigham had often stood, preaching his conservative brand of politics.
Under a soft summer sky and amidst the tears of his relatives and friends, they lowered his silver-trimmed rosewood coffin into the newly dug grave. After the band played its final dirge, the crowd dispersed and left the stormy petrel of Ohio politics to his eternal sleep. His friends wondered whether the fifty-one-year-old politician would have gained the senate seat he coveted if he had lived and whether, with the aid of time, he might have fully erased the stigma that partisan Republicans, aided by the patriotic fervor which the Civil War engendered, had linked to his name.35
There were the usual eulogies. “I thank God,” said George Pendleton, “he has lived long enough to see that Time, the Avenger in whom he had such unwavering faith, has commenced her work, and that many who maligned him most, were beginning to see their error and to do him justice.”36 Some eulogists spoke of his abilities as a lawyer and said that Vallandigham had indeed given his own life to save that of a client37—a rascal hardly worth saving. Others praised him for his eloquence as an orator, for his ability to evolve empathy with an audience, and for the depth and breadth of his scholarship. A few partisans recalled his unflinching devotion to the Democratic party and to the political principles of Thomas Jefferson. But most spoke of his courage, the sincerity of his convictions, and his willingness to fight for what he believed right, regardless of the cost. He was no reed bowing to the wind; rather, he was a sturdy oak defying the winds of change and the storms of passion. It was appropriate that his grave lay in the shadow of a sturdy oak tree.
He read history with the devotion of the true scholar, having one of the finest personal libraries in Ohio.38 His nine copies of Burke contained well-worn pages. Like Burke, he could recite historical events and repeat historical quotations by the hour, and his recollections could be trusted implicitly. Yet he knew little of the lessons of history. He never understood the power and influence of that psychological phenomenon called nationalism. And he never learned the lesson that those who swim against the current and test the limits of dissent—especially in wartime—fail to win the plaudits of posterity.
1 C.L.V. to Horace Greeley, 20 April 1865, Horace Greeley Papers, New York Public Library; Vallandigham to Young Men’s Democratic Association of Lancaster, Pennsylvania, 5 May 1865, published in Dayton Daily Empire, 24 May; Dayton Daily Journal, 8 June 1865.
2 Cleveland Herald (n.d.), quoted in Dayton Daily Journal, 21 August 1865.
3 Daily Ohio Statesman (Columbus), 25 August 1865.
4 One resolution stated that the government ought to be run “by and for the white man” and that Negroes should be denied the right to vote both in Ohio and in the Southern states. Another resolution called upon the Ohio legislature to pass laws which would prevent or discourage Negroes from emigrating into Ohio.
5 Vallandigham to James W. Wall, 25 November 1865, in Vallandigham Folder, New York Historical Society, New York City; Dayton Daily Journal, 8 October 1865.
6 31 July 1866, Orville H. Browning Papers, Illinois State Historical Library, Springfield.
7 Benjamin F. Perry, Reminiscences of Public Men (Greenville, S.C., 1889), pp. 298-302.
8 Quoted in the New York Times, 16 August 1866.
9 This story of Vallandigham and the Philadelphia Convention is a composite of accounts in the Cincinnati Daily Enquirer, 15, 16 August 1866; New York World, 15, 16 August 1866; Dayton Daily Journal, 15, 16, 18 August 1866; Dayton Daily Empire, 16-20 August 1866; Philadelphia Inquirer, 16 August 1866. For an excellent scholarly summary of the convention see Thomas Wagstaff, “The Armin-Arm Convention,” Civil War History 14 (June 1968): 101-19.
10 Cincinnati Daily Enquirer, 16 August 1866; Dayton Daily Journal, 16 August 1866.
11 Dated 15 August 1866, published in Dayton Daily Journal, 16 August. Also see the Nation, 23 August 1866; Philadelphia Inquirer, 16 August 1866; New York Times, 16 August 1866.
12 20 August 1866; Dayton Daily Journal, 21 August 1866.
13 Dayton Daily Journal, 16 August 1866.
14 29 August 1866.
15 20 August 1866.
16 C.L.V. to George W. Morgan, 11 December 1866, Vallandigham Papers, Western Reserve Historical Society, Cleveland.
17 Crisis (Columbus), 4 September 1867; Dayton Daily Journal, 19 August 1867.
18 Dayton Daily Ledger, 17 October 1867. In a reorganization, the Ledger replaced the Empire.
19 Daily Ohio Statesman, 9 January 1868; Dayton Daily Ledger, 9 January 1868.
20 22 January 1868.
21 Dayton Daily Ledger, 24, 31 January, 2 February, 7 March 1868.
22 William W. Armstrong, “Personal Recollections,” published in Cincinnati Daily Enquirer, 20 March 1886.
23 Ibid.
24 19 August, 1 September 1868.
25 The popular vote was 3,012,000 for Grant, 2,703,000 for Seymour.
26 Dayton Evening Herald, 30 December 1869.
27 Dayton Daily Journal, 8 November 1869, 2, 3 March 1870; Dayton Evening Herald, 11 March 1870.
28 Life and Trials of Thomas McGehean (Cincinnati, 1874) was written anonymously by McGehan. He used the ruse of misspelling his name in an effort to hide his identity. Some of the information in this and succeeding paragraphs is based upon William E. VanHorne, “The Strange Deaths of Clement L. Vallandigham and Thomas McGehan,” an unpublished manuscript in the hands of the author at 1576 Guilford Road, Columbus, Ohio, 43221.
29 Testimony of A. G. McBurney, published in Vallandigham, Vallandigham, p. 525. The Dayton Daily Journal, 17 June 1871, reported that Vallandigham exclaimed, “Oh, Murder! O what a blunder!”
30 Lebanon Weekly Star, 22 June 1871.
31 The Dayton Evening Herald, 19 June 1871, gives a detailed and vivid account of Vallandigham’s death. Also see Lebanon Weekly Star, 22 June 1871; Cincinnati Daily Commercial, 17, 18 June 1871; and Cincinnati Daily Enquirer, 17, 18 June 1871.
32 Bills for the ice, for “soiled bedding & extras,” and for shipping the body to Dayton are included in Packet No. 9875, Probate Records, Montgomery County Court House, Dayton.
33 Bickham’s bill of $3.75 for “printing and distributing” the handbills, as well as other funeral expenses, can also be found in Packet No. 9875.
34 Mrs. Louisa A. Vallandigham survived her husband by less than two months, dying on August 13 in Cumberland, where she was being cared for by her sister. Son Charles tried to follow in his father’s footsteps, studying law and entering politics. He was elected to the state legislature during the 1880s. Appointed to a clerkship in the state capitol, he moved to Columbus and deserted the city indelibly linked with his father’s name.
35 Dayton Evening Herald, 20 June 1871.
36 Quoted in Vallandigham, Vallandigham, p. 365.
37 After three separate trials, McGehan was discharged. This enabled Vallandigham’s friends to say that he had saved McGehan’s life by sacrificing his own. McGehan was assassinated by an unknown assailant on June 11, 1875, four years after Vallandigham’s death.
38 Inventory of his library, in Packet No. 9875, Probate Records.