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A President, a Governor, a Clerk, and a Quaker: The War Affected Everyone:
Nearly all Hoosiers opposed secession and supported the restoration of the Union. However, the people of Indiana were deeply divided over the definition of the Union and the best way of preserving it. Republicans in Indiana believed that the nation was like a living being, one that could not exist without all of its organic parts. In other words, the Union was not simply a group of individual states. The Republicans viewed the South as dominated by wealthy "planters," who would prefer to make their agricultural economy a dominant way of life for the entire country.
To Hoosier Democrats, on the other hand, the Union was a loosely organized group of states for which the powers of the states were distinctly separate from the powers of the Federal government. There could be no legitimate reason for secession.
Some Hoosiers -- primarily Republicans, members of the Society of Friends (Quakers), and former New Englanders known as "Yankees" -- were vehemently opposed to slavery as a moral wrong. Many more Hoosier Republicans believed the practice of slavery violated work-ethic values by denying the slaves' right to the benefits of their work. |