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The Vallandigham case became the sensation of the day, and acquired a singular historical importance. The noise which was made about it seemed to create a current opinion that Burnside's action was a new departure, and that his Order No. 38 was issued wholly on his own responsibility. This was not so.
But Chattanooga, and the grand majorities in all the Fall State-elections, save that of New Jersey, and especially the manner in which loyal Ohio sat down upon the chief Copperhead-Democrat and Treason-breeder of the North, Vallandigham came most auspiciously to strengthen the President's hands.
That the dinner was merely hospitality to a refugee landed upon our shores in distress; and that my presidency would take away any suspicion that there was the slightest arriere-pensee in the matter. I concurred. The dinner took place. Not a word was said of the great pending contest, unless some words of Mr. Vallandigham, apologizing for the poverty of his dress, might be so construed.
Though Vallandigham and the Democrats of his type were unable to prevent or even delay the draft, they yet managed to enlist the sympathies and secure the adhesion of many uneducated and unthinking men by means of secret societies, known as "Knights of the Golden Circle," "The Order of American Knights," "Order of the Star," "Sons of Liberty," and by other equally high-sounding names, which they adopted and discarded in turn, as one after the other was discovered and brought into undesired prominence.
Questioned by Governor Wise, Senator Mason, and Representative Vallandigham about his accomplices, he refused to say anything except about what he had done, and freely took upon himself the whole responsibility. He was so warped by his religious training as to have become a fatalist as well as a fanatic.
Vallandigham, a "peace-at-any-price" man, secured the passage of a resolution which declared the war a failure, but the War Democrats dictated the nomination and made George B. McClellan the candidate of the party. The general, who had fought some of the great battles of the war, repudiated the Vallandigham resolution, but accepted the proffered leadership.
No Southerner could be more bitter toward the Lincoln government than he. He fairly worshipped Vallandigham, and said if he would only return to Ohio, he would be defended by a hundred thousand men. He was especially indignant over the way Morgan and his officers were treated.
The hubbub over Vallandigham called forth two letters addressed to protesting committees, that have their place among Lincoln's most important statements of political science. His argument is based on the proposition which Browning developed a year before.
If there was no complicity, why did Vallandigham, on his return from exile, in his official capacity, with his staff around him, defy the United States government that had justly banished him with 80,000 Ohioans at his command? If no complicity, why did all the rebels and confederate agents in Canada come to the Chicago Convention, and why were they here again at the November election?
The suppression of the Chicago Times was an auspicious moment for them, and they made capital of it. They were never tired of talking of Vallandigham, and while that worthy staid in Canada he was very serviceable to the Order, as John Rogers was of more service to the church dead than while living.
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