Vallandigham in a Different Light
Friday,December 23 ,2011 Filed in: Price of Freedom
In the “President’s Corner” this year, I have been writing about myth-making and Civil War heroes, including the proposition that Lee at heart was against slavery and the elevation of the incompetent Edward Dickinson Baker to martyrdom (and a day of recognition in Oregon) as a result of his death at Ball’s Bluff. In both cases, ideology and politics led to the mythology surrounding the two men. Lost Cause proponents shaped Lee’s memory as the saintly representation of Southern gentlemen, too honorable to mistreat his family’s slaves and too principled not to wish for their emancipation. Baker’s Republican colleagues in the Senate eulogized him as the battlefield hero necessary for the country’s morale during the period after Bull Run and Ball’s Bluff. Both men shine in the mythologized light of memory.
Ideology and politics can also sully a man’s reputation, causing him to be remembered as a villain rather than a hero. Clement Vallandigham, the Copperhead leader, is a case in point and a familiar story to students of the Civil War. Vallandigham was a United States Congressman representing Ohio’s Third District when the war broke out. A vigorous supporter of constitutional states’ rights, he believed that the Southern states had a right to secede and that the Federal government had no right to regulate the legal institution of slavery. Furthermore, he believed that the North could not conquer the South militarily and strongly opposed all military bills that came before Congress until he lost re-election in 1862. Vallandigham did not mince words in his opposition to the policies of the Lincoln administration.
In a speech at Mount Vernon, Ohio, on May 1, 1863, Vallandigham claimed that the war was being fought “for the purpose of crushing our liberty and erecting a despotism…a war for the freedom of blacks and the enslavement of whites.” Vallandigham’s comments caused him to run afoul of General Ambrose Burnside’s newly issued General Order #38 which made it illegal to criticize the war effort within the Military District of Ohio. Burnside had him arrested for violating the order on May 5, 1863, and within two days of his arrest, a military court convicted him of “uttering disloyal sentiments” and attempting to hinder the prosecution of the war. The tribunal sentenced him to imprisonment for the duration of the war. Lincoln—the ever-consummate politician—determined that Vallandigham should instead be exiled to the South to avoid his becoming a martyr for the Peace Movement.
So Vallandigham is remembered as the traitorous United States Congressman, exiled to the South for his outspoken and unrepentant opposition to the effort to save the Union. Karen Abbott paints a different picture of Clement Vallandigham in her “Disunion” series article, “Rabbi-Chaplains of the Civil War” (New York Times, December 11, 2011). She recounts Vallandigham’s opposition to yet another bill, although this time based on the constitutional principle of separation of church and state. The July 1861 bill, drafted to provide $400,000,000 for the prosecution of the war, had contained a provision for the inclusion of chaplains in the Volunteer Army. The bill, however, required chaplains to be a “regularly ordained clergyman of some Christian denomination.”
Vallandigham objected to the wording claiming that it should be changed to “regularly ordained clergymen of some religious society.” Defending both the principle of separation of church and state as well as the right of Jewish soldiers to be served by Jewish chaplains, he argued before the House,
There is a large body of men in this country, and one growing continually, of the Hebrew faith…whose adherents are as good citizens and as true patriots as any in the country…While we are in one sense a Christian people,…this is not yet a “Christian Government,” nor a government which has any connection with one form of religion in preference to another form.
Vallandigham’s words fell on deaf ears and the bill passed. For his part, Vallandigham has been remembered as the rabble rouser sent south for his treasonous opinions and not as the principled defender of religious liberty and constitutional rights.
The end of the Vallandigham saga? Not welcomed in the South, Vallandigham traveled to Bermuda via blockade runner and then to Canada. In 1864, while still in Canada, he ran for Ohio governor as a Peace Democrat but was soundly trounced by John Brough, the War Democrat candidate. Eventually, he returned to Ohio where he resumed his law practice. He died in 1871 by self-inflicted gun shot wound as he was attempting to prove how an alleged murder victim could have shot himself. Vallandigham’s client was acquitted.
(For more about Clement Vallandigham, see Frank Klement’s book, The Limits of Dissent: Clement L. Vallandigham and the Civil War (North's Civil War Series, 8)
.)
Ideology and politics can also sully a man’s reputation, causing him to be remembered as a villain rather than a hero. Clement Vallandigham, the Copperhead leader, is a case in point and a familiar story to students of the Civil War. Vallandigham was a United States Congressman representing Ohio’s Third District when the war broke out. A vigorous supporter of constitutional states’ rights, he believed that the Southern states had a right to secede and that the Federal government had no right to regulate the legal institution of slavery. Furthermore, he believed that the North could not conquer the South militarily and strongly opposed all military bills that came before Congress until he lost re-election in 1862. Vallandigham did not mince words in his opposition to the policies of the Lincoln administration.
In a speech at Mount Vernon, Ohio, on May 1, 1863, Vallandigham claimed that the war was being fought “for the purpose of crushing our liberty and erecting a despotism…a war for the freedom of blacks and the enslavement of whites.” Vallandigham’s comments caused him to run afoul of General Ambrose Burnside’s newly issued General Order #38 which made it illegal to criticize the war effort within the Military District of Ohio. Burnside had him arrested for violating the order on May 5, 1863, and within two days of his arrest, a military court convicted him of “uttering disloyal sentiments” and attempting to hinder the prosecution of the war. The tribunal sentenced him to imprisonment for the duration of the war. Lincoln—the ever-consummate politician—determined that Vallandigham should instead be exiled to the South to avoid his becoming a martyr for the Peace Movement.
So Vallandigham is remembered as the traitorous United States Congressman, exiled to the South for his outspoken and unrepentant opposition to the effort to save the Union. Karen Abbott paints a different picture of Clement Vallandigham in her “Disunion” series article, “Rabbi-Chaplains of the Civil War” (New York Times, December 11, 2011). She recounts Vallandigham’s opposition to yet another bill, although this time based on the constitutional principle of separation of church and state. The July 1861 bill, drafted to provide $400,000,000 for the prosecution of the war, had contained a provision for the inclusion of chaplains in the Volunteer Army. The bill, however, required chaplains to be a “regularly ordained clergyman of some Christian denomination.”
Vallandigham objected to the wording claiming that it should be changed to “regularly ordained clergymen of some religious society.” Defending both the principle of separation of church and state as well as the right of Jewish soldiers to be served by Jewish chaplains, he argued before the House,
There is a large body of men in this country, and one growing continually, of the Hebrew faith…whose adherents are as good citizens and as true patriots as any in the country…While we are in one sense a Christian people,…this is not yet a “Christian Government,” nor a government which has any connection with one form of religion in preference to another form.
Vallandigham’s words fell on deaf ears and the bill passed. For his part, Vallandigham has been remembered as the rabble rouser sent south for his treasonous opinions and not as the principled defender of religious liberty and constitutional rights.
The end of the Vallandigham saga? Not welcomed in the South, Vallandigham traveled to Bermuda via blockade runner and then to Canada. In 1864, while still in Canada, he ran for Ohio governor as a Peace Democrat but was soundly trounced by John Brough, the War Democrat candidate. Eventually, he returned to Ohio where he resumed his law practice. He died in 1871 by self-inflicted gun shot wound as he was attempting to prove how an alleged murder victim could have shot himself. Vallandigham’s client was acquitted.
(For more about Clement Vallandigham, see Frank Klement’s book, The Limits of Dissent: Clement L. Vallandigham and the Civil War (North's Civil War Series, 8)
.)