Download Peace Democrats: The “Copperheads”

Peace Democrats: The “Copperheads”
[The Democrat Party has a long history of treason during war. The following gives a
great historical perspective to the anti-American actions of the current congress.]
Although the Democratic Party had broken apart in 1860, during the secession crisis
Democrats in the North were generally more conciliatory toward the South than were
Republicans. They called themselves Peace Democrats; their opponents called them
Copperheads because some wore copper pennies as identifying badges.
A majority of Peace Democrats supported war to save the Union, but a strong and active
minority asserted that the Republicans had provoked the South into secession; that the
Republicans were waging the war in order to establish their own domination, suppress
civil and states rights, and impose "racial equality"; and that military means had failed
and would never restore the Union. Anti-abolitionists feared that emancipation would
result in a great migration of blacks into their states.
As was true of the Democratic Party as a whole, the influence of Peace Democrats varied
with the fortunes of war. When things were going badly for the Union on the battlefield,
larger numbers of people were willing to entertain the notion of making peace with the
Confederate enemy. When things were going well, Peace Democrats could more easily
be dismissed as defeatists. But no matter how the war progressed, Peace Democrats
constantly had to defend themselves against charges of disloyalty. Revelations that a few
had ties with secret organizations helped smear the rest.
The most prominent Copperhead leader was Clement L. Valladigham of Ohio, who
headed the secret antiwar organization known as the Sons of Liberty. At the Democratic
convention of 1864, where the influence of Peace Democrats reached its high point,
Vallandigham persuaded the party to adopt a platform branding the war a failure, and
some extreme Copperheads plotted armed uprisings. However, the Democratic
presidential candidate, George B. McClellan, repudiated the Vallandigham platform,
victories by Maj. Gen. William T. Sherman and Phillip H. Sheridan assured Lincoln's
reelection, and the plots came to nothing.
With the conclusion of the war in 1865 the Peace Democrats were thoroughly discredited.
Most Northerners believed, not without reason, that Peace Democrats had prolonged war
by encouraging the South to continue fighting in the hope that the North would abandon
the struggle.
(Source: "Historical Times Encyclopedia of the Civil War" Edited by Patricia L. Faust)