When it came to the civil war, Lincoln dealt with the Copperheads by suspending the habeas corpus. This meant that their constitutional right that protected them from unlawful imprisonment did not apply to them anymore. They were against the war and spread the conscription idea so Lincoln had many of them locked up and put on trial for treason. They were called copperheads because they were compared to snakes since they were northern democrats who were against the civil war, and the war was deemed as necessary.