PROCEEDINGS OF THE DEMOCRATIC STATE CONVENTION, HELD AT COLUMBUS, OHIO, FRIDAY, JULY 4, 1862.. Dieser Artikel ist nicht verfügbar.PROCEEDINGS OF THE DEMOCRATIC STATE CONVENTION, HELD AT COLUMBUS, OHIO, FRIDAY, JULY 4, 1862.

The published proceedings of the Ohio Democratic State Convention for the year 1862, including the text of speeches by Samuel Medary, Rufus P. Ranney, Allen G. Thurman, and noted Copperhead leader, Clement L. Vallandingham, as well as a revealing publisher's advertisement that lays bare the White supremacist ideology underpinning the party's political platform and electoral strategy. The Democratic State Convention was held in Columbus, Ohio, on July 4, 1862, and provided Ohio Democrats with an opportunity to voice their opposition to the war, the Lincoln administration, and its policies. In its platform, outlined in the text of a report printed here, the Democratic Party of Ohio touts its "record of unceasing and unvaried devotion to the Union of the States," noting that "when the fell spirit of Abolitionism at the North and Secessionism at the South.plunged [the country] into civil war," the Democratic Party of Ohio, "Union men in war as well as in peace, rallied en masse to the support of the Government." What had begun, however, just over a year before as a war "to defend and maintain the supremacy of the Constitution, and to preserve the Union," had since been commandeered by radical abolitionists and their allies in Congress and recast as a "crusade against slavery." Here the Democrats express their opposition to the proposed "acts of confiscation and emancipation," whether "by Congressional legislation or Executive proclamation" (President Lincoln, in fact, would go on to issue his preliminary Emancipation Proclamation a few months later on September 22, 1862). Such "immediate and indiscriminate emancipation of the slaves," they insist, "would be an act of inhumanity to them." It would, moreover, "throw upon the border free States and especially upon Ohio, an immense number of negroes to compete with, and underwork, the white laborers of the States." These White laborersmany of them German- and Irish-American immigrantswere a key Democratic constituency. Ohio Democrats here go so far as to call for a law to "prohibit.the immigration of negroes into this State." Finally, the Ohio Democrats condemn the Lincoln administration's war measures, including its suspension of writs of habeas corpus and its arbitrary arrests of those critical of the war. In addition to the party platform, the present volume also includes the text of various speeches given at the convention. These include speeches by Samuel Medary, the former territorial governor of Kansas and editor of the Crisis, a Democratic paper in Columbus, Ohio; Rufus Ranney and Allen G. Thurman, both Democratic politicians and judges who had served on the Ohio Supreme Court; and Clement L. Vallandingham, a U.S. congressman from Ohio and leader of the "Peace Democrats" or "Copperheads," as they were derogatively known. Vallandingham, who was up for reelection in 1862, would lose his seat later that year to Union general Robert C. Schenck. The speeches echo many of the issues addressed in the party platform, albeit in more colorful and incendiary language. In his speech before the convention, Vallandingham repeats the slogan he first used in a speech some two months earlier and for which he and his fellow Copperheads would become well-known: "The Constitution as it is, and the Union as it was." This copy of the Proceedings also includes a single-page advertisement at rear from the publishers, J. Frederick Bollmeyer and William Logan, editors and publishers of the Democratic paper, the Dayton Weekly Empire (previously owned and edited by Vallandingham under the slightly different name of the Dayton Western Empire). The heading for the advertisement reads "'The Union As It Was, The Constitution As It Is,'" reiterating Vallandingham's slogan, followed by the words "White Men Must Rule America." The publishers note that readers can subscribe to the Weekly Empire, "published every Saturday," for the "low price of one dollar per year." The text of the advertisement demonstrates i.…