COPPERHEADS
The Copperheads, or "Peace Democrats," vexed Abraham Lincoln and the Republicans during the Civil War, campaigning against the war as a failure and opposing many military appropriations. The term Copperheads apparently came from the habit of some midwestern, hard-money Democrats of wearing copper pennies around their necks. Like most Democrats who supported the war, the antiwar Copperheads were opposed to the emancipation of the slaves. They were unhappy with the war effort, and reflecting their Jacksonian heritage, they disliked Republican economic policies, especially a national banking system.
The most notorious Copperhead was Clement Vallandigham, an Ohio congressman who gave up his seat to campaign for peace. In 1863, the writ of habeas corpus having been suspended, Gen. Ambrose Burnside had Vallandigham arrested; Lincoln released him, but exiled him into Confederate territory. He made his way north by ship and then across Canada. He ran for governor of Ohio in 1863, but lost, as did many Copperheads in state elections that year, in the wake of northern victories at Gettysburg and Vicksburg.
Still, the Copperheads retained some power. With Confederate agents, they subsidized several Democratic papers throughout the war, as well as freeing prisoners and capturing ships. They opposed the Democratic nomination of Gen. George McClellan for president in 1864 because he refused to accept their demands for an immediate peace; but they still had enough standing in the party to force the selection of Ohio Copperhead George Pendleton as the vice-presidential candidate. Their actions lent added credence to the Republican party's postwar use of the "bloody shirt" to charge Democrats with disloyalty.
See also Civil War; Elections: 1864.
