Southern leaders was conducted on the footing that the Union should be restored. But his character inspired no respect. Burnside, now commanding the troops in Ohio, held that violent denunciation of the Government in a tone that tended to demoralise the troops was treason, since it certainly was not patriotism, and when in May, 1863, Vallandigham made a very violent and offensive speech in Ohio he had him arrested in his house at night, and sent him before a court-martial which imprisoned him. Loud protest was raised by every Democrat. This worry came upon Lincoln just after Chancellorsville. He regretted Burnside's action--later on he had to reverse the rash suppression of a newspaper by which Burnside provoked violent indignation--but on this occasion he would only say in public that he "regretted the necessity" of such action. Evidently he thought it his duty to support a well-intentioned general against a dangerous agitator. The course which after some consideration he took was of the nature of a practical joke, perhaps justified by its success. Vallandigham was indeed released; he was taken to the front and handed over to the Confederates as if he had been an exchanged prisoner of war. In reply to demands from the Democratic organisation in Ohio that Vallandigham might be allowed to return home, Lincoln offered to consent if their leaders would sign a pledge to support the war and promote the efficiency of the army. This they called an evasion. Vallandigham made his way to Canada and conducted intrigues from thence. In his absence he was put up for the governorship of Ohio in November, but defeated by a huge majority, doubtless the larger because of Gettysburg and Vicksburg. The next year he suddenly returned home, braving the chance of arrest, and, probably to his disappointment, Lincoln let him be. In reply to protests against Vallandigham's arrest which had been sent by meetings in Ohio and New York, Lincoln had written clear defences of his action, from which the foregoing account of his views on martial law has been taken. In one of them was a sentence which probably went further with the people of the North than any other: "Must I shoot a simple-minded soldier boy who deserts, while I must not touch a hair of a wily agitator who induces him to desert?" There may or may not be some fallacy lurking here, but it must not be supposed that this sentence came from a pleader's ingenuity. It was the expression of a man really agonised by his weekly task of confirming sentences on deserters from the army.