Posted on 12/02/2001 7:24:44 AM PST by vannrox
Lincoln's Suspension of the Writ of Habeas Corpus
Relating to the Events in Baltimore
HEADQUARTERS OF THE ARMY,
Washington, April 27, 1861.
The undersigned, General-in-Chief of the Army, has received from the President of the United States the following communication:
COMMANDING GENERAL ARMY OF THE UNITED STATES:
You are engaged in repressing an insurrection against the laws of the United States. If at any point on or in the vicinity of the military line which is now used between the city of Philadelphia via Perryville, Annapolis City and Annapolis Junction you find resistance which renders it necessary to suspend the writ of habeas corpus for the public safety, you personally or through the officer in command at the point where resistance occurs are authorized to suspend that writ.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
In accordance with the foregoing warrant the undersigned devolves on Major-General Patterson, commanding the Department of Pennsylvania, Delaware and Maryland; Brigadier-General Butler, commanding the Department of Annapolis, and Colonel Mansfield, commanding the Washington Department, a like authority each within the limits of his command to execute in all proper cases the instructions of the President.
WINFIELD SCOTT.
RETURN TO MISCELLANEOUS RECORDS PAGE
And, sadly, Congress has not declared war. Supposedly over the lack of a "state" to declare war against. Dumping the duty on the "Imperial President"?
Congress is not really wrong. Afghanistan can barely be called a legitimate state, and declaring war on it is actually paying it a compliment it doesn't deserve. What exactly Bush is doing is hard to say. We are really just engaging in the actions of a Colonial power, or perhaps, more accurately, one of the leading goals of the men who formed the Southern Confederacy in 1861. That was the right of American citizens to engage in the active overthrow of foreign states and governments for financial gain.
One of these days, if he isn't killed too early, Bin Laden will wake up and realize he did something really stupid. He didn't wake the sleeping giant, he awoke the sleeping evil of 100% pure soulless capitalism and adventurism. Capitalism lies at the heart and soul of our greatness, but unchained by conscience and social responsibility, you don't want to move in anywhere near you.
The reason that Congress cannot delegate its legislative powers to the judiciary or to the executive is that there is a deliberate separation of powers among the three branches of government. This is known as the doctrine of Separation of Powers. Surely you've heard of it.
That's nonsense. If that were the goal of the men who formed the Confederacy, they neglected to empower their government to do any such thing within the articles of their constitution.
The Taliban government satisfied the basic requirement of nationhood by gaining recognition from the governments of two or more sovereign nations. Congress could declare war on the Taliban government and the President could prosecute that war against the Taliban and its supporters who declare themselves after the fact.
I don't think so. Bush is waging war. We might question the authority, but even though there is no overt declaration of war, there is approval and consent.
We are really just engaging in the actions of a Colonial power, or perhaps, more accurately, one of the leading goals of the men who formed the Southern Confederacy in 1861. That was the right of American citizens to engage in the active overthrow of foreign states and governments for financial gain.
I don't see any justification for claims of colonialism. While that may be an outcome, the causation--the impetus if you will-- for retaliatory strikes against Taliban and Al Qaeda have the ancient justification of self-defense against an openly avowed enemy sworn to kill Americans.
With regard to the Southern Confederacy, you're saying it's founders engaged in an overthrow of a foreign state for financial gain? Perhaps. But the question of whether or not they had the right to declare the Union a foreign enemy was determined by the war's outcome. A long time ago.
You claim that Lincoln acted as a tyrant. I could see some reasoning for that position if he had made a sweeping denial which affected the entire population, which could be the anticipated outcome if the writ was denied by an act of Congress.
Lincoln's denial of writs was directed at a small and specific population during a time of rebellion. Perhaps this is why his action has never received a final legal condemnation?
Consent and approval applies to both marriage and prostitution, just with different overtones.
I don't see any justification for claims of colonialism. While that may be an outcome, the causation--the impetus if you will-- for retaliatory strikes against Taliban and Al Qaeda have the ancient justification of self-defense against an openly avowed enemy sworn to kill Americans.
The outcome has much more to do with the process. There is no justification for self defense, only for pre-emption of further strikes, and that's a different matter. If I shoot a murderer in my house, that's legal. If I shoot him in his house, that's a different story. I don't deny there is a certain wisdom in taking them out, I just don't see the idea of equating the game with self-righteousness. We lost claim to that several billions of dollars worth of shipments of weaponry ago. At this point it is just part of the game, and we got tagged with a shot when we didn't really expect despite the fact that we have been playing the game for decades.
With regard to the Southern Confederacy, you're saying it's founders engaged in an overthrow of a foreign state for financial gain? Perhaps. But the question of whether or not they had the right to declare the Union a foreign enemy was determined by the war's outcome. A long time ago.
But we are are still talking about Democratic (as in the party) ideals operating in our government. You betcha foreign intervention was on their party platforms. It just couldn't get sanctioned in the House. The Senate they could get and the Pres, but not the House. We no longer hold just principles in value, so we engage in the common practice of warring with other nations covertly all over the world, and hence the WTC as not a surprise attack on a sweet innocent, but as simple blowback on a proverbial pimp for tyranny.
And in both cases, form a contract.
There is no justification for self defense, only for pre-emption of further strikes, and that's a different matter. If I shoot a murderer in my house, that's legal. If I shoot him in his house, that's a different story. I don't deny there is a certain wisdom in taking them out, I just don't see the idea of equating the game with self-righteousness.
Hopefully you wouldn't shoot the murderer, but the attempted murderer. It's a different story in his house only because self-defense does not apply. Why equate self-defense with self-righteousness? But you could argue, and surely you know this, that any nation has a right to defend it's citizenry and since a nation is a collective and not an individual it's reach extends beyond those known to be in immediate harm's way. Neither the individual nor a nation can know the exact nature of the threat prior to the act.
We lost claim to that several billions of dollars worth of shipments of weaponry ago. At this point it is just part of the game, and we got tagged with a shot when we didn't really expect despite the fact that we have been playing the game for decades.
You know, that's really enemy line.
We no longer hold just principles in value, so we engage in the common practice of warring with other nations covertly all over the world, and hence the WTC as not a surprise attack on a sweet innocent, but as simple blowback on a proverbial pimp for tyranny.
Hmmm. The US as a proverbial pimp for tyranny. I learn a lot on FR. I also learn a lot about myself. I'm going to end this correspondence because if you're the kind of person who can dismiss the horrific deaths of civilians--who were indeed innocent-- as "simple blowback" you're not the kind of guy I need to know.
Not only that, but it's the truth, and I took the line from a commentary by an ex CIA agent who is also a US citizen. I didn't want you to think I took it from Bin Laden who is also an ex CIA type.
The fact that revisionist historians have succeeded in glossing over those condemnations and every other criticism of Lincoln to be found in the media of his time doesn't mean that his actions haven't been condemned.
Are you saying that Congress should suspend the privilege now? There's no reason for that, IMO.
FYI
|
|
|
| Secession Timeline various sources |
|
|
|
|
| [Although very late in the war Lee wanted freedom offered to any of the slaves who would agree to fight for the Confederacy, practically no one was stupid enough to fall for that. In any case, Lee was definitely not fighting to end slavery, instead writing that black folks are better off in bondage than they were free in Africa, and regardless, slavery will be around until Providence decides, and who are we to second guess that? And the only reason the masters beat their slaves is because of the abolitionists.] Robert E. Lee letter -- "...There are few, I believe, in this enlightened age, who will not acknowledge that slavery as an institution is a moral and political evil. It is idle to expatiate on its disadvantages. I think it is a greater evil to the white than to the colored race. While my feelings are strongly enlisted in behalf of the latter, my sympathies are more deeply engaged for the former. The blacks are immeasurably better off here than in Africa, morally, physically, and socially. The painful discipline they are undergoing is necessary for their further instruction as a race, and will prepare them, I hope, for better things. How long their servitude may be necessary is known and ordered by a merciful Providence. Their emancipation will sooner result from the mild and melting influences of Christianity than from the storm and tempest of fiery controversy. This influence, though slow, is sure. The doctrines and miracles of our Saviour have required nearly two thousand years to convert but a small portion of the human race, and even among Christian nations what gross errors still exist! While we see the course of the final abolition of human slavery is still onward, and give it the aid of our prayers, let us leave the progress as well as the results in the hands of Him who, chooses to work by slow influences, and with whom a thousand years are but as a single day. Although the abolitionist must know this, must know that he has neither the right not the power of operating, except by moral means; that to benefit the slave he must not excite angry feelings in the master..." |
December 27, 1856 |
|
|
|
| Platform of the Alabama Democracy -- the first Dixiecrats wanted to be able to expand slavery into the territories. It was precisely the issue of slavery that drove secession -- and talk about "sovereignty" pertained to restrictions on slavery's expansion into the territories. | January 1860 |
|
|
|
| Abraham Lincoln nominated by Republican Party | May 18, 1860 |
|
|
|
| Abraham Lincoln elected | November 6, 1860 |
|
|
|
| Robert Toombs, Speech to the Georgia Legislature -- "...In 1790 we had less than eight hundred thousand slaves. Under our mild and humane administration of the system they have increased above four millions. The country has expanded to meet this growing want, and Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Texas, Arkansas, Kentucky, Tennessee, and Missouri, have received this increasing tide of African labor; before the end of this century, at precisely the same rate of increase, the Africans among us in a subordinate condition will amount to eleven millions of persons. What shall be done with them? We must expand or perish. We are constrained by an inexorable necessity to accept expansion or extermination. Those who tell you that the territorial question is an abstraction, that you can never colonize another territory without the African slavetrade, are both deaf and blind to the history of the last sixty years. All just reasoning, all past history, condemn the fallacy. The North understand it better - they have told us for twenty years that their object was to pen up slavery within its present limits - surround it with a border of free States, and like the scorpion surrounded with fire, they will make it sting itself to death." | November 13, 1860 |
|
|
|
| Alexander H. Stephens -- "...The first question that presents itself is, shall the people of Georgia secede from the Union in consequence of the election of Mr. Lincoln to the Presidency of the United States? My countrymen, I tell you frankly, candidly, and earnestly, that I do not think that they ought. In my judgment, the election of no man, constitutionally chosen to that high office, is sufficient cause to justify any State to separate from the Union. It ought to stand by and aid still in maintaining the Constitution of the country. To make a point of resistance to the Government, to withdraw from it because any man has been elected, would put us in the wrong. We are pledged to maintain the Constitution." | November 14, 1860 |
|
|
|
| South Carolina | December 20, 1860 |
|
|
|
| Mississippi | January 9, 1861 |
|
|
|
| Florida | January 10, 1861 |
|
|
|
| Alabama | January 11, 1861 |
|
|
|
| Georgia | January 19, 1861 |
|
|
|
| Louisiana | January 26, 1861 |
|
|
|
| Texas | February 23, 1861 |
|
|
|
| Abraham Lincoln sworn in as President of the United States |
March 4, 1861 |
|
|
|
| Arizona territory | March 16, 1861 |
|
|
|
| CSA Vice President Alexander H. Stephens, Cornerstone speech -- "...last, not least. The new constitution has put at rest, forever, all the agitating questions relating to our peculiar institution -- African slavery as it exists amongst us -- the proper status of the negro in our form of civilization. This was the immediate cause of the late rupture and present revolution. Jefferson in his forecast, had anticipated this, as the 'rock upon which the old Union would split.' He was right. What was conjecture with him, is now a realized fact." | March 21, 1861 |
|
|
|
| Virginia | adopted April 17,1861 ratified by voters May 23, 1861 |
|
|
|
| Arkansas | May 6, 1861 |
|
|
|
| North Carolina | May 20, 1861 |
|
|
|
| Tennessee | adopted May 6, 1861 ratified June 8, 1861 |
|
|
|
| West Virginia declares for the Union | June 19, 1861 |
|
|
|
| Missouri | October 31, 1861 |
|
|
|
| "Convention of the People of Kentucky" | November 20, 1861 |
|
|
|
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.