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Copperheads, Then and Now - The Democratic legacy of undermining war efforts.
National Review Online ^ | March 19, 2007 | Mackubin Thomas Owens

Posted on 03/19/2007 9:37:58 AM PDT by neverdem







Copperheads, Then and Now
The Democratic legacy of undermining war efforts.

By Mackubin Thomas Owens

While recovering from surgery recently, I had the good fortune to read a fine new book about political dissent in the North during the Civil War. The book, Copperheads: The Rise an Fall of Lincoln’s Opponents in the North, by journalist-turned-academic-historian Jennifer Weber, shines the spotlight on the “Peace Democrats,” who did everything they could to obstruct the Union war effort during the Rebellion. In so doing, she corrects a number of claims that have become part of the conventional wisdom. The historical record aside, what struck me the most were the similarities between the rhetoric and actions of the Copperheads a century and a half ago and Democratic opponents of the Iraq war today.

In contradistinction to the claims of many earlier historians, Weber argues persuasively that the Northern anti-war movement was far from a peripheral phenomenon. Disaffection with the war in the North was widespread and the influence of the Peace Democrats on the Democratic party was substantial. During the election of 1864, the Copperheads wrote the platform of the Democratic party, and one of their own, Rep. George H. Pendleton of Ohio, was the party’s candidate for vice president. Until Farragut’s victory at Mobile Bay, Sherman’s capture of Atlanta, and Sheridan’s success in driving the Confederates from the Shenandoah Valley in the late summer and fall of 1864, hostility toward the war was so profound in the North that Lincoln believed he would lose the election.

Weber demonstrates beyond a shadow of a doubt that the actions of the Copperheads materially damaged the ability of the Lincoln administration to prosecute the war. Weber persuasively refutes the view of earlier historians such as the late Frank Klement, who argued that what Lincoln called the Copperhead “fire in the rear” was mostly “a fairy tale,” a “figment of Republican imagination,” made up of “lies, conjecture and political malignancy.” The fact is that Peace Democrats actively interfered with recruiting and encouraged desertion. Indeed, they generated so much opposition to conscription that the Army was forced to divert resources from the battlefield to the hotbeds of Copperhead activity in order to maintain order. Many Copperheads actively supported the Confederate cause, materially as well as rhetorically.

In the long run, the Democratic party was badly hurt by the Copperheads. Their actions radically politicized Union soldiers, turning into stalwart Republicans many who had strongly supported the Democratic party’s opposition to emancipation as a goal of the war. As the Democrats were reminded for many years after the war, the Copperheads had made a powerful enemy of the Union veterans.

The fact is that many Union soldiers came to despise the Copperheads more than they disdained the Rebels. In the words of an assistant surgeon of an Iowa regiment, “it is a common saying here that if we are whipped, it will be by Northern votes, not by Southern bullets. The army regard the result of the late [fall 1862] elections as at least prolonging the war.”

Weber quotes the response of a group of Indiana soldiers to letters from Copperhead “friends” back home:

Your letter shows you to be a cowardly traitor. No traitor can be my friend; if you cannot renounce your allegiance to the Copperhead scoundrels and own your allegiance to the Government which has always protected you, you are my enemy, and I wish you were in the ranks of my open, avowed, and manly enemies, that I might put a ball through your black heart, and send your soul to the Arch Rebel himself.

It is certain that the Union soldiers tired of hearing from the Copperheads that the Rebels could not be defeated. They surely tired of being described by the Copperheads as instruments of a tyrannical administration trampling the legitimate rights of the Southern states. The soldiers seemed to understand fairly quickly that the Copperheads preferred Lincoln’s failure to the country’s success. They also recognized that the Copperheads offered no viable alternative to Lincoln’s policy except to stop the war. Does any of this sound familiar?

Today, Democratic opponents of the Iraq war echo the rhetoric of the Copperheads. As Lincoln was a bloodthirsty tyrant, trampling the rights of Southerners and Northerners alike, President Bush is the world’s worst terrorist, comparable to Hitler.

These words of the La Crosse Democrat responding to Lincoln’s re-nomination could just as easily have been written about Bush:  “May God Almighty forbid that we are to have two terms of the rottenest, most stinking, ruin working smallpox ever conceived by fiends or mortals…” The recent lament of left-wing bloggers that Vice President Dick Cheney was not killed in a suicide bombing attempt in Pakistan echoes the incendiary language of Copperhead editorialist Brick Pomeroy who hoped that if Lincoln were re-elected, “some bold hand will pierce his heart with dagger point for the public good.” 

Antiwar Democrats make a big deal of “supporting the troops.” But such expressions ring hollow in light of Democratic efforts to hamstring the ability of the United States to achieve its objectives in Iraq. And all too often, the mask of the antiwar politician or activist slips, revealing what opponents of the war really think about the American soldier.

For instance, Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts and Rep. Charles Rangel have suggested that soldiers fighting in Iraq are there because they are not smart enough to do anything else. Sen. Richard Durbin of Illinois has suggested a similarity between the conduct of U.S. troops in Iraq and that of Nazi soldiers in World War II. His Illinois colleagues, Sen. Barack Obama, claimed that the lives of soldiers lost in Iraq were “wasted.” And recently William Arkin, a military analyst writing online for the Washington Post, said of American soldiers that they are “mercenaries” who had little business taking critics of the war to task.

The Copperheads often abandoned all decency in their pursuit of American defeat in the Civil War. One Connecticut Copperhead told his neighbors that he hoped that all the men who went to fight for the Union cause would “leave their Bones to Bleach on the soil” of the South. The heirs of the Copperheads in today’s Democratic party are animated by the same perverted spirit with regard to the war in Iraq. Nothing captures the essence of today’s depraved Copperhead perspective better than the following e-mail, which unfortunately is only one example of the sort of communication I have received all too often in response to articles of mine over the past few months.

Dear Mr. Owens

You write, "It is hard to conduct military operations when a chorus of eunuchs is describing every action we take as a violation of everything that America stands for, a quagmire in which we are doomed to failure, and a waste of American lives."

But Mr. Owens, I believe that those three beliefs are true. On what grounds can I be barred from speaking them in public? Because speaking them will undermine American goals in Iraq? Bless you, sir, that's what I want to do in the first place. I am confident that U.S. forces will be driven from Iraq, and for that reason I am rather enjoying the war.

But doesn't hoping that American forces are driven from Iraq necessarily mean hoping that Americans soldiers will be killed there? Yes it does. Your soldiers are just a bunch of poor, dumb suckers that have been swindled out of their right to choose between good and evil. Quite a few of them are or will be swindled out of their eyes, legs, arms and lives. I didn't swindle them. President Bush did. If you're going to blame me for cheering their misery, what must you do to President Bush, whose policies are the cause of that misery?

Union soldiers voted overwhelmingly for Lincoln in 1864, abandoning the once-beloved George McClellan because of the perception that he had become a tool of the Copperheads. After Vietnam, veterans left the Democratic party in droves. I was one of them. The Democratic party seems poised to repeat its experience in both the Civil War and Vietnam.

The Democrats seem to believe that they are tapping into growing anti-Iraq War sentiment in the military. They might cite evidence of military antipathy towards the war reflected in, for example, the recent CBS Sixty Minutes segment entitled “Dissension in the Ranks.”  But the Democrats are whistling past the graveyard. The Sixty Minutes segment was predicated on an unscientific Army Times poll, orchestrated by activists who now oppose the war. The fact remains that most active duty and National Guard personnel still support American objectives in Iraq. They may be frustrated by the perceived incompetence of higher-ups and disturbed by a lack of progress in the war, but it has always been thus among soldiers. The word “snafu” began as a World War II vintage acronym:  “situation normal, all f****d up.”

Union soldiers could support the goals of the war and criticize the incompetence of their leaders in the same breath. But today’s soldiers, like their Union counterparts a century and a half ago, are tired of hearing that everything is the fault of their own government from people who invoke Gitmo and Abu Ghraib but rarely censure the enemy, and who certainly offer no constructive alternative to the current course of action.

The late nineteenth century Democratic party paid a high price for the influence of the Copperheads during the Civil War, permitting Republicans to “wave the bloody shirt” of rebellion and to vilify the party with the charge of disunion and treason. If its leaders are not careful, today’s Democratic party may well pay the same sort of price for the actions of its antiwar base, which is doing its best to continue the Copperhead legacy.

   Mackubin Thomas Owens is an associate dean of academics and a professor of national-security affairs at the Naval War College in Newport, R.I. He is writing a history of U.S. civil-military relations.



TOPICS: Editorial; Foreign Affairs; Government; Politics/Elections; US: District of Columbia; War on Terror
KEYWORDS: abledanger; copperheads; democratcopperheads; democrats; enemywithin; frankfurtschool; gramsci; iraq; nationalsecurity; subversion; tokyorose; traitors; treason
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To: RacerF150

LOL. After you bet something of value on DiLorenzos scholarship.


81 posted on 03/20/2007 8:53:59 AM PDT by Ditto (Global Warming: The 21st Century's Snake Oil)
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To: Ditto
DiLorenzo is a scholar. too bad you are anything BUT.

laughing AT you, BOOB!

free dixie,sw

82 posted on 03/20/2007 8:56:21 AM PDT by stand watie ("Resistance to tyrants is OBEDIENCE to God." - T. Jefferson, 1804)
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To: neverdem

Looks good. Bump for later read.


83 posted on 03/20/2007 8:58:08 AM PDT by eleni121 ( + En Touto Nika! By this sign conquer! + Constantine the Great))
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To: tkathy

(South should give thanka to Lincoln)

Just like the Jews should give thanks to Hitler.


84 posted on 03/20/2007 9:13:06 AM PDT by ProudCopperhead
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To: tkathy

(South should give thanka to Lincoln)

Just like the Jews should give thanks to Hitler.


85 posted on 03/20/2007 9:13:27 AM PDT by ProudCopperhead
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To: ProudCopperhead
rotflmRao!

VERY TRUE!

free dixie,sw

86 posted on 03/20/2007 9:29:37 AM PDT by stand watie ("Resistance to tyrants is OBEDIENCE to God." - T. Jefferson, 1804)
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To: Ditto
"LOL. After you bet something of value on DiLorenzos scholarship."

Why should I bet anything? You're the one who claimed "If you think DiLorenzo's radical Libertarian propaganda is an accurate picture of the real Lincoln, then you would probably buy Michael Moore's propaganda as an accurate description of the real George Bush." A simple review of my previous posts would have cleared that up for you. But I'm more than willing to let you continue to be wrong. As far as Thomas DiLorenzo, I don't care what you do or don't think about him. My feeling about Lincoln and the Union existed well before this book was released in 2002.

87 posted on 03/20/2007 9:31:15 AM PDT by Niteranger68 (Osama's mama wears combat sandals.)
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To: RacerF150
The Copperheads were unwittingly much closer to being right than today's anti-war crowd.

How so?

88 posted on 03/20/2007 9:34:14 AM PDT by Non-Sequitur (Save Fredericksburg. Support CVBT.)
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To: stand watie; Ditto; tkathy
laughing AT you, DUMMY.

laughing AT you, BOOB!

My, my, my, aren't we in a good mood today? Whatsamatter? Rabies shot expire?

89 posted on 03/20/2007 9:43:06 AM PDT by Non-Sequitur (Save Fredericksburg. Support CVBT.)
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To: Non-Sequitur; All
to ALL: all of the members of "the DAMNyankee coven of lunatics,HATERS, nitwits, FOOLS, half-wits, BIGOTS, etc" are KNOWN to be DUMB-bunnies, with the exception of "Non-Sequitur", The Minister of DAMNyankee PROPAGANDA.

"Non-Sequiter" knows better.he just CHOOSES not to DO better.

to N-S: don't you get HUMILIATED by the antics & STUPIDITY of the others on "your team"??? (i've often felt sorry for you, as you seem to feel that you have to defend their BIGOTRY & MEAN-spirited IGNORANCE.)

free dixie,sw

90 posted on 03/20/2007 9:55:31 AM PDT by stand watie ("Resistance to tyrants is OBEDIENCE to God." - T. Jefferson, 1804)
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To: stand watie
to N-S: don't you get HUMILIATED by the antics & STUPIDITY of the others on "your team"??? (i've often felt sorry for you, as you seem to feel that you have to defend their BIGOTRY & MEAN-spirited IGNORANCE.)

Well....no. If your side isn't embarassed by you and your comments then I see no need to cringe at any made by anyone on mine.

Copperheads on the side of freedom? ROTFLMAO. They were on the side of the rebels, who were fighting to ensure that about a third of their population never saw freedom.

91 posted on 03/20/2007 10:00:23 AM PDT by Non-Sequitur (Save Fredericksburg. Support CVBT.)
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To: Non-Sequitur
How so?

Well, do you think Lincoln was a champion of small government and states rights?

92 posted on 03/20/2007 10:30:07 AM PDT by Niteranger68 (Osama's mama wears combat sandals.)
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To: RacerF150
My feeling about Lincoln and the Union existed well before this book was released in 2002.

Based upon what?

93 posted on 03/20/2007 10:34:39 AM PDT by Ditto (Global Warming: The 21st Century's Snake Oil)
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To: Ditto
Based upon what?

If you are looking for one magic reason, I don't have one. Maybe growing up in the deep south and being naturally skeptical of history is part of it. Or maybe I just don't buy Lincoln's argument that our country was venerable to attack from foreign entities because we were divided. But honestly, is there any good reason I should have to qualify my opinion?

94 posted on 03/20/2007 11:05:20 AM PDT by Niteranger68 (Osama's mama wears combat sandals.)
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To: ClearCase_guy

:')


95 posted on 03/20/2007 11:07:46 AM PDT by SunkenCiv (I last updated my profile on Sunday, March 11, 2007. https://secure.freerepublic.com/donate/)
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To: RacerF150
Or maybe I just don't buy Lincoln's argument that our country was venerable to attack from foreign entities because we were divided.

I have read a lot of history of the Civil War and I don't ever recall Lincoln making that argument. In fact, a number of years earlier, he made just the opposite point that the US need not fear a foreign invasion and if we were ever to fall, it would be from within.

But honestly, is there any good reason I should have to qualify my opinion?

Well, I suppose if you are operating on 'liberal logic' just 'feelings' would suffice. But in a conservative forum where we tend to vigorously debate issues, it's more or less standard to be able to back your opinion with some elements of logic based upon fact.

This generally isn't a 'touchy - feely' bunch around here.

96 posted on 03/20/2007 11:19:24 AM PDT by Ditto (Global Warming: The 21st Century's Snake Oil)
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To: Ditto
Well, I suppose if you are operating on 'liberal logic' just 'feelings' would suffice. But in a conservative forum where we tend to vigorously debate issues, it's more or less standard to be able to back your opinion with some elements of logic based upon fact. This generally isn't a 'touchy - feely' bunch around here.

Did somebody really important die and make you arbiter of all opinions? Seriously, I made a statement (not to you) that the Copperheads were unwittingly closer to right than today's anti-war movement and pasted a copy of The Real Lincoln for effect. You made comments about the author (see #25) and suggested that I would believe Michael Moore's description of President Bush. Based on that, I don't really see how you are in a position to preach "logic based upon fact" without committing a few fallacies in the process. We apparently don't share the same view of Lincoln and the Civil War....learn to live with it.

97 posted on 03/20/2007 11:47:38 AM PDT by Niteranger68 (Osama's mama wears combat sandals.)
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To: RacerF150
So I take it that you have no idea why you think the Copperheads were right and Lincoln was bad. You just sort of think that.

Thanks.

98 posted on 03/20/2007 11:54:36 AM PDT by Ditto (Global Warming: The 21st Century's Snake Oil)
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To: Ditto
So I take it that you have no idea why you think the Copperheads were right and Lincoln was bad. You just sort of think that.

To be 100% correct, you have no idea why I think the Copperheads were closer to right than today’s anti-war crowd and Lincoln was bad not my favorite president.

99 posted on 03/20/2007 12:04:13 PM PDT by Niteranger68 (Osama's mama wears combat sandals.)
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To: RacerF150
Well, do you think Lincoln was a champion of small government and states rights?

Compared to whom? Jefferson Davis and the Southern leadership? Based on their actions during the rebellion I think they were worse in many ways than anything Lincoln was accused of.

100 posted on 03/20/2007 12:09:20 PM PDT by Non-Sequitur (Save Fredericksburg. Support CVBT.)
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