There was a lot of antiwar sentiment in the southern counties of Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois, and in New Jersey as well. The southernmost counties of the three Midwestern states were heavily settled by Virginians and Kentuckians a generation or two before Fort Sumter. All these states were Northern and were free of slaves, although a handful remained in New Jersey. However, Ohio beyond the southernmost counties was pro-Union and the early Union takeover of West Virginia was largely due to the Ohio militia invading that future state. Three of the main Union generals were Ohioans: Grant, Sherman, and Sheridan. Yet Clement Vallandigham, the most prominent Copperhead, was also an Ohioan. The antiwar sentiment in New Jersey was so prevalent that Northern generals did not fully trust troops from that state. The New England influence on the Garden State was not as great as it was in New York and the Upper Midwest. It was not as influenced by German immigration was were Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin, and Iowa. New Jersey voted for the Democrat in national Presidential elections, 1872 excepted, from 1856 to 1892, unusual for a state in the North. In the 20th Century, New Jersey, along with Delaware and Maryland, became a part of the Northeastern megalopolis.
New Jersey Peace Resolutions March 18 1863
Be it resolved, That it is the deliberate sense of the people of this State that the war power within the limits of the Constitution is ample for any and all emergencies, and that all assumption of power, under whatever plea, beyond that conferred by the Constitution, is without warrant or authority, and if permitted to continue without remonstrance, will finally encompass the destruction of the liberties of the people and the death of the Republic; and therefore, to the end that in any event the matured and deliberate sense of the people of New Jersey may be known and declared, we, their representatives in Senate and General Assembly convened, do, in their name and in their behalf, make unto the Federal Government this our solemn
PROTEST
Against a war waged with the insurgent States for the accomplishment of unconstitutional or partisan purposes; Against a war which has for its object the subjugation of any of the States, with a view to their reduction to territorial condition; ...
Against the domination of the military over the civil laws in States, Territories, or districts not in a state of insurrection;
Against all arrests without warrant;
Against the suspension of the writ of habeus corpus in States and Territories sustaining the Federal Government, "where the public safety does not require it,"
and against the assumption of power by any person to suspend such writ, except under the express authority of Congress;
Against the creation of new States by the division of existing ones, or in any other manner not clearly authorized by the Constitution, and against the right of secession as practically admitted by the action of Congress in admitting as a new State a portion of the State of Virginia;
Against the power assumed in the proclamation of the President made January first, 1863, by which all the slaves in certain States and parts of States are for ever set free;
and against the expenditures of the public moneys for the emancipation of slaves or their support at any time, under any pretence whatever;
Against any and every exercise of power upon the part of the Federal Government that is not clearly given and expressed in the Federal Constitution - reasserting that "the powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people".
And be it Resolved, That ... while abating naught in her devotion to the Union of the States and the dignity and power of the Federal Government, at no time since the commencement of the present war has this State been other than willing to terminate peacefully and honorably to all a war unnecessary in its origin, fraught with horror and suffering in its prosecution, and necessarily dangerous to the liberties of all in its continuance ...