Alexander K. Long: The Peace Democrat

8/14/2019 Alexander K. Long: The Peace Democrat

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Alexander K. Long

By

Timothy M. Burke

“I now believe that there are but two alternatives, and they are either an

acknowledgement of the independence of the South as an independent nation, or their

complete subjugation and extermination, and of these alternatives I prefer the former.” i

These words spoken before Congress by Alexander K. Long on April 8, 1864 set off a

firestorm of controversy that engulfed the nation’s capital for the next two weeks. Long, a

member of the House representing the Second Congressional District of Ohio, including

much of Hamilton County ultimately was censured by the House of Representatives

because of his speech and was branded as a traitor by many as the Civil War dragged into

its third year.

Born in Greenville, Pennsylvania on December 24, 1816 Long moved to Hamilton

County in 1837.ii He settled in Green Township just to the west of Cincinnati where he

taught school and studied law. The red haired Long described as “comely” married Miss

Cynthia Sammons, a resident of Green Township in 1842 and began practicing law in

local “justice of the peace courts”, before moving to Cincinnati.iii In 1848, the 36-year-old

Long was elected to the Ohio General Assembly where he served one term as a Democrat

ending in 1850.iv He continued to practice law throughout the 1850’s and a made a failed

run at Congress in 1860.

In April of 1861 the simmering tensions between the North and South boiled over into

war at Ft. Sumter. By the fall of 1862 the war was going badly for the Union and cracks

had begun to appear in the substantial unity that had been characteristic of the North

through the early days of the war. The conflict had been going on for almost a year and a

half, far longer than the 90 days some in the North had naively predicted. A growing

number of Democrats who had supported the Lincoln administration in its war efforts

were disenchanted. For some it was plain and simple war weariness while others were

unhappy with administration policies their party had traditionally opposed, but ignored

for the sake of national unity since Ft. Sumter. As the November elections loomed, a



small percentage of Democrats were even openly expressing an anti-war position with

some demanding an immediate cessation of hostilities. In Ohio the growing unhappiness

with Lincoln was reflected in the election of 14 Democrats to the state’s 19 congressional

seats in the U.S. House, among them Long.v

His loss in the 1860 congressional race was by a narrow margin to the Republican

incumbent John Gurley. In 1862 he again ran against Gurley this time winning by the

slimmest of margins, “a mere 151 votes”.vi In the aftermath of his 1860 defeat, and the

start of the war, he gravitated to the states’ rights doctrine. Long believed that any federal

attempt to abolish slavery was a direct attack on the states’ responsibility to protect

private property, a position taken for years by fellow Southern Democrats. Consequently

he came out strongly against abolition, fearing other property and eventually civil

liberties would also come under assault by growing federal power. vii Elected at least in

part, on these sentiments and the support of prominent local citizens like John Scott

Harrison who had formerly represented the Second Congressional District, Alexander

Long began his first and only term as a U.S. Congressman.

He did not draw much attention to himself during his first year in office during which

the drum beat of the Peace Democrats sometimes called the Copperheads, grew louder

under the leadership of Clement Vallandigham. The demand for an immediate peace with

the Confederacy was Vallandigham’s chief position as he made a run at the governorship

of Ohio in 1863. But twin Union victories at Gettysburg and Vicksburg changed the

fortunes of war and doomed his chances of winning. In the months that followed the

Democratic Party, divided into two factions, the War Democrats and Peace Democrats, as

the party prepared for its national convention in July of 1864.

By April, the House was in session fresh from considering Lincoln’s State of the

Union Address when as the Cincinnati Gazette described a “great, portly, resolute-

looking figure, with ultra-florid face and good natured features, and a profusion of curly

hair,” took the floor.viii This was to be Long’s first speech to the House.

I speak today for the preservation of the Government, and, although for the first time within these walls, I

propose to indulge in that freedom of speech…freely exercised by other gentlemen for the past four

months, and which is admissible under the rules in the present condition of the House; but for what I may



say…I alone will be responsible … I intend to proclaim the deliberate convictions of my judgment in this

fearful hour of the country’s peril.ix

Long went on to accuse the Lincoln Administration of provoking the war by attempting

to deliver badly needed supplies to Ft. Sumter in the spring of 1861. Lincoln, he charged,

knew fighting would result, which he believed was the President’s intention. It was a

choice to “coerce the states back into the Union,” Long believed, which clearly clashed

with his belief in the States’ Rights Doctrine that viewed the Constitution as a compact

from which states could voluntarily withdraw. Later in the speech Long’s intentions

became clear. “Can the Union be restored by war? I answer most unhesitatingly and

deliberately, No, never; war is final, eternal separation.” x He called the war

“unconstitutional” which he noted could “only be carried out in an unconstitutionalmanner.”xi His lengthy speech advocating an immediate peace and acceptance of the

Confederacy’s separation turned Washington D.C. upside down.

On the floor of the House, future President James A. Garfield, who had recently led

troops in the field, “compared him to Benedict Arnold,” while others in Congress bluntly

accused him of treason. The next day Speaker of the House Schuyler Colfax of Indiana

sought to have Long expelled from the law making body. For the next two weeks in

newspapers and in debates on the floor of the House, Alexander Long was demonized or

defended for freely and bravely speaking his mind.xii When the resolution to expel Long

failed, a new resolution to censure Long was proposed and passed on April the 14, 1865.

In the end, Long received support from Democrats and Republicans alike from both

newspapers and individuals, not for his sentiments but for the right to freely express his

political beliefs. With his term nearing an end in February 1865, he again took to the floor

of the House and expressed his belief the war was wrong, but this time received little

reaction. At the conclusion of his term he returned to Cincinnati where he maintained a

lucrative law practice while remaining active in politics though never again holding

political office. In 1886 he passed away in Cincinnati at age 70.



i The Congressional Globe,

(38th Congress, 1st session, Part 2, April 9-14, 1864) 1517.ii Reese Kendall, Pioneer Annals of Greene Township, (Green Township Historical Society, 1905) 49.iii Kendalliv Biographical Directory of the United States Congressv Edward S. Perzel, Alexander Long: A Political Study Of A Copperhead Congressman,

(University of Cincinnati, 1961) 59.vi Perzel 57.vii Perzel 59.viii Perzel p.69.ix The Congressional Globe,

(38th Congress, 1st session, Part 2 April 9-14, 1864) 1518.x The Congressional Globe 1518xi The Congressional Globe 1518xii Perzel 73-76.

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Alexander K. Long: The Peace Democrat