Abraham Lincoln Copperheads Essay

After Abraham Lincoln was elected to the Presidency he, a Republican as opposed to a long string of Democrats who had held the power in the government. It angered many southerners and democrats. When the Civil War broke out, the opposing democratic party gave birth to the Copperheads. A vocal faction of the democratic party who were openly against the war with the south, and wanted to end the war, in addition to reunify with the south having slavery intact. During his presidency, Lincoln suspended habeas corpus, during which Copperheads went so far to call Lincoln a tyrant renaming him “Abraham Africanis I”. Lincolns presidency was a constant battle against the radical democrats known as Copperheads, who opposed him, the war, and multiple aspects …show more content…
F. Feeks in 1864, which depicted Lincoln making a deal with the devil to become a monarch and a dictator, who would destroy the Union. The idea of a Lincoln as a dictator was spawned by the Copperheads to discredit him as the President, even after he suspended habeas corpus for the period, due to the war. For the Copperheads, the whole war was unconstitutional as it was the right of any American to revolt or rebel against a government they believed was encroaching on their freedoms. Just like the founding fathers did in the American Revolution, who rebelled against the crown for their own freedom. Despite the best efforts of the Copperheads to belittle and denounce Lincoln, he was never the tyrant they claimed him to be. Lincoln’s entire goal of his Presidency during the Civil War, was to reunify the Union as one whole nation, to do so, Lincoln had to allow the Copperheads to oppose him via freedom of speech through newspapers. Allowing known Copperheads, such as Horatio Seymour was elected governor of New York in 1862 to remain in office, and allowing several Copperheads to hold seats in Congress. Instead of enforcing a federal witch hunt of the Copperheads, and labeling them traitors, which would only make them into martyrs. Lincoln, in all accounts was right to almost do nothing about the Copperheads but let them be, except for Vallandigham being banished into the

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