Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Free Speech Or Sedition: Clement L. Valladigham And The Copperheads, 1860-1864, John Forsyth

Masters Theses, 2020-current

Abstract

The antiwar movement during the Civil War, led by the Peace Democrats and their more virulent cousins, the Copperheads, was remarkable from many perspectives. First, their civil disobedience and political dissent largely remained well within constitutional boundaries, and the voting booth was their preferred battleground throughout the war. Second, during the unprecedented Civil War, at least unprecedented from an American perspective, executive wartime authorities expanded with the crisis, often abridging civil rights under the auspices of war. Third, power lay mostly in the hands of the Radical Republicans, both at the national and state level, and the determination of …