Page:History of Iowa From the Earliest Times to the Beginning of the Twentieth Century Volume 2.djvu/127

, rendering invaluable service to the Union armies in every department.

From the beginning of the Civil War, there were people in the Northern States, who sympathized with their Southern brethren engaged in the Rebellion. They were opposed to coercion of States which had seceded from the Union. C. L. Vallandigham, of Ohio, was the ablest leader in Congress of this element. At the extra session of that body, called to meet on the Fourth of July, 1861, to provide means to subdue the Rebellion, Mr. Vallandigham, in an elaborate speech in opposition to the bill authorizing a loan of $250,000,000 for the support of the Government in the prosecution of the war, took the radical position that the Government had no right to coerce a State in rebellion, and, with Wood, of New York, voted against the bill. When the army appropriation bill was before the House, Mr. Vallandigham moved to add the following proviso:

“Provided, however, that no part of the money hereby appropriated shall be employed in subjugation, or holding as a conquered province, any sovereign State now or lately one of the United States; nor in abolishing or interfering with African slavery in any of the States.”

The Democratic State Convention of Iowa, on the 24th of July, adopted the following resolution:

“Resolved, That our Union was formed in peace and can never be perpetuated by force of arms, and that a republican government held together by the sword becomes a military despotism.”

As the Rebellion grew in magnitude and the Union army met with repeated defeats, those in the North opposed to the suppression of the insurrection by force, became more outspoken and bitter in denunciation of the National Administration and its energetic prosecution of the war. Through newspapers and speeches they sought to cast odium upon the President and his supporters, to discourage enlistments in the Union army and to injure the credit