Before we go overboard on "our democracy is gone"

[Cirsium]

99. The man without a country

Vallandigham was a traitor, at a time of war.

A example of the sentiment in the North at the time:

Chief among Northern traitors is Clement L. Vallandigham, of Ohio, the head and front of the Copperhead party. This man Vallandigham made a speech at Newark, N. J., a few days ago, in which, under a flimsy guise of Unionism, he managed to give utterance to a deal of infamous talk. For example, he said that "they have the ballot at the South just as free as it is here; there is as much free speech South as there is North to-day." Mr. Vallandigham, if he knows anything, must know this statement to be utterly false. Suppose a Unionist had stood up in Richmond as he, (Vallandigham,) a traitor, stood up in Newark — denouncing Jeff. Davis as he denounces President Lincoln, — denouncing rebellion as he denounces the war, — branding the secessionists of the South with opprobrious and insulting epithets as he and his followers brend Union men; how long would he have been left free to do so? Mr. Vallandigham must know, if he knows anything, that he would have been hung for treason. No man in any part of the Southern States would be allowed for an instant to talk against the rebel Confederacy as he talks against the Union. No man's neck would be safe for an hour who should vote in the South where Jeff. Davis' Government had full sway, for a Union man for any office whatever.

In much that Vallandigham said in the speech referred to, he talked so like a fool, that one scarcely feels like holding him responsible. When, for example, he said that "we should immediately cease hostilities, and proceed then to determine the question whether a majority of the people of the North and West will unite with a majority of the people of the South, and restore the Union as it was," it is hard to believe that he had not come fresh from an idiot asylum, instead of the halls of Congress. But when a little afterward he invoked active hostility to the efforts of the Government in carrying on the war, it is easy to see that the traitor and the knave is stronger in him than the fool.

...

The Southern rebels "ought to be induced" to invade the North, unless we stop the war! That is Mr. Vallandigham's opinion; and he is left free to proclaim it. The fact that he is free is a sufficient refutation of the miserable falsehood, that there is as much freedom of speech at the South as at the North. If he were to say half as much against the Confederacy in Richmond, as he said against the Union in Newark, he would have been hung by the mob.

from 'A Specimen Northern Traitor' in the 'Daily Illinois State Journal, 21 February 1863'

https://digital.lib.niu.edu/islandora/object/niu-civil%3A15290

Lincoln, on the case of Vallandigham:

And yet, let me say that, in my own discretion, I do not know whether I would have ordered the arrest of Mr.Vallandigham. While I shift the responsibility from myself, I hold that, as a general rule, the commander in the field is the better judge of the necessity in any particular case. Of course I must practice a general directory and revisory power in the matter.

One of the resolutions expresses the opinion of the meeting that arbitrary arrests will have the effect to divide and distract those who should be united in suppressing the rebellion, and I am specifically called on to discharge Mr. Vallandigham. I regard this as, at least, a fair appeal to me on the expediency of exercising a constitutional power which I think exists. In response to such appeal I have to say, it gave me pain when I learned that Mr. Vallandigham had been arrested (that is, I was pained that there should have seemed to be a necessity for arresting him), and that it will afford me great pleasure to discharge him so soon as I can by any means believe the public safety will not suffer by it.

https://teachingamericanhistory.org/document/letter-to-erastus-corning-and-others/

Lincoln released Vallandigham to the Confederacy, but he was unhappy and unwelcome there, too, and eventually went to Canada to carry on his anti-Union activities. Hence, he was known as "the man without a country."

His "opposition to tyranny" was thinly disguised opposition to Abolition, and those who praise him today are sympathetic to his racist views. He was very leniently treated by Lincoln.