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Clement Laird Vallandigham was born in 1820 in New Lisbon, Ohio. The son of a Presbyterian pastor, he studied law before entering politics with the Democrats. After losing a Congressional election, he denounced irregularities, appealed, won, and entered the House, where he would be re-elected several times.
On the eve of the Civil War, he voted against the abolition of slavery, arguing that it was an issue each state should decide for itself. In a speech to the House, he denounced Lincoln's policy, saying that "he has made this country one of the worst despotisms in the world."
He then became the leader of the Copperhead faction of the Democrats and of a secret anti-militarist organization, the Knights of the Golden Circle. In 1863, he was condemned to exile by court martial for opposing the war and for aiding the enemy. He first went to the Confederacy and then to Canada.
Lincoln considered him a "clever agitator" and feared turning him into a martyr. When his opponent secretly returned to Ohio and reappeared in public, Lincoln had him monitored but not arrested. After the war and his political career ended, Vallandigham became a respected jurist.
The incident for which he would be remembered occurred on June 17, 1871, in Lebanon, Ohio. The fifty-year-old lawyer was defending Thomas McGehan, accused of murder in a bar fight. It was a hopeless case, as the man had shot his opponent in front of many witnesses.
Vallandigham argued that the victim had clumsily committed suicide while trying to pull out his pocket pistol to shoot his client. During his closing argument, he reconstructed the scene in the courtroom. He put a pistol, which he thought was unloaded, in his pocket, knelt, and said to the jury: "Myers was exactly in this position. He took the pistol, stood up..." The lawyer stumbled, a flash, a scream: "My God, I’ve shot myself."
A shot to the abdomen: he would die after 12 hours. However, his demonstration confirmed the plausibility of his argument. The defendant was acquitted and released,he would die four years later in a shooting after a bar fight. Clement Vallandigham entered history, both judicial and beyond.
