ply that their movement was aimless. It was the aggressiveness of the Peace Democrats which made their movement the potent force and the menace which it was. The public policy of Vallandigham and his followers was based on a theory of the economic sectionalism of the United States. "Sir, we of the Northwest", he exclaimed in Congress during the debates over compromise, "have a deeper interest in the preservation of this government in its present form than any other section of the Union. Hemmed in, isolated, cut off from the seaboard upon every side; a thousand miles and more from the mouth of the Mississippi, the free navigation of which under the law of nations we demand, and will have at every cost; with nothing else but our great inland seas, the employed in collecting & arranging materials for the Latin controversy, which will embrace all the points in dissimiliarity in doctrine & practice between the R. Catholics & Protestants-In a recent sermon I encountered & combatted & (without vanity may say) confuted the Dogma of Purgatory Of brother Robert I hear nothing. Were he to duly revolve my circumstances at the time I opposed him, he would promptly forgive any extravagence of which I might possibly have been guilty. The last letter I rec from him, he very uncharitably insinuated that I had been guilty of dishonesty toward John Gillespie! Credat Judeus Apellonon ego My family now consists of M" Laird, Claudius Horace Binney, John Henry, & a daughter born the 28th Ultimo, who is not yet baptised, therefore anonymous. Let me know if our Estate at Racoon has been finally settled & what yet remains for me. I left a Note upon M' Whitacre calling for 6$, with M George Graham. I wrote to him respecting it but have not rec an answer. Ask him of it. Let me know of yourselves & little ones. M" L. joins me in expressions of affectionate regards for you all. God bless you all. Francis H. L. Laird - My address is Rev. F. H. L. Laird Rector of Trinity Parish (Charles Co.) Charlotte Hall P. Office St Marys Co. Maryland. Be particular to use this direction. Please write soon. P. S. A few weeks since I saw your cousin & my particular friend Mr Thomas Beden of Prince George's Co. He is an old but lively bachelorHe is now in the attendence upon the races at Port Tobacco. Upon Monday I shall be engaged & tuesday is our mail day— therefore I write tonight. Next tuesday, I shall, God willing, marry a lady worth 30,000$ to a brother Parson. The highest marriage fee which I have rec is 25$ in gold & the greatest for a funeral $50. Ten is the common charge for each. I have not time to review this hastily written letter-Excuse its inaccuracies. Charlotte Hall Ma Affectionately y't's &c. Nov 20 To the Rev. Clement Vallandigham Pastor of the Pre" Church New Lisbon Columbiana Co. Ohio. lakes and their outlet, too, through a foreign countrywhat is to be our destiny? Sir, we have fifteen hundred miles of southern frontier, and but a little narrow strip of eighty miles or less from Virginia to Lake Erie bounding us upon the east. Ohio is the isthmus that connects the South with the British posessions, and the East with the West. The Rocky Mountains separate us from the Pacific. Where is to be our outlet? What are we to do when we have broken up and destroyed this Government? We are seven States now, . . and a population of nine millions. We have an empire equal in area to the third of all Europe, and we do not mean to be a dependency or province either of the east or of the South; nor yet an interior or second-rate power upon this continent; and if we cannot secure a maritime boundary upon other terms, we will cleave our way to the sea-coast with the sword. A nation of warriors we may be; a tribe of shepherds never". 18 Such was the theory of the Peace Democrats: the Northwest was bound in economic interests more closely to the South by river highways than to the Atlantic coast. It was a theory which had described a condition a decade earlier, but the construction of trans-Alleghany railroad connections and a network of lines throughout the Northwest had altered the entire economic structure of the United States. 19 Of these changes the leaders of the Ohio Valley Democracy were apparently oblivious. On February 20, 1861, Vallandigham attempted to formulate a congressional policy of federal reconstruction which would peacably win back the allegiance of the seceding states, satisfy enough in the North, and have the added merit of establishing his doctrine of economic sectionalism. The plan was to recognize in an amended constitution four sections-a North, a West, a Pacific, 18 Congressional Globe, Part 1, 2nd sess. 36th Cong., 1860-61, December 10, 1860, p. 38; Vallandigham's Speeches, p. 258. 19 See the article by Frederic L. Paxson, The Railroads of the Old Northwest before the Civil War, Transactions of the Wisconsin Academy of Science, Arts and Letters, Vol. XVII, Part 1, Oct., 1912. and a South section- and to make the assent of a majority of the Senators of each section requisite for the passage of laws under certain circumstances. Likewise the Electoral College was to be reconstructed and a majority of the electors in each of the four sections be necessary for the choice of President and Vice-President. Secession was to be recognized as a legal right, but regulated, as it were, for the act would be valid only when it had the sanction of the legislatures of the states constituting the section of the seceding state. The scheme was Calhoun's concurrent majority rule in a new form. 20 There is no evidence that the Vallandigham project of federal reconstruction as a peace-bait or as a political program received more than a passing consideration in Congress. Unsuccessful in his own leadership, unable to accept that of another, Vallandigham fell back in Congress on the natural recourse of his type. His record until his retirement in 1863, when he was defeated for re-election, was uniformly that of an obstructionist. 21 And yet he and his associates undoubtedly sincerely thought of themselves as the only real Unionists and of Confederates and Republicans and War Democrats as disunionists. But the Union of which they thought was one the Democratic Party had presided over for nearly a generation; it was the union of compromises with slavery, of weak nationalism, and of strong States' Rights. The Constitution as it is and the Union as it was formed the watchwords of the Peace Democrats. The fact that the old Union could not be restored, that neither of the radical forces-the cotton planters, the western Republicans, nor the Abolitionists anywhere would ever accept such a restoration, ex 20 Congressional Globe, Part 1, 2nd sess. 36th Cong. 1860-61, p. 794; Speeches, Arguments,Addresses, and Letters of Clement L. Vallandigham, p. 298. 21 The Unionist made use of this record for campaign purposes. The following pamphlets are typical: William A. Cook, The Peace Democracy, 1863; Complicity of Democracy with Treason, by the Ohio State Journal, 1865; The New Hampshire Peace Democracy, n. d. cept by force, was beyond the ken of the Peace Democrats. And that other great fact of democratic government, that a majority must rule and the minority bow when the decision has been made by the constitutional authorities or Republican government become the weakling which autocrats say it is the Peace Democrats ignored. They held to their peace illusions, and persisted in their assumption that the Confederates could be brought back into the Union by negotiations until the end. In dealing with them it is impossible to be patriotic and charitable at the same time. It is too apparent that they saw back of the impending struggle an opportunity to force on the American people a partisan theory of government. That they believed in their doctrines passionately, even piously, only convicts them of bigotry. Like the Bolsheviki of Russia in 1917 and 1918 the Peace Democrats were willing to force the acceptance of a partisan policy, cost what it might. To the Peace Democrats the Abolitionists of New England were a peculiar sort of bete noir. It is true, the Abolitionists disturbed the settled order of historical compromises over slavery, and assailed the doctrine of States' Rights. But Confederates and Peace Democrats alike greatly erred in exaggerating the numbers and influence of the Abolitionists, and in identifying their policy with the homestead policy of the RepubliThey more greviously erred when they ignored the readiness of the Republicans and the War Democrats to guarantee slavery in the States where it existed from Congressional interference, 22 and failed to appreciate the magnanimity of the constructive policy which Lincoln formulated for the future of slavery. 23 The confusion of the Republicans with Abolition in 1861 was perhaps inevitable. There were enough radical Re cans. 22 A thirteenth amendment put forth with the consent of Republican and Democratic leaders in March, 1861 would have effectually blocked any attack on slavery in a State by Congress. 23 See Message to Congress, December 3, 1861. Richardson, Messages and Papers, Vol. VI, p. 44. publicans like Charles Sumner and John C. Fremont to confuse the most clear headed on the extent to which Abolition had captured the Republican Party. The Peace Democrats undoubtedly believed that the War was one of New England making. They persistently charged that it was a Capitalists' War. And the "Shoddy"work of some wool manufacturers gave them an excuse for the charge. "Struck by "shoddy"; and not by "shells", Greed of gold the story tells, Drop the mantle and spread the pall. "No meaner "traitor" the nation knows, As a chal So the Copperhead minstrel sang. 24 lenge to the Administration to clean its stables it would have been a service of high patriotism, as a statement of the causes of the War it was stupidly false, to say the least. The Peace Democrats fitted their doctrine of the cause of the War into their political program. The War was interpreted as a sectional one. As New England business men were forcing a war for markets for wool, shoes, iron, etc. in the Northwest, the section should rise to its own defense. The Peace Democrats gave themselves over to the task of arousing the sectional consciousness of the Northwest. How far they were self-deceived and how far they were unscrupulously fitting a situation to a political program is an insoluble problem. It is probably wiser to give them the the benefit if the doubt, admit their sincerity of purpose, and leave the measure of their sanity of judgement and statesmanship to the tender mercies of a charitable posterity. 24 A Choice Collection of Democratic Poems and Songs, New York, 1863, p. 28. |