Clement L. Vallandigham
WE give on page 365 a portrait, from a photograph by Brady, of the notorious CLEMENT L. VALLANDIGHAM, ex-Member of Congress from Ohio.
The first that we can remember of this man is his appearance at Harper's Ferry on the occasion of John Brown's raid. When poor John Brown, mortally wounded, and laid by the body of his dead son, was confronted by the infuriated slaveholding leaders of Virginia, and bullied, as only slave-owners can bully, the most insolent, outrageous, and brutal of the old man's tormentors was Clement L. Vallandigham. In his constituency, which is Dayton, Ohio, it does not seem, however, that the disgust which his conduct created every where else injured him in the least. He was again returned to Congress, and took his seat as usual. Throughout the three sessions of the Thirty-seventh Congress he was conspicuous as an opponent of the United States and sympathizer with the rebels. He voted against every measure which was intended to enable the Government to prosecute the war, and did every thing which ingenuity and malice could devise to hamper the Administration, weaken the country, comfort the enemy, and provoke foreign interference. At the election of November last he was dropped, and General Schenck elected from his district. Since then he has been perambulating the country, delivering seditious speeches, urging the people to resist the draft, misrepresenting the purposes and policy of the Government, and endeavoring to provoke an outbreak at the West. For one of these speeches he was arrested a fortnight since by order of General Burnside, tried by court-martial, and sentenced to imprisonment in a Federal fortress pending the war. General Burnside accordingly ordered him to be taken to Fort Warren. The President has since altered this sentence to expulsion beyond the Union lines. He was accordingly taken to General Rosecrans's army at Murfreesboro, and by him dispatched to the rebels under a strong escort of cavalry. The rebel officer refused to receive him, but allowed him to remain under guard until the pleasure of Jeff Davis should be ascertained. Vallandigham insisted on being considered a prisoner of war.
Harper's Weekly, Vol. VII, No. 336, Saturday, June 6, 1863 (PDF).