Clement L. Vallandigham(1820-1871) - Lawyer and journalist, Democratic congressman from Ohio. He was the most prominent of the Copperheads, the peace wing of the Democratic party before and during the Civil War. Defeated in the election of 1862, he was arrested in 1863 for making a speech considered treasonable. Although he should have been tried in a civil court, he was court-martialed before a military tribunal, and sentenced to prison. Lincoln commuted his sentence to banishment, and Vallandigham was deported to the Confederacy. He worked his way to Canada, and while there, he received in absentia the Democratic nomination for governor of Ohio, and nearly won the election. In 1864, he became Supreme Commander of the Sons of Liberty, an anti-draft, pro-slavery secret society, formerly the Knights of the Golden Circle. His story inspired Edward Everett Hale's Man Without a Country (1863).

The Difference Dictionary was first published
in slightly different form in Science Fiction Eye, Issue #8.
Text copyright 1990, 1996, 2000, 2003,
by Eileen K. Gunn.