Copperhead (politics)
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Copperhead Democrats
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|
|---|---|
| Historical leaders |
Clement Vallandigham Alexander Long |
| Founded | 1860 |
| Dissolved | 1868 |
| Ideology |
Pacification Traditionalism Jacksonianism Anti-abolitionism |
| National affiliation | Democratic Party |
In the 1860s, the Copperheads comprised a vocal faction of Democrats in the Northern United States of the Union who opposed the American Civil War, wanting an immediate peace settlement with the Confederates. Republicans started calling anti-war Democrats "Copperheads", likening them to the venomous snake. Those Democrats accepted the label, reinterpreting the copper "head" as the likeness of Liberty, which they cut from Liberty Head large cent coins and proudly wore as badges. Democratic supporters of the war, by contrast, were called War Democrats.
The Copperheads represented the more extreme wing of the "Northern Democrats". Notable Copperheads included two Democratic congressmen from Ohio: Clement L. Vallandigham and Alexander Long. Republican prosecutors accused some prominent Copperheads of treason in a series of trials in 1864.
Copperheadism, a highly contentious, grass-roots movement, had its strongest base in the area just north of the Ohio River, as well as in some urban ethnic wards. Some historians have argued that it represented a traditionalistic element alarmed at the rapid modernization of society sponsored by the Republican Party, and that it looked back to Jacksonian Democracy for inspiration. Weber (2006) argues that the Copperheads damaged the Union war effort by opposing conscription (the "draft"), encouraging desertion, and forming conspiracies, but other historians say that the draft was already in disrepute and that the Republicans greatly exaggerated the conspiracies for partisan reasons.
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