Skip to main content

Copperheads: The Rise and Fall of Lincoln's Opponents in the North

By
Jennifer L. Weber offers the first full-length portrait of this powerful faction to appear in almost half a century. Weber reveals how the Copperheads came perilously close to defeating Lincoln and ending the war in the South's favor. Indeed, by the summer of 1864, they had grown so strong that Lincoln himself thought his defeat was "exceedingly likely." Passionate defenders of civil liberties and states' rights--and often virulent racists--the Copperheads deplored Lincoln's suspension of habeas corpus, his liberal interpretation of the Constitution, and, most vehemently, his moves toward emancipation. Weber reveals how the battle over these issues grew so heated, particularly in the Midwest, that Northerners feared their neighbors would destroy their livestock, burn their homes, even kill them. Indeed, some Copperheads went so far as to conspire with Confederate forces and plan armed insurrections, including an attempt to launch an uprising during the Democratic convention in Chicago. Finally, Weber illuminates the role of Union soldiers, who, furious at Copperhead attacks on the war effort, moved firmly behind Lincoln. The soldiers' support for the embattled president kept him alive politically in his darkest times, and their victories on the battlefield secured his re-election.

Disgraced after the war, the Copperheads melted into the shadows of history. Here, Jennifer L. Weber illuminates their dramatic story. Packed with sharp observation and fresh interpretations, Copperheads is a gripping account of the fierce dissent that Lincoln called "the fire in the rear."
________________________

A well reviewed book.

Comments

  1. James FergusonJune 30, 2009 at 3:37 PM

    I noticed that in the reviews of Dred Scott's Revenge, Judge Napolitano was citing many of the Copperhead arguments against Lincoln, which kind of makes one wonder where the Republicans stand today on racial issues, since the Copperheads were notoriously racist, railing against the Emancipation Proclamation and a Constitutional Amendment banning slavery.

    But, Napolitano is not the first to hold up Copperhead arguments against Lincoln. Irving Stone went so far as to comment Horatio Seymour as "one of America's greatest statesmen," and considering the NY governor as the "most logical figure in the country to bind the wounds of the war and wipe out the bitterness..."

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horatio_Seymour

    Hmmm?

    ReplyDelete
  2. avrdsJune 30, 2009 at 5:32 PM

    One of the more interesting very brief asides Vowell tells is about the appointment of RB Hayes, in exchange for ending reconstruction.

    She sees the compromise of 1877 as one of the origins of the modern Republican party, as the party began to compromise over race after Lincoln.

    She also says of Hayes in an aside: "Hard to believe that the candidate who lost the popular vote could actually become the president of the United States. Luckily, that kind of travesty never happened again."

    ReplyDelete
  3. James FergusonJune 30, 2009 at 6:21 PM

    The amazing thing is how quickly it took to restore pretty much everything back to its pre-Civil War order, although it wasn't called "slavery" anymore. In 12 short years, Reconstruction was buried, thanks to the 1876 election, and the Redeemers began what took about 25 additional years to virtually rub out any vestigial remains of Reconstructionin the South. Of course, Andrew Johnson and US Grant didn't do the Radical Republicans any favors either, fighting against (Johnson) and rolling back (Grant) much of the legislation the Radical Republicans pushed through Congress.

    It really is sad, because this lack of commitment allowed the South, as well as the rest of the country to re-entrench itself, passing a number of state laws that essentially nullified the new constitutional amendments. It would take 100 years to finally get rid of poll taxes, which states used effectively to freeze out black voters.

    ReplyDelete
  4. avrdsJune 30, 2009 at 9:21 PM

    Another broken record post -- sorry -- but that's why I'm always questioning the national and republican party commitment to emancipation and freedom generally when it comes to the war.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire

By
  Welcome to this month's reading group selection.  David Von Drehle mentions The Melting Pot , a play by Israel Zangwill, that premiered on Broadway in 1908.  At that time theater was accessible to a broad section of the public, not the exclusive domain it has become over the decades.  Zangwill carried a hopeful message that America was a place where old hatreds and prejudices were pointless, and that in this new country immigrants would find a more open society.  I suppose the reference was more an ironic one for Von Drehle, as he notes the racial and ethnic hatreds were on display everywhere, and at best Zangwill's play helped persons forget for a moment how deep these divides ran.  Nevertheless, "the melting pot" made its way into the American lexicon, even if New York could best be describing as a boiling cauldron in the early twentieth century. Triangle: The Fire That Changed America takes a broad view of events that led up the notorious fire, not...
230 comments
Read more

Team of Rivals Reading Group

By
''Team of Rivals" is also an America ''coming-of-age" saga. Lincoln, Seward, Chase et al. are sketched as being part of a ''restless generation," born when Founding Fathers occupied the White House and the Louisiana Purchase netted nearly 530 million new acres to be explored. The Western Expansion motto of this burgeoning generation, in fact, was cleverly captured in two lines of Stephen Vincent Benet's verse: ''The stream uncrossed, the promise still untried / The metal sleeping in the mountainside." None of the protagonists in ''Team of Rivals" hailed from the Deep South or Great Plains. _______________________________ From a review by Douglas Brinkley, 2005
293 comments
Read more

The Age of Roosevelt: The Crisis of the Old Order

By
A quarter of a century, however, is time enough to dispel some of the myths that have accumulated around the crisis of the early Thirties and the emergence of the New Deal. There is, for example, the myth that world conditions rather than domestic errors and extravagances were entirely responsible for the depression. There is the myth that the depression was already over, as a consequence of the ministrations of the Hoover Administration, and that it was the loss of confidence resulting from the election of Roosevelt that gave it new life. There is the myth that the roots of what was good in the New Deal were in the Hoover Administration - that Hoover had actually inaugurated the era of government responsibility for the health of the economy and the society. There is the contrasting myth (for myths do not require inner consistency) that the New Deal was alien in origins and in philosophy; that - as Mr. Hoover put it - its philosophy was "the same philosophy of government which...
170 comments
Read more