It was a regional counterpart to the National Union Party that supported the wartime administration of Abraham Lincoln.
[2] Following the commencement of hostilities in April 1861, Unionists won critical elections in Kentucky and Maryland ahead of the July 4 emergency session of Congress and established provisional governments in Missouri and the western counties of Virginia.
[3] Emancipation and the enlistment of Black soldiers split the Unionist movement, with Radicals embracing calls for the immediate abolition of slavery in response to wartime exigencies.
Factional strife culminated in a formal schism between the Conservative Unionists and the Radicals, who called themselves the Unconditional Union Party to signify their uncompromising support for the war effort.
[4] Nationally, Unconditional Unionists aligned themselves with the Radical Republicans in calling for the immediate abolition of slavery in the United States, the enlistment of Black soldiers to fight in the Union Army, and the aggressive prosecution of the war.