" Lincoln, however, commuted the sentence to
banishment and had Vallandigham sent through the lines into the
Confederacy.
It seems quite plain that the condemnation of Lincoln on this
issue of usurpation was not confined to the friends of the
Confederacy, nor has it been confined to his enemies in later
days. One of Lincoln's most ardent admirers, the historian
Rhodes, condemns his course unqualifiedly. "There can be no
question," he writes, "that from the legal point of view the
President should have rescinded the sentence and released
Vallandigham." Lincoln, he adds, "stands responsible for the
casting into prison of citizens of the United States on orders as
arbitrary as the lettres-de-cachet of Louis XIV." Since Mr.
Rhodes, uncompromising Unionist, can write as he does upon this
issue, it is plain that the opposition party cannot be dismissed
as through and through disunionist.
The trial of Vallandigham made him a martyr and brought him the
Democratic nomination for Governor of Ohio*. His followers
sought to make the issue of the campaign the acceptance or
rejection of military despotism. In defense of his course
Lincoln wrote two public letters in which he gave evidence of the
skill which he had acquired as a lawyer before a jury by the way
in which he played upon the emotions of his readers.
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