May 30, 1863
Speaking at a Democratic rally in Mount Vernon, Ohio, on May 1, former congressman Clement L. Vallandigham declared that “a wicked, cruel and unnecessary” war was being waged “for the purpose of crushing out liberty and erecting a despotism; a war for the freedom of the blacks, and the enslavement of the whites.” He also denounced General Orders No. 38, issued on April 13 by Major General Ambrose Burnside, which warned that “declaring sympathies for the enemy will not be allowed” in the Department of the Ohio. Burnside had Vallandigham arrested at his home in Dayton on May 5 and tried by a military commission. Charged with violating General Orders No. 38 by publicly expressing “sympathy for those in arms against the United States, and declaring disloyal sentiments and opinions, with the object and purpose of weakening the power of the Government in its efforts to suppress an unlawful rebellion,” Vallandigham was convicted on May 7 and sentenced to imprisonment for the duration of the war. His application for a writ of habeas corpus was rejected by the U.S. circuit court in Cincinnati, which declined to issue a writ for a prisoner in military custody. The controversy drew the attention of Harper’s Weekly, an illustrated journal with a circulation of more than 100,000 copies. Its editorial went to press before it became known that President Lincoln had ordered Vallandigham expelled into Confederate-held territory.
IT IS known that Clement C. Vallandigham, late member of Congress from Dayton, Ohio, was lately arrested at his house by order of General Burnside, tried by court-martial, and convicted of inciting resistance to the Government in the prosecution of the war. And it is reported that he has been sentenced to imprisonment in a fortress during the war. The President enjoys the power of commuting or remitting this sentence al together; and it is the unanimous hope of the loyal North that he will remit it.
For, whether the arrest of Vallandigham was or was not a wise step, there can be very little question but his imprisonment for months, and perhaps years, in a military fortress would make a martyr of him, and would rally to his side, for the sake of liberty and free speech, an immense number of sympathizers. It would probably make him Governor of Ohio, and would impart great strength to the rapidly-decaying Copperhead sentiment of the Northwest. Notwithstanding the new lessons taught by the war, and the new duties which it has devolved upon us, we have not yet learned to look with complacency on the methods which are familiar to Old World despotisms; and the spectacle of a man immured in a prison for opinion’s or words’ sake shocks our feelings and arouses our anger.
It is all very well to say, as General Burnside says in his noble and patriotic reply to the Cincinnati Court, that war involves a sacrifice of liberty, and that this man Vallandigham was a pernicious and malignant enemy of his country. This we all know, and if Vallandigham would go out of the country to the rebels or any where else, loyal people would heartily rejoice. But the question is not whether Vallandigham be a traitor, or whether war involve a suspension of individual rights; it is—shall we better ourselves and help the country by locking this man up in a fortress, instead of letting him prate his seditious trash to every one who will listen? To that question the reply must be in the negative.
The mistake which has all along been made in this war by the Government and many of its agents has been not trusting the people sufficiently. Arresting seditious talkers implies a fear that the people have not sense or strength of mind enough to resist the appeals of sedition; just as the suppression or retention for a time of intelligence of a defeat implies a doubt whether the people have courage enough to bear bad news. Let us assure Mr. Lincoln, and all in authority under him, that the people of the United States have quite courage enough to bear any amount of misfortunes, and quite sense enough to withstand any amount of seditious nonsense, be it uttered ever so glibly. The only effect thus far produced by such talkers as Vallandigham has been to kill off the Copperhead sentiment in the Northwest, to reduce Fernando Wood’s party to a mere corporal’s guard, and to render the names of the Copperhead leaders a by-word and a reproach among honest men. Vallandigham was fast talking himself into the deepest political grave ever dug when Burnside resurrected him.
The people can be trusted to deal with traitors without any help from Washington, and those who suffer the penalty they inflict—ignominy and disgrace—never find sympathy any where. At the meeting held in this city on 18th to protest against Vallandigham’s arrest not one leading man, not a single man who commands general esteem, or who carries the least weight, ventured to be present, and the performance was, on the whole, the most wretched of all the wretched fizzles that have ever been enacted in this city in the way of political meetings. Not but that every body, including the leaders of all parties, and the editors of all leading journals, regret the arrest. But Copperheadism has become so odious, and the doom of every sympathizer with treason so obvious, that not a single man who has any future to risk will jeopard it by placing himself on the record as even indirectly sympathizing with a Copperhead. So long as the people are thus firm in their loyalty it is surely superfluous for Government to interpose for their protection against traitors.