Ohio History Journal

CLEMENT L. VALLANDIGHAM     BY W. H. VAN FOSSAN, LISBON, OHIO. In my library is a pencil-marked volume of the miscellaneous works of Sir Philip Sidney, Knt. It is not the contents of this book, however, that leads me to refer to it, but the carefully punctuated autograph of its purchaser: "C. L. Vallandigham, London, Canada West, April 22, 1864." Fifty years after, it may be of interest to ask, Who was this man his followers called the "martyr in exile", the man who, in

part at least, occasioned the writing of Edward Everett Hale's  famous   patriotic story which appeared at that time, "A Man Without a Country"?   Who was he who made the Ohio cam- paign of 1863 the most bit- ter political fight in the his- tory of the state and of whom it was said that out- side of the Confederate armies opposition to the war centered in him?  Let us look to the causes of this growing opposition and the circumstances which made Vallandigham its leader. The dark days of this middle period of the Civil

War had not yet passed. Grant was still besieging Vicksburg with- out success. After the battle of Stone River, Rosecrans was inac- tive and apparently helpless. Already Lee had invaded Maryland and threats of a second invasion of the North were heard. There (256)

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Clement L. Vallandigham.              257

had been the terrible and useless slaughter at Fredericksburg.

Lincoln's Proclamation of Emancipation was assailed by every

opponent of the abolition cause. Ardor for the cause of the

Union lessened and a draft became necessary. Riots were not

uncommon in the enforcement of the act of conscription. The

suspension of the writ of habeas corpus, particularly in territory

not occupied by the federal armies, was bitterly attacked. It is

thus seen there were not a few things to encourage the discon-

tent and opposition that had existed in the North from the

opening of the War. The Peace Democrats or Copperheads, as

the faction was called, demanded more loudly than before that a

compromise be made with the South and the War come to an end.

It was Vallandigham, still the member of Congress from

the Dayton, Ohio, district, who led these attacks on Lincoln

and the conduct of the War. From the beginning he had been

persistent in opposing the War, and the anti-slavery movement.

The record of his opposition is best shown in a volume of his

speeches on Abolition, The Union, and the Civil War. One of

these speeches is of particular interest in this connection. It

was made in January, 1863, in the last session of the ₃₇th Con-

gress and in the closing days of his last term in office. His sub-

ject was "The Great Civil War in America". Into-it he put the

supreme effort of his life. It was a frank and fearless statement

of his political beliefs and a philippic against the administration

of Lincoln. In commenting on this speech, a correspondent of

the Cincinnati Gazette said, "This man is the hero of our

northern rebels, the most respectable in talents, the most honest

in declaring his position, the brayest in defending them against

whatever storm of opposition and obliquy." The Boston Herald

made this comment: "His method of speaking is very attractive.

Added to his fine appearance of person he has a good voice and

gesture and always speaks without notes. Today he was bold and

determined and, while his views may be regarded as 'words of

brilliant and poisoned treason,' it is universally admitted to have

been a most able speech from that standpoint." It will give the

reader a better idea of its thought and sentiment if I quote from

the speech itself. He thus summed up his record on the question

of slavery: "I am one of the number who have opposed abolition-

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258       Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications.

ism or the political development of the anti-slavery sentiment of

the North and West from the beginning. In school, at college.

at the bar, in public assemblies, in the legislature, in Congress,

boy and man, as a private citizen and in public life, in time of

peace and in time of war, at all times and at every sacrifice, I

have fought against it." On the results of the war he said:

"You can never subdue the seceded states. Two years of fearful

experience have taught you that. Why carry on this war? It will

end with final separation of the South and the whole North-

west will go with the South. African slavery will come out of

this conflict fifty-fold stronger than when it was begun." At the

same time he declared himself to be a defender of the Union:

"Whoever here or elsewhere believes that war can restore the

union of these states; whoever would have a war for the abolition

of slavery or for disunion; and who demands southern inde-

pendence and final separation, let him speak: for him have I

offended. Devoted to the Union from the beginning, I will not

desert it now in the hour of its sore trial." He then pictured

the great and happy future of his reunited country and how it

had been the dream of his boyhood to live to the centennial year

of its birth and be the orator of the day. "Do right", said he,

"and trust to God and truth and the people. Perish office, perish

honors, perish life itself; but do the thing that is right and do it

like a man. We are in the midst of the very crisis of this revolu-

tion. If today we secure peace and begin the work of reunion

we shall yet escape; if not, I see nothing before us but unusual

political and social revolution, anarchy and bloodshed compared

with which the Reign of Terror in France was a merciful

visitation."

Every student of the period will find this address well worth

reading. Vallandigham was doubtless sincere; but woefully

wrong and impractical in his views. Had the plans proposed in

his address been carried out, they would have destroyed the

government he meant to preserve. To him there was no elastic

clause in the Constitution; no right to coerce a seceded state;

no emergency power even to preserve the very life of the Repub-

lic itself. He could not see, as Lincoln and others saw so clearly,

that the Constitution was a concrete, living, growing, flexible

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Clement L. Vallandigham.            259

thing, and to serve its fundamental purposes it must adjust itself

to the expanding life and new ideals of a great nation. Nor

could he see that there was no basis for the lasting reunion

of the states except upon the terms of the absolute surrender of

secession; and that, if needs be, the War must go on "Until every

drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid with another

drawn with the sword." The American people are not sticklers

for the letter of the law. They want their legislators and admin-

istrators to do things; and are satisfied to get them though the

spirit of the law may have to be drawn upon liberally to do so.

Through these gloomy days of opposition the careworn President

stood unchanging in his conviction that the War must end with

the extinction of both secession and slavery. And bad as it was,

the worst antagonism and most malicious abuse were yet to come.

In the fall election of 1862 Vallandigham had not been

returned to Congress. The sting of defeat made him still more

hostile and defiant, if possible. Out of office he was in danger

of being lost sight of if he did not keep himself before the

people. He came back to Ohio and was a receptive candidate

for governor; but the Democratic leaders did not look upon him

as an available man for the place. Just at this time, however,

events occurred which gave him the opportunity for the nomina-

tion he coveted. The famous General Orders No. 38, issued from

his headquarters at Cincinnati by General Burnside, who was

then in command of the military department of the Ohio, was the

spark in the powder: "All persons within our lines who commit

acts for the benefit of the enemies of our country will be tried

as spies and traitors and, if convicted, will suffer death. The

habit of declaring sympathy for the enemy will not be allowed in

this department. Persons committing such offenses will be at

once arrested and tried as above stated or sent beyond our lines

into the lines of their friends."

Vallandigham was furious over this order, which he de-

clared was an illegal restriction of the freedom of speech and the

press. A mass meeting of his party was held at Mount Vernon,

Ohio, the 1st of May. In the course of his speech on this

occasion he denounced this order of Burnside as a base usurpation

of power. He said that he despised it and spat upon it and

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260      Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications.   trampled it under his feet. He denounced Lincoln and his minions and called upon the people at the ballot box to hurl the tyrant from his throne. He denounced the war as wicked, cruel and unnecessary; a war not to preserve the Union, but to crush out liberty and erect a despotism; a war for the freedom of the blacks and the enslavement of the whites. The sooner the people informed these minions of usurped power that they would not submit to such restrictions upon their liberties, the better. The

speech was cheered by his listeners, many of whom wore badges of butternuts and copperheads. A report of this speech was made to General Burnside, who sent a company of soldiers by special night train to Dayton to ar- rest Vallandigham. His house was broken into. He was seized, hurried off to Cincinnati and placed in prison. The following day he issued an address to the Democratic party of the state. A military court was convened. Vallandigham was arraigned on the general charge, with several specifications, of "declaring

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Clement L. Vallandigham.             261

disloyal sentiments and opinions for the purpose of weakening

the power of the government to suppress an unlawful rebellion".

He was found guilty and sentenced to confinement in Ft. Warren

during the remainder of the War.

The city of Dayton went wild with excitement over the in-

cident. A mob burned the office of the leading Republican news-

paper. General Burnside sent troops to restore order. The city

was put under martial law. The whole country was pretty thor-

oughly aroused. At a meeting of the Democratic party, held at

Albany, N. Y., a committee drafted resolutions and sent them

to the President denouncing the arrest, trial and imprisonment.

Two days after the trial, Vallandigham's counsel, George E.

Pugh, asked Judge Leavett of the U. S. Circuit Court for a writ

of habeas corpus, which the court denied. The proceedings of

the trial were placed in the hands of Lincoln. What to do with

the prisoner was a delicate question for the President to decide.

He could not afford to endanger the support of the War Demo-

crats by carrying out the sentence. To release him would be

even worse. "Why," asked Lincoln, "must I shoot the simple-

minded soldier boy who deserts while I must not touch a hair of

the head of the wily agitator who induces him to desert?" The

President's tact in handling the situation was shown as on many

other occasions. "Why not take him", said Lincoln, "into the

South and turn him over to his friends?" On the President's

order Vallandigham was released from prison and sent to General

Rosecrans, taken into Tennessee by a military escort and under

a flag of truce delivered to General Bragg. But he remained

only a short time in the South. From Wilmington, North Caro-

lina, he took passage on a blockade runner and reached Bermuda,

whence he sailed in an English vessel to Halifax, Canada.

As he passed through different cities of the Dominion he received

no little attention from prominent British subjects. Established

on the border he kept in constant communication with men and

affairs at home. He was visited by many of his sympathizers,

singly and in delegations. When at Windsor, opposite Detroit,

where he finally took up his residence, he received a large body of

students from the University of Michigan. Agents of the con-

federate government were among his visitors, as were also mem-

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262      Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications.

 

bers of the "Knights of the Golden Circle", a secret order of

southern sympathizers organized in the North for the purpose of

overthrowing the authority of the United States and of giving

aid to the rebellion. With the assistance of men from the con-

federate army this organization planned to release the prisoners

at Johnson's Island, Camp Douglass and other northern prisons.

The actual attempt to do so at Johnson's Island is one of the

romances of the Civil War. There were many lodges in Ohio,

particularly in the southern part of the state. The membership

in Ohio alone was probably more than 50,000. Of this order

Vallandigham was the supreme commander at the very time he

was in exile. It is thus seen his banishment merely changed the

base but not the fact of his political activities and opposition.

As to the arrest of Vallandigham, it was a mistake. Gen-

eral Burnside should have paid no attention to the Mount Vernon

speech. The order issued by Burnside was also a mistake. The

anti-war faction took it as a challenge. The result of it was

Vallandigham was looked upon as a martyr and became the

hero of his party in Ohio. Other candidates for governor were

now swept out of the race. Delegates to the convention from

all parts of the state came instructed to vote for him. When the

convention met the state capital was filled with thousands of his

followers. The opposition to his nomination was feeble. With

violent speeches and amid scenes of excitement never before

witnessed at a state convention, he was chosen to head the

ticket. His nomination took place while he was still in the South.

Later, from the Clifton house on the Canadian side of Niagara

Falls, he sent out his letter of acceptance. The Republicans

nominated John Brough, who was a war Democrat.

In the campaign that followed the storm of party passion that

broke upon the state was without parallel in Ohio politics. Many

speakers of national reputation were brought in by both parties.

Great parades, including women dressed in white and on horse-

back, were a feature of the meetings. Neighbors and members

of the same household became enemies and personal encounters

were a common occurrence. Threats were made that if Val-

landigham decided to return to the state an army of Democrats

would meet him at the border as an escort. The newspaper

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Clement L. Vallandigham.            263

files and the memory of many men and women still living are

witness of the extreme hatred, vituperation and violence of the

time. It was the climax of the anti-war sentiment in the state

and country. On the other side brighter days for the Union

cause had come. Vicksburg had surrendered and Lee had been

hurled back from Gettysburg never to recover from his terrible

losses. From the start the campaign was a losing fight for the

Democrats. More than any one else Vallandigham himself was

responsible for putting his party on indefensible ground in its

attitude toward the war. Prominent Democrats as army and

naval officers and many thousands of others in the field and at

home had joined with political enemies to save the Union; while

their party standard-bearer in this campaign was a pro-slavery

man with semi-secession sentiments and who from his seat in

Congress had practically opposed every measure of the admin-

istration to put down the rebellion; a man who gloried in the

defeat of the Union armies on the field and of the Union at the

polls, whose influence had discouraged enlistment and had en-

couraged desertion and riot, and who finally, under the constitu-

tional claims of free speech, had goaded on the government to his

arrest and banishment. Too late had the Democratic leaders seen

their fatal blunder. They had mistaken the deeper feelings of

the people. Election day came-it was then in October-and

Brough's majority was a hundred thousand.

However, this battle at the polls helped to do at least one

good and decisive thing. In the large it put up squarely to the

people the issue of a new Union, purged of both secession and

slavery. And the result was the end of organized and insolent

disloyalty in the North. Henceforth, peace by compromise was

a dead issue and the menace of its brilliant but misguided leader

passed with it.

In the following year Vallandigham left Windsor in disguise

and the day after his departure appeared unexpectedly at a

political meeting in Hamilton, Ohio. He returned to his home in

Dayton and, unmolested by the government, resumed the practice

of law. He was a delegate to the national convention of 1864

which nominated McClellan and also to that of 1868. Though

the man above all others who put his party on the wrong side

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264      Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications.

during the war, yet to his credit it must be said it was he who

first proposed a "right about face" plan to give his party a new

start and redeem it from the disadvantage of its war record.

The new doctrine "was to be a settlement in fact of all the is-

sues of the War and acquiescence in the same as no longer is-

sues before the country."  Such a resolution was offered by

Vallandigham and adopted by the state convention held at Co-

lumbus the first of June, 1871. This was his last act in politics.

His death took place a few days later from the accidental dis-

charge of a pistol he was using for illustration in a murder trial.

But little past fifty and at the maturity of his powers, it is in-

teresting to ask what would have been his future had he lived

longer? In the new order of things would he have overcome

the feeling against him and again been honored with important

places of trust and leadership?

As one studies the career and character of this man he

thinks sadly of what the memory of him might have been. Here

was a northern man with talents, conscience, courage-a large

measure of all these. Yet why was he so persistently, narrowly

and venomously on the wrong side? Possibly his ancestors and

early training may account in part for his set of mind. Born

in 1820 at New Lisbon (now Lisbon), Ohio, he was the son of

Clement Vallandigham, a preacher of the Covenanter type, as

most Presbyterian divines were a century ago. The Van Lan-

deghems were Huguenots from Flanders and for conscience sake

had emigrated to Virginia about 1690. His mother was Re-

becca Laird, of Scotch-Irish parentage. Decision, moral courage,

religious conviction were family traits, and Clement Laird, the

subject of this sketch, had them all. Yet with his intense

nature, he was free from bigotry. He was never known to

speak unkindly of another's belief. He was, however, a po-

litical zealot and few boys more than young Vallandigham were

"father to the man". He took for his political creed the Jef-

ferson resolutions of 1798. As a college student we find him

defending state rights and slavery. He made speeches in the

campaigns of 1840 and 1844 for the Democratic party. In the

meantime he studied law, and had been admitted to the bar and

was practicing in his native town with his older brother, who later

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Clement L. Vallandigham.             265

entered the ministry and was his biographer. He represented his

native county in the state legislature at the time of the Mexican

War and young as he was became a leader among his party col-

leagues. He then moved to Dayton to become editor of the

Western Empire, a Democratic newspaper of the town. After

two years he again took up the practice of law and soon won

high rank at the bar. At the same time he was continually in

politics. For a period of ten years he was a candidate for

office-that of common pleas judge, lieutenant governor, and

other offices, but was not successful. In 1856 he was the candi-

date of his party for Congress and after a six months' contest

over the vote was given a seat in the House, where he sprang at

once into a position of leadership. For twenty years he had

made speeches against abolition and the growing centralization of

power in the federal government. He was of the Calhoun school

and clung to principles in the abstract; in party phrase a strict

constructionist, a devotee of the Union as it was. He prided

himself on his political consistency; but consistency with him

made little provision for change and progress. He wanted to

keep the Union intact; but was so blinded with the idea of a

literal and inelastic constitution and so obsessed with the idea

of compromise, he was willing to accept almost any kind of a

union agreeable to the interests of slavery. Peace at any price

was the burden of his speeches. And just before the beginning

of the War he prepared a bill proposing to divide the country

into four sections for the purpose of government. In advocat-

ing his ideas he was reckless of opposition and at times spoke

with a boldness that was startling. To this add his boundless am-

bition and his end is not surprising. In the crisis through which

his country in its growth was passing he did not see how futile

it was to attempt "The Future's portal with the Past's blood-

rusted key". Next to Lincoln the most talked of and para-

graphed man of the time, he is without statue or tablet, North

or South-truly a man without a country. And the Vallandig-

ham homestead, instead of being a Mecca for future generations

as an enthusiastic editor had predicted, is only a name, without

historical interest even to the youth of his native village.

Differ as men did as to his political career his non-political

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266      Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications.

and personal life was common ground for admiration and praise.

Here also the man and the boy were one and the same. He was

a bright lad. On the authority of his brother he knew the alpha-

bet at two, had begun Latin and Greek at eight and at twelve

was ready for college. Being too young to enter, he continued

his studies under the family roof where his father conducted a

small classical school to help out on his meager salary. At seven-

teen he entered Jefferson College, Pa., in the junior year. In

the two years following he was principal of Union Academy in

eastern Maryland. He then returned to college for the work

of the senior year; but did not graduate because of his dismissal

for the offensive manner in which he had expressed his political

opinions in a recitation. Later he was offered a diploma by the

college president whom he had offended. In these years he is

described as a slender, hawk-nosed, eagle-eyed, handsome young

fellow. He was high-spirited, sensitive, proud, at times despond-

ent and impatient of restraint, in defeat a hard loser. Though

dignified and reserved and by some considered eccentric, he was

modest and winning in his manners and much admired. He

made few intimate friends, and later, when in public life, was

never a good mixer. He cared little for play and took no part

in college sports. Yet he loved outdoor life and was a good shot

and an enthusiastic fisherman. He took study seriously and

stood high in his classes. Even at this time his course of life

seemed clear to him and he made thorough preparation for it.

He was a dilligent student of literature, history and public speak-

ing, and won honors in debate.

His character was exceptionally pure. He had adopted a

code of rules for moral and religious culture and under no circum-

stances would he sacrifice principle for good fellowship. On one

occasion when among convivial friends who undertook to force

him to drink he defended himself with pistol in hand. He was

made of stern stuff. While yet in his teens his character was set

as firmly as in most men of thirty. The example and religious

training of his home had made deep impressions. He revered

the memory of his father; and his love for his mother, who lived

to old age, was singularly beautiful. His letters to his wife, who

was Louisa McMahon of Maryland, show his devotion to his

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Clement L. Vallandigham.              267

own family and his concern for the careful training of his son.

Honest, sincere, high-minded, God-fearing, as a young man,

through all the ups and downs of his career he changed little.

No political corruption touched him. A member of the Presby-

terian church, he held firmly to what had been for generations

the family faith. He was a close student of the Bible, which he used

abundantly for illustration in conversation and in his speeches.

Always a gentleman, refined and cultured, oven in the most heated

controversies he seldom violated the proprieties of discussion. He

was a brilliant conversationalist and outside of his politics was

admired alike by friends and foes. All his life he was a great

reader. He never lost his love for the ancient classics. History

was his favorite subject and the Federalist his political text-book.

His well-selected library contained all the best of poetry and fic-

tion and the standard works of history, biography, and philosophy.

And he had read them all. It was his habit in reading to mark

passages that impressed him and to fill the blank pages with notes

and comments. He read with care and forgot little. No member

of Congress was more ready in discussion; few statesmen of his

time more elegant in diction, more forceful and eloquent or more

withering in sarcasm. With so much to praise, the pity of it is

that his political life spells obstruction and destruction and not

construction; that with his great abilities and inflexible purpose

and acknowledged integrity he fought to the bitter end those

who gave our country its "new birth of freedom" and lasting

union and the primacy it holds in the great world affairs of

today.

"We shall march prospering,-not thro' his presence;

Songs may enspirit us, - not from his lyre;

Deeds will be done,--while he boasts his quiescence,

Still bidding crouch whom the rest bade aspire."

 

All his life a citizen of a northern state, he ought to have

been on the honor roll of his country. But somehow on the loom

of his life in the very beginning the weaver tangled the threads

and the cause of Freedom and Union lost a great leader.

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