Duquesne University Duquesne Scholarship Collection Electronic Theses and Dissertations Spring 2010 A Vast and Varied Opposition: The hiS fting War Democrat - Peace Democrat Continuum in Civil War Pennsylvania Jonathan David Neu Follow this and additional works at: https://dsc.duq.edu/etd Recommended Citation Neu, J. (2010). A Vast and Varied Opposition: The hiS fting War Democrat - Peace Democrat Continuum in Civil War Pennsylvania (Master's thesis, Duquesne University). Retrieved from https://dsc.duq.edu/etd/975 This Immediate Access is brought to you for free and open access by Duquesne Scholarship Collection. It has been accepted for inclusion in Electronic Theses and Dissertations by an authorized administrator of Duquesne Scholarship Collection. For more information, please contact [email protected]. A VAST AND VARIED OPPOSITION: THE SHIFTING WAR DEMOCRAT – PEACE DEMOCRAT CONTINUUM IN CIVIL WAR PENNSYLVANIA A Thesis Submitted to the McAnulty College and Graduate School of Liberal Arts Duquesne University In partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts By Jonathan D. Neu May 2010 Copyright by Jonathan D. Neu 2010 A VAST AND VARIED OPPOSITION: THE SHIFTING WAR DEMOCRAT – PEACE DEMOCRAT CONTINUUM IN CIVIL WAR PENNSYLVANIA By Jonathan D. Neu Approved April 6, 2010 ______________________________ ______________________________ Perry K. Blatz, Ph.D. Joseph F. Rishel, Ph.D. Associate Professor of History Professor of History Primary Reader Secondary Reader ______________________________ ______________________________ Christopher M. Duncan, Ph.D. Holly A. Mayer, Ph.D. Dean, McAnulty College and Graduate School Associate Professor and Chair of of Liberal Arts History iii ABSTRACT A VAST AND VARIED OPPOSITION: THE SHIFTING WAR DEMOCRAT – PEACE DEMOCRAT CONTINUUM IN CIVIL WAR PENNSYLVANIA By Jonathan D. Neu May 2010 Thesis supervised by Perry K. Blatz, Ph.D. This thesis identifies the Democratic party in Civil War Pennsylvania as existing along a shifting political continuum. This continuum ranged from the War Democrats, whose support for the Union war effort aided the Republican administration of Abraham Lincoln, to the Peace Democrats, whose obstructionist principles aimed to derail the North‟s commitment to win the war. This work argues that different segments of the Democratic continuum controlled state politics at different times throughout the war, dependent upon changes in the Democracy‟s perception of political, military, economic, and social events that the war wrought. Furthermore, this thesis contends that the ideologies along this Democratic continuum were too varied to promote unity among Pennsylvania‟s party leaders, contributing to the Democracy‟s ultimate failure to compete successfully against their Republican opponents in wartime state politics. iv ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Completion of this thesis would not have been possible without the generous assistance of a number of individuals. Dr. John Dwyer guided my work on a seminar paper which formed the core of this thesis. With his encouragement, I endeavored to develop that paper to the form it takes today. Dr. Joseph Rishel willingly assented to review a draft of this thesis and provided prompt and useful recommendations on short notice. I reserve my greatest thanks to Dr. Perry Blatz whose patience and insights are truly unmatched. Without his careful edits, thoughtful interpretations, and always cheerful encouragement, this work would be left woefully wanting. I owe tremendous gratitude to the History Department of the McAnulty College and Graduate School of Liberal Arts for the financial support received throughout my time at Duquesne University. Lastly, I would like to thank my family and friends for their love and unconditional support, which more than anything, made this work possible. v TABLE OF CONTENTS Page Abstract.............................................................................................................................. iv Acknowledgements............................................................................................................. v Introduction......................................................................................................................... 1 Literature Review................................................................................................................ 7 1. The Democratic Proto-Continuum, 1850s – Spring 1861.......................................... 21 2. The War Democrats Ascendant, Spring 1861 – Spring 1862..................................... 50 3. The Peace Democracy Revealed, Spring 1862 – Summer 1863................................ 71 4. The Peace Democracy Rebuffed, Summer 1863 – Spring 1864................................ 99 5. The War Democracy‟s Final Campaign, Spring 1864 – Spring 1865...................... 130 Conclusion...................................................................................................................... 156 Bibliography................................................................................................................... 165 vi Introduction Three years after the end of the Civil War, newspaperman Horace Greeley labeled the postwar Democratic party “a myth, a reminiscence, a voice from the tomb, an ancient and fishlike smell.”1 Indeed, the Democracy had suffered considerable damage through the course of the war, particularly in Pennsylvania. During the antebellum years, the Commonwealth had been a bastion of Jeffersonian-Jacksonian Democratic tradition. After the war, however, Pennsylvania had emerged as one of the strongholds of Republicanism. This political conversion came as a result of the Democracy‟s inability to cope with the transformative change the Civil War engendered. Although the party embodied a series of unifying principles that nearly all Democrats shared, the war presented new challenges that party adherents reacted to with disparate responses. Pennsylvania‟s Civil War Democrats may be theoretically placed along a party continuum. On one end were the War Democrats who were firmly committed to a war to preserve the Union. On the other were the Peace Democrats, whose most radical members advocated the peaceable separation of the Union and even the secession of Pennsylvania. Between these extremes were a host of individuals with a diverse range of principles and fluctuating commitments to the war and its demands. This study will examine the War – Peace continuum that the Pennsylvania Democracy operated under during Civil War. The ideology of Democrats shifted along this continuum through the progression of the crisis as developing Republican war policies and Union military fortunes constantly altered perceptions on how the war was being waged. Although Democrats of all political stripes shared some common principles, the breadth of the 1 New York Tribune, April 3, 1868, quoted in Joel H. Silbey, A Respectable Minority: The Democratic Party in the Civil War Era, 1860 – 1868 (New York: W.W. Norton and Company, 1977), x. 1 Democratic continuum proved too vast for the party to compete effectively against the Republicans for control of the state. Consequently, Pennsylvania Democrats were ultimately unable to counteract the sweeping political and social changes that the war wrought and that they so feared. To understand the ideology of Pennsylvania‟s Civil War Democracy one must begin with that era‟s notions of conservatism. Chief among those principles was a Democratic faith in the doctrine of white supremacy. Although slavery was nonexistent within Pennsylvania‟s borders at the time of the Civil War, antipathy toward African- Americans remained. Hostility toward blacks stemmed from racist fears of miscegenation and resentment of job competition with an allegedly “inferior” race. Although few Pennsylvania Democrats openly lauded Southern slavery, even fewer spoke out against it. Whereas Whigs and Republicans often expressed their personal loathing of slavery, “similar sentiments are virtually impossible to discover among Democrat[s].”2 When the Civil War unleashed the question of emancipation, Democrats were faced with the largest threat to their notions of tradition and conservative status quo. Although commitment to white supremacy was the Pennsylvania Democracy‟s most unifying trait, other conservative principles brought unity among the vast majority of Democrats. These principles included dedication to states‟ rights, strict adherence to the Constitution, a decentralized federal government, and utilization of hard money. All these conservative values would be challenged during the course of the war. To examine Pennsylvania‟s shifting Democratic continuum, this study divides the Civil War years into five sections and examines the role of War Democrats, Peace 2 John Gerring, “A Chapter in the History of American Party Ideology: The Nineteenth-Century Democratic Party (1828 – 1892)” Polity 26:4 (Summer 1994): 734. 2 Democrats, and Moderate Democrats within those periods. The first chapter surveys the Pennsylvania Democracy from its steady decline during the 1850s to the eve of war in Spring 1861. Although hostilities had not yet begun, a proto-continuum developed during this time that separated party members along three major divisions ahead of the transformative 1860 presidential election. Supporters of Stephen A. Douglas, the favorite among many Northern Democrats, are termed “Douglas Democrats” in this study and most closely represent the precursors to the War Democrats. Advocates of