Copperheadism was a highly contentious grass-roots movement. It had its strongest base in the area just north of the Ohio River as well as in some urban ethnic wards. Historians such as Wood Gray, Jennifer Weber and Kenneth Stampp have argued that it represented a traditionalistic element alarmed at the rapid modernization of society sponsored by the Republican Party and that it looked back to Jacksonian democracy for inspiration. Weber argues that the Copperheads damaged the Union war effort by opposing conscription (the "draft"), encouraging desertion, and forming conspiracies, but other historians say that the draft was already in disrepute and that the Republicans greatly exaggerated the conspiracies for partisan reasons.