A Violent Peace and America’s Copperhead Legacy

ABSTRACT

This essay analyzes Union peace activism, commonly called the “Copperhead” movement, to illustrate how anti-war rhetoric during the US Civil War participated in debates over the nature of political violence. While the Copperhead push to end the war failed, the movement was an influential cultural and electoral force, pressuring opponents to modify their views while popularizing a version of national identity that did not end with the advent of Reconstruction. Far from petitioning for peace, the Copperheads’ rhetoric reframed the boundaries of justified violence along intersecting lines of gender, race, and memory. Specifically, I consider how the Copperheads appealed to a powerful “generational” memory built on a gendered interpretation of activism itself, offering a narrative of “manly” resolve meant to withstand the withering effects of their effeminate opponents who threatened the bedrock of an American civilization indebted to a white supremacist system.

KEYWORDS:

• Civil War
• social movements
• violence
• war and peace rhetoric
• white supremacy

Acknowledgments

I would like to thank Dr. Stephen Browne, the three anonymous reviewers, and Editor-in-Chief Jacqueline Rhodes for all their feedback.

Notes

¹ Vallandigham was returning from a trip to Washington when he decided to go to Harpers Ferry and interrogate Brown to discover if any citizens of Ohio had taken part in the insurrection (Klement 3–7). His response to the backlash of this meeting was published in the Cincinnati Enquirer on 22 October 1859 (see Vallandigham, Speeches 201).

² See Klement; Weber. Scholars have disagreed about how influential the Copperheads, best understood as a loose affiliation of mostly Midwestern politicians and citizens, were during the Civil War, varying from hapless victims of federal aggression to a major threat to Lincoln. Nevertheless, the size and electoral influence alone makes the Copperhead movement one of the most publicized anti-war movements in American history.

³ The “Peace Democrats,” known popularly as the Copperheads, was a loose affiliation of Northern, often Midwestern, actors, but also included immigrants and “strict constitutionalists” in states such as Pennsylvania and New York. As the Northern success waxed and waned, Copperhead ideology fell and rose, with conscription, habeas corpus, and freedom of speech legislation providing the broadest impetus for Peace Democrat support (Weber 1–31).

⁴ The name “Copperhead” was originally an attack on anti-war activists, comparing them to a poisonous snake, but by 1862 activists appropriated the term to signify the positive aspects of “Lady Liberty,” who was on the penny called at the time a “copperhead,” reflecting their engagement with national memory and economic policy (Weber 3).

⁵ While there are rich studies of anti-war rhetoric, few consider how anti-war organizations themselves reshape definitions of violence and race. See Dubisar; Gilbert; Harmon; and Murray.

⁶ See the special issue of Communication and Critical/Cultural Studies, vol. 15, no. 4, 2018, on #rhetoricsowhite.

⁷ The Crittenden Compromise, a proposed resolution for the “irrepressible conflict” in 1860 that essentially protected slavery, was a favorite of the Copperheads. See Weber 2–6.

⁸ SDPK was created by mostly New York-based businessmen in 1863 as “an adjunct [to the Democratic Party], waging a propaganda war against Republican policies with an emphasis on emancipation.” For more details, see Bernstein. (147)

⁹ Vallandigham defied “treason” laws, most infamously in a speech at Mount Vernon, and was exiled to the Confederacy, then to Bermuda, and finally Ontario by a military tribunal. See Weber, 95–101.