When dissent becomes obstruction

In the US Civil War, 'Copperheads' in the North nearly defeated Lincoln's effort to save the Union. Today's Democrats are similarly guilty.

from the March 30, 2007 edition

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The Copperheads were particularly dangerous because of the substantial influence they exerted on the Democratic Party. During the election of 1864, the peace Democrats wrote the party platform, and one of their own, Rep. George Pendleton of Ohio, was the party's candidate for vice president. Until Adm. David Farragut's victory at Alabama's Mobile Bay, Gen. William Sherman's capture of Atlanta, and Gen. Philip Sheridan's success in driving the Confederates from the Shenandoah Valley in the summer and fall of 1864, hostility toward the war was so profound in the North that Lincoln believed he would lose the election.

Fortunately for the country, the turn of events on the battlefield permitted a coalition of Republicans and "war Democrats" to reelect Lincoln in 1864. Of particular importance was the fact that Union soldiers voted overwhelmingly for Lincoln, abandoning the once-beloved Gen. George McClellan because of the perception that he had become a tool of the Copperheads.

...and Copperhead obstruction now

Today's Democratic Party seems to have inherited the mantle, if not the name, of their Copperhead forebears. Like the Copperheads of old, today's Democrats put the entire blame for the war and its conduct on the administration. While the Copperheads of old assured the Union soldiers that the Rebels could not be defeated, today's Copperheads assure us that the Iraqi insurgents are invincible.

The Copperheads of old described Lincoln as a bloodthirsty tyrant, trampling the rights of Southerners and Northerners alike. And they portrayed Union soldiers as instruments of his tyrannical administration. Invoking the USA Patriot Act, Guantánamo Bay, and Abu Ghraib, today's Copperheads – from lawmakeres to bloggers – call President Bush a tyrant and a terrorist. Some have even suggested similarity between US soldiers serving in Iraq and Nazis in World War II. Rarely do they censure the enemy in such terms.

Like the Copperheads of old, today's Democrats offer no viable alternative to their respective president's policy except to "end the war now." And just as former Copperheads preferred Lincoln's failure to saving the Union, the current ones would rather see Bush lose than the country win in Iraq.

Of course, rhetoric is one thing. An action to obstruct the war effort is another. With the recent shameful vote in Congress to hamstring the commander in chief's authority and ability to conduct the war in Iraq, the Democrats have assumed Copperhead status by moving from the former to the latter.

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