Doughface

The term doughface originally referred to an actual mask made of dough, but came to be used in a disparaging context for someone, especially a politician, who is perceived to be pliable and moldable.

[2] In the years leading up to the American Civil War, "doughface" was used to describe Northerners who favored the Southern position in political disputes.

In 1836, 60 northern congressmen voted with the South to pass a gag rule to prevent anti-slavery petitions from being formally received in the House of Representatives.

[4] Many Southerners still looked at these doughfaces from the same perspective as Randolph—weak men who, without any firm moral commitment to their cause other than political expediency, could prove unreliable at some critical point in the future.

Other such doughfaces were Charles G. Atherton, the author of the gag rule, and Jesse D. Bright, the only northern senator expelled for treason during the Civil War.

[9] In Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr.'s book The Vital Center, he applied the term to modern liberalism in the United States, referring to the part of the movement perceived as practicing appeasement of Joseph Stalin's Soviet Union.