General Order No. 38, issued by Union Gen. Ambrose E. Burnside, commander of the Department of the Ohio, on 13 April 1863, forbade public expressions of sympathy for the Confederacy. Clement L. Vallandigham, a leading Ohio Democrat and a harsh critic of the Lincoln administration, denounced Burnside's order in a speech at Mount Vernon, Ohio, on 1 May 1863. Vallandigham was arrested on 5 May, tried by military commission, and, on order of President Abraham Lincoln, banished beyond the Union lines. Although some northern Democrats criticized Lincoln's action, Northern public opinion supported Vallandigham's banishment as well as the administration's broader crackdown on Confederate sympathizers.

Bibliography

Klement, Frank L. The Limits of Dissent: Clement L. Vallandigham and the Civil War. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1970.

Neely, Mark E. The Fate of Liberty: Abraham Lincoln and Civil Liberties. New York: Oxford University Press, 1991.

—Charles H. Coleman/A. G.

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