Lincoln's critics: the copperheads
by jennifer l. weber
In the excerpt below, Jennifer L. Weber discusses the pressure Lincoln faced by continuing to support emancipation and Lincoln's response to that pressure. Weber's article shows Lincoln's leadership in the face of potential defeat in the upcoming election.
“Pressure was building on Lincoln to drop emancipation as a condition for peace and to negotiate an end to the war. The situation came to a head August 22, when the Republican National Committee met in New York. After the meeting, Raymond delivered the grim news to the president: If the election were held that day, he would lose the key states of New York, Pennsylvania, and Illinois. Indeed, he might lose every state. Raymond blamed Lincoln’s problems on military losses and the general belief ‘that we are not to have peace in any event under this Administration until Slavery is abandoned.’ Many Americans, he said, thought emancipation was all that was standing between them and peace. Raymond suggested that Lincoln show the country that Davis, not he, was the problem. Offer Davis peace ‘on the sole condition of acknowledging the supremacy of the constitution,’ he advised Lincoln. Davis would turn it down, insist on independence, and the country would see that he was the true obstructionist. Lincoln thought about the strategy and then adopted it. On August 24 he wrote a memo authorizing Raymond to meet with Davis and propose an immediate cease-fire based on the restoration of the Union only. All other questions, including emancipation, would be dealt with later. The problem was that this would send a terrible message to freedmen, especially those who were serving in the Union army. Almost exactly a year earlier, Lincoln had written a public letter in which he acknowledged the crucial role black soldiers were playing in the war. ‘If they stake their lives for us, they must be prompted by the strongest motive—even the promise of freedom. And the promise being made, must be kept,’ he told his critics in August 1863. Three days before Raymond pitched his plan, Lincoln had sworn again he would not abandon the freedmen to sue for peace, saying that he would be ‘damned in time & in eternity’ if he did. Raymond’s plan was the primrose path. Confronted with Raymond’s message of political doom, Lincoln had to make the hardest decision of his political career: abandon emancipation and his own moral code or lose in November. Lincoln decided to risk the latter. In the words of his hero, Henry Clay, he would ‘rather be right than president.’ Within twenty-four hours of drafting the memo authorizing Raymond to meet with Davis, Lincoln changed his mind and rejected the idea. Sending a commission to Richmond would be worse than losing the Presidential contest—it would be ignominiously surrendering it in advance,’ he told Raymond. Lincoln now prepared to lose. He wrote a memo to his cabinet, sealed it in an envelope, and asked each of his cabinet members to sign the back of the envelope, contents unseen.”
–Jennifer L. Weber, “Lincoln’s Critics: The Copperheads,” Journal of the Abraham Lincoln Association 32.1 (2011)
Read Weber's full article by clicking here
Reelecting Lincoln: the battle for the 1864 presidency
by john waugh
In the excerpt below, Historian John Waugh describes the tactics used by McClellan's campaign managers to win the 1864 election. Waugh's description of McClellan's strategy demonstrates the significance the issue of emancipation had on the election.
"Now it was Autumn [1864], and the North was deep into the campaign, and [campaign manager Manton M.] Marble was still arguing that the Democrats were the true 'Union' party, that only the Democrats could make the country whole again, that the real disunion party was Republican. George T. Curtis, a strong McClellan supporter and friend, argued on the stump that there could be no question 'that this administration of Mr. Lincoln stands today as a barrier against the reunion of the South and the North.' The president, he said, had coupled restoration of peace with the abandonment of slavery and made it impossible. It boiled down to one thing or the other: 'If slavery dies, the Union lives; if slavery lives, the Union dies.' All was 'cast upon this single die.' If Lincoln was elected, Marble warned, a war of extermination against the Southern people would be the inevitable result.
McClellan's managers-Belmont, Marble, S. L. M. Barlow, Dean Richmond-were targeting the tyranny of the Lincoln administration, the transgressions against civil liberties, the war weariness of the North. Democratic stump speakers decried the fanatical Republican abolitionism that had hold of the president, that had turned the conflict from a war for the Union into a war against slavery, and that was holding peace at bay."
-John Waugh, Reelecting Lincoln: The Battle for the 1864 Presidency, (Boston, Massachusetts: Da Capo Press, 2001), 314.
McClellan's managers-Belmont, Marble, S. L. M. Barlow, Dean Richmond-were targeting the tyranny of the Lincoln administration, the transgressions against civil liberties, the war weariness of the North. Democratic stump speakers decried the fanatical Republican abolitionism that had hold of the president, that had turned the conflict from a war for the Union into a war against slavery, and that was holding peace at bay."
-John Waugh, Reelecting Lincoln: The Battle for the 1864 Presidency, (Boston, Massachusetts: Da Capo Press, 2001), 314.
how lincoln won the soldier vote
by jonathan white
In the article attached, Jonathan White examines how Lincoln was able to secure 78% of the soldier vote. In his article, he argues that Lincoln's Republican staff used intimidation and coercion, to ensure soldiers cast their votes for Lincoln. According to White, soldiers who were loyal to Lincoln were given special privileges, including furloughs home to vote and promotions. Those who professed loyalty to McClellan or the Democratic party, however, were punished with physical labor, demotions, or even dismissal.
Read White's full article by clicking here.
Read White's full article by clicking here.