It was this order, dominated by a few radical whites, which organized, disciplined, and controlled the ignorant Negro masses and paralyzed the influence of the conservative whites.
The Union League of America had its origin in Ohio in the fall of 1862, when the outlook for the Union cause was gloomy.

The moderate policies of the Lincoln Administration had alienated those in favor of extreme measures; the Confederates had won military successes in the field; the Democrats had made some gains in the elections; the Copperheads* were actively opposed to the Washington Government; the Knights of the Golden Circle were organizing to resist the continuance of the war; and the Emancipation Proclamation had chilled the loyalty of many Union men, which was everywhere at a low ebb, especially in the Northern cities.
It was to counteract these depressing influences that the Union League movement was begun among those who were associated in the work of the United States Sanitary Commission.

Observing the threatening state of public opinion, members of this organization proposed that "loyalty be organized, consolidated and made effective." * See "Abraham Lincoln and the Union", by Nathaniel W.
Stephenson (in "The Chronicles of America"), pp.

156-7, 234-5 The first organization was made by eleven men in Cleveland, Ohio, in November 1862.

The Philadelphia Union League was organized a month later, and in January 1863, the New York Union League followed.