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
x
deliberately, No, never; war is final, eternal separation.” He called the war
“unconstitutional” which he noted could “only be carried out in an unconstitutional
manner.”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
Kendall
iv
Biographical Directory of the United States Congress
v
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 1518
xi
The Congressional Globe 1518
xii
Perzel 73-76.