It was presented as the newspaper for favor with "Peace Democrats" (often referred to as Copperheads) - those northerners who sided with the Confederate cause during the war.
[1] The name alluded to previous newspapers and broadsides during the American Revolutionary War that spoke out against British rule over the colonies.
Medary's use of the name for his paper was an attempt to tie the States Rights movement to those who fought for American independence.
For Copperheads, Abraham Lincoln was every bit the evil that was King George III.
With Medary's death went The Crisis, and with the end of the Civil War, the newspaper went out of business.