Abstract
From almost the moment the Confederates fired on Fort Sumter, Abraham Lincoln started hearing from friends, supporters, and Republican governors about strong opposition to the war, especially in the lower Midwest. Antiwar Democrats, who were strict constructionists on the Constitution, objected to nearly everything Abraham Lincoln did to wage war: raising troops, suspending habeas corpus, ordering a blockade of Southern ports, and virtually declaring war on the South—all before Congress had even had a chance to meet. By the time Congress convened on July 4, 1861, for a special session, anxious conservative Democrats were convinced that Lincoln was out to usurp American liberties and was well on his way to becoming a tyrant. Caught up in war fever and far from the places where dissent was most apparent, the Eastern press paid no attention. Lincoln did. In his message to Congress, Lincoln explained himself. He had “no choice but to call out the war power of the Government.” When fired upon, the Union had to resort to force for its own protection. He defended his call for troops by reminding members of Congress that Northerners had demanded it and by saying he assumed they would ratify it—as they quickly did. Without specifically mentioning Roger Taney, he argued against the chief justice’s ruling in ex parte Merry man, which held that Lincoln’s suspension of habeas corpus was unconstitutional.
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Notes
Historians are engaged in a lively debate about the importance of parties and partisan behavior, especially in the North, and how this affected the outcome of the Civil War. See Adam I.P. Smith, No Party Now: Politics in the Civil War North (New York: Oxford University Press, 2006)
Mark E. Neely, Jr., The Union Divided: Party Conflict in the Civil War North (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2002).
Walter Dean Burnham, eds., The American Party Systems: Stages of Political Development (New York: Oxford University Press, 1967), pp. 117–151.
Edward L. Pierce, ed., Memoir and Letters of Charles Sumner (Boston: Roberts Brothers, 1893), vol. 4, p. 114
David Herbert Donald, Lincoln (London: Jonathan Cape, 1995).
Richard Carwardine, Lincoln: A Life of Purpose and Power (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2006), p. 257
Douglas L. Wilson, Lincoln’s Sword: The Presidency and the Power of Words (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2006), p. 167
Mark E. Neely, Jr., The Fate of Liberty: Abraham Lincoln and Civil Liberties (New York: Oxford University Press, 1992), p. 67
P.J. Staudenraus, ed., Mr. Lincoln’s Washington (South Brunswick, N.J.: T. Yoseloff, 1967), p. 106
Frank Klement, The Limits of Dissent: Clement L. Vallandigham and the Civil War (New York: Fordham University Press, 1998), pp. 149–189.
This brings to mind Charles Ramsdell’s argument about the slippery nature of Lincoln’s writing. Charles W. Ramsdell, “Lincoln and Fort Sumter,” Journal of Southern History 3 (August 1937), p. 265.
Douglas L. Wilson and Rodney O. Davis, eds., Herndon’s Informants: Letters, Interviews, and Statements about Abraham Lincoln (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1998), p. 162
Basler, ed., Collected Works, vol. VI, pp. 406–410; Wilson, Lincoln’s Sword, pp. 184–185. See also Ronald C. White, Jr., The Eloquent President: A Portrait of Lincoln Through His Words (New York: Random House, 2005)
John G. Nicolay and John Hay, Abraham Lincoln: A History, abridged and ed. by Paul M. Angle (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1966), p. 78.
Wilson and Davis, eds., Herndon’s Informants, p. 182. For a thorough treatment of Lincoln’s metamorphosis on emancipation, see Mark Grimsley, Jr., The Hard Hand of War: Union Military Policy Toward Southern Civilians, 1861–1865 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1995)
Wilson and Davis, eds., Herndon’s Informants, p. 348; William H. Herndon and Jesse W. Weik, Herndon’s Life of Lincoln, introduction and notes by Paul M. Angle (New York: A. & C. Boni, 1930), p. xxxix
Richard N. Current, Lincoln and the First Shot (Philadelphia: Lippincott, 1963), p. 119.
Richard N. Current, The Lincoln Nobody Knows, American Century Series (New York: Hill and Wang, 1958)
Ibid., pp. 493–495, 509–510, and 537; Theodore Calvin Pease, ed., Diary of Orville Hickman drowning, vol. 1 (Springfield, 111.: Trustees of the State Historical Library, 1925), pp. 607
Basler, ed., Collected Works, vol. V; vol. VIII, p. 1; vol. VII, pp. 507, 499–500; Michael Burlingame, ed., At Lincoln’s Side: John Hay’s Civil War Correspondence and Selected Writings (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 2000), p. 91
Jennifer L. Weber, Copperheads: The Rise and Fall of Lincoln’s Opponents in the North (New York: Oxford University Press, 2006), pp. 163–164
James M. McPherson, Abraham Lincoln and the Second American Revolution (New York: Oxford University Press, 1991), p. 65
Michael Burlingame, ed., Lincoln Observed: Civil War Dispatches of Noah Brooks (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1998), p. 209.
Stephen W. Sears, ed., The Civil War Papers of George B. McClellan: Selected Correspondence, 1860–1865 (New York: Ticknor & Fields, 1989), p. 85
Basler, ed., Collected Works, vol. VI, p. 344; Burlingame, ed., Lincoln Observed, p. 208; Michael Burlingame and John R. Turner Ettlinger, eds., Inside Lincoln’s White House: The Complete Civil War Diary of John Hay (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1997), p. 243.
Lincoln’s influence on the military outcome is another debate. T. Harry “Williams’s claim that Lincoln was a brilliant military strategist, for instance, has recently drawn fire from Joseph Glatthaar, who believes Lincoln at times hurt the Union cause as an armchair strategist. T. Harry Williams, Lincoln and His Generals (New York: Grosset & Dunlap, 1952)
James R. Meindl et al., “The Romance of Leadership,” Administrative Science Quarterly 30 (1985), pp. 78–102.
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© 2010 George R. Goethals and Gary L. McDowell
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Weber, J.L. (2010). Lincoln and the Copperheads. In: Goethals, G.R., McDowell, G.L. (eds) Lincoln’s Legacy of Leadership. Jepson Studies in Leadership. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230104563_8
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