Clement Vallandigham

Clement Laird Vallandigham (/vəˈlændɪɡəm/ və-LAN-dig-əm; July 29, 1820 – June 17, 1871) was an American lawyer and politician who was the leader of the Copperhead faction of anti-war Democrats during the American Civil War.

He served two terms for Ohio's 3rd congressional district in the United States House of Representatives. In 1863, he was convicted by an Army court martial for publicly expressing opposition to the war and exiled to the Confederate States of America. He ran for governor of Ohio in 1863 from exile in Canada, but was defeated.

Vallandigham died in 1871 in Lebanon, Ohio, after accidentally shooting himself in the abdomen with a pistol during a courtroom demonstration.

Clement Laird Vallandigham was born July 29, 1820, in New Lisbon, Ohio (now Lisbon, Ohio), to Clement and Rebecca Laird Vallandigham. His father, a Presbyterian minister, educated his son at home.

In 1841, Vallandigham had a dispute with the college president at Jefferson College in Canonsburg, Pennsylvania. He was honorably dismissed, but he never received a degree.

Edwin M. Stanton, the future Secretary of War under President Abraham Lincoln, was Vallandigham's close friend before the Civil War. Stanton lent Vallandigham $500 for a law course and to begin his own practice. Both Vallandigham and Stanton were Democrats, but they held opposing views on slavery. Stanton was an abolitionist; Vallandigham an anti-abolitionist.

Shortly after beginning to practice law in Dayton, Ohio, Vallandigham entered politics. He was elected as a Democrat to the Ohio legislature in 1845 and 1846, and served as editor of a weekly newspaper, the Dayton Empire, from 1847 to 1849.

While in the Ohio state legislature, Vallandigham voted against the repeal of the "Black Laws" (laws against the civil rights of African-Americans) though he wanted the question put to a referendum by the voters. In 1851, Vallandigham sought the Democratic nomination to be Ohio's lieutenant governor, but the party declined to nominate him.