The two irreconcilable elements were the "war party" made up of
determined men resolved to see things through, and the
"copperheads"* who for one reason or another united in a faithful
struggle for peace at any price. Around the copperheads gathered
the various and singular groups who helped to make up the ever
fluctuating "peace party." It is an error to assume that this
peace party was animated throughout by fondness for the
Confederacy. Though many of its members were so actuated, the
core of the party seems to have been that strange type of man who
sustained political evasion in the old days, who thought that
sweet words can stop bullets, whose programme in 1863 called for
a cessation of hostilities and a general convention of all the
States, and who promised as the speedy result of a debauch of
talk a carnival of bright eyes glistening with the tears of
revived affection. With these strange people in 1863 there
combined a number of different types: the still stranger, still
less creditable visionary, of whom much hereafter; the avowed
friends of the principle of state rights; all those who
distrusted the Government because of its anti-slavery sympathies;
Quakers and others with moral scruples against war; and finally,
sincere legalists to whom the Conscription Act appeared
unconstitutional.
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