Debate continues over 'The Real Lincoln'

Editor's Note: WorldNetDaily talk-radio host Geoff Metcalf recently interviewed Dr. Thomas DiLorenzo, author of "The Real Lincoln." In his book, as in the interview published April 14, DiLorenzo claims the 16th president was far more concerned with economic centralization than the abolishment of slavery. The interview elicited strong responses from readers, about half of whom disagreed with the author's assertions. Among them was Dr. Richard Ferrier, president of the Declaration Foundation. According to Ferrier and scholars at the foundation, the evidence DiLorenzo uses to back his claims actually proves the author wrong. Ferrier, who calls DiLorenzo's scholarship "sloppy," explains the quandary in his interview with Metcalf.

Metcalf's daily streaming radio show can be heard on TalkNetDaily weekdays from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. Eastern time.

A: Falsehood, basically. Falsehood in details, sloppiness of scholarship and a fundamentally wrong-headed view of the role of Lincoln and the Declaration of Independence, and American history and our political philosophy.

Q: One of the key items DiLorenzo focused on was his suggestion that the debate between Thomas Jefferson and Alexander Hamilton was won for Hamilton by Lincoln. Was he wrong?

A: Yes, I think he's wrong. I think Jefferson and Hamilton fundamentally agreed, and Jefferson is the one DiLorenzo will pick as being on his side – that the American Union began not with the Constitution but with the Declaration of Independence. Jefferson said so in a letter to the board of governors.

A: What that means is that we are a people with a limited but sovereign federal government under the rule of law whose spirit is given in the Declaration of Independence. I think on that point Hamilton and Jefferson agree, and they both disagree with Calhoun and Jefferson Davis and the people who started the rebellion of 1860-61. He's just wrong on that, but he's wrong on more gross and obvious matters.

Q: What I am specifically concerned with is what you claim are his factual errors.

A: Suppose I said to you, "Jesus said, 'I will do this: I will pull down my barns and build larger ones where I will store all my grains and all my goods, and I will say to my soul, soul you have ample goods laid up for many years. Take your ease and eat, drink and be merry.'" Is that true?

A: He did. It's in a parable. He has somebody else say it. Jesus tells the story about the rich man, and those are the words of the rich man. So in a way, it's true that Jesus said that; he said it in quotation marks. He didn't say it himself.

A: So listen to this from Tom DiLorenzo's book: "Lincoln even mocked the Jeffersonian dictum enshrined in the Declaration of Independence that all men are created equal. He admitted that it had become a genuine coin in the political currency of our generation but added, 'I am sorry to say that I have never seen two men of whom it is true. But I must admit that I never saw the Siamese twins and therefore will not dogmatically say that no man ever saw proof of this sage aphorism.'" That is supposedly from Lincoln. DiLorenzo goes on to add, "So with the possible exception of Siamese twins the idea of equality, according to Lincoln, was a sheer absurdity." This is in stark contrast to the seductive words of the Gettysburg Address 11 years later, in which he purported to rededicate the nation to the notion that all men are created equal.

Q: There is a footnote in DiLorenzo's book regarding that quotation, citing the first Lincoln-Douglas debate.

A: Yes, and when I was researching the book, I dutifully followed up the footnote and read the passage. Rather, I didn't find the passage because it isn't there. It is nowhere in the first debate. It is nowhere in any of the debates. Where it is is in an 1852 eulogy of Henry Clay, and Lincoln is quoting a Virginia clergyman with whom he disagrees. In other words, it's a lie. Lincoln never said those words in his own voice. It is not only a lie, but it is either an incompetent or malicious inference that Lincoln contradicts himself in the Gettysburg Address when he declares his solemn faith in the American creed that "all men are created equal."

Q: DiLorenzo quotes Lincoln from the Lincoln-Douglas debates, saying, "I have no purpose to introduce political and social equality between white and black races, and I have never said anything to the contrary." Did Lincoln ever say that?

A: He did say that. But DiLorenzo has the citation wrong there, too. It is from a speech Lincoln gave in Peoria in 1854. Lincoln, who was a lawyer and was careful with his words, did not say "I do not believe in that equality. I do not think it is a good thing." He said, "I have no purpose to introduce it." Those are the words of a careful lawyerly politician who knows perfectly well how much good you can accomplish in your time and how much (if you espouse it) will ruin your career and keep you from accomplishing the good you can accomplish. So yes, it's perfectly true that Lincoln said, "I have no purpose," meaning, "I don't at the moment intend to bring about such equality." And if he had said anything else in Illinois in the 1850s, he couldn't have been elected to dogcatcher.

Q: DiLorenzo includes the Lincoln letter to Horace Greeley in 1862. Is that accurate?

Q: Hold on, here's the quote: "My paramount objective in this struggle is to save the Union; it is not to either save or destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave, I would do it." What's the rest of it?

A: He continues, "I say nothing about my well-known desire that all men everywhere should be free." In other words, he's speaking as a public man with respect to his constitutional duty, which is to preserve the Union. Now it should be said that Lincoln thought the Union wasn't just a legal entity or a practical entity but an entity like a human being – a body and a soul. And the soul of that entity was the truths that are expressed in the Declaration, including the truth that all men are created equal.

I was a vice chair of the Proposition 209 [California's anti-discrimination law] campaign and a friend of Glynn Custred. This principle of human equality and treating people according to skin color or race is more than dear to me. I have labored in the vineyards for it. Lincoln thought the American Union was not just a matter of laws and conventions and agreements, but it was a kind of spiritual compact. He drew that from the Declaration that, itself, goes back to our Protestant colonial forebearers who believed from Scripture and reason that all men are created equal. So when Lincoln wanted to save the Union – and told Greeley that in a letter – Lincoln is thinking, "I will save the Union, whose heart and soul are the truths that are spoken of in the Declaration." In fact, if it was unwise in the short term to issue an Emancipation Proclamation, he would hold it off. When it was the right time to do it, he would do it.

Q: I asked Dr. DiLorenzo if, in his opinion, Lincoln was a dictator. He said that even some of the most pro-Lincoln historians had called him a dictator. Do you consider Lincoln a dictator?

A: No, I don't. That is a vexed question. By the way, it's a good question for both sides of the Civil War. One of the unhappy things about DiLorenzo's scholarship is that he pays no attention to broad historical context and doesn't look for example at the actions of Jeff Davis and the Confederate government. He finds fault with Lincoln for the suspension of habeas corpus, for various measures taken to suppress sedition in the states under control of the Union, and pays no attention …

Q: I didn't realize so many American citizens were thrown in the slammer just for disagreeing with him.

A: They weren't thrown in the slammer for disagreeing with him. They were thrown in the slammer for encouraging sedition and desertion. There is a long and complex scholarship on this, and you won't get much of it or a balance of it from the book. There was suppression of newspaper editors in Richmond, declaration of martial law in numerous areas of the Confederacy. The Confederacy instituted conscription in advance of the Union. Tom is a libertarian, and he thinks economic issues dominate everything. He thinks personal liberty is the absolute trump card in every argument. He's entitled to think that, but he applies that to Lincoln and the Union without a glance at the corresponding actions in the Confederacy.

Both parts of the American republic in that unhappy war did similar things, and they both did them with respect to sustaining the integrity and security of the Confederacy or the Union. Lincoln is consistently modifying the actions of his subordinates in the direction of liberty and leniency. He has hotheads he has to keep under his control – notably Ambrose Burnside and Ben Butler, who are responsible for unwise actions. And down the line, Lincoln reverses those actions in the direction of liberty. He did that because he conceived of the war and of his sustaining of the Union as a defense of fundamental human rights as expressed in the Declaration.

Q: I was intrigued by Tom's book, because I don't have a dog in this fight. My litmus test is the Constitution and the Bill of Rights.

Q: Fine, we'll make it the troika. Several of the things Lincoln did were specifically designed to abrogate, eviscerate and destroy the very document to which he swore an oath. To say, "Well, gosh, the other guys were doing it too," is not an adequate defense.

A: That is fair enough. In a way, you almost want to look at what Davis and company said. Davis and company argued like Hamilton, and so did Lincoln. That is to say both men, Lincoln and Davis, saw their fundamental duty to support the integrity and security of the republic to which they saw themselves belonging. Of course, Lincoln never saw the Confederacy as a republic; he thought it was an insurrection. They looked at the sections of both the Confederate and U.S. Constitutions, in which the executive is given fairly broad powers with respect to seeing that the laws are upheld and that the public peace is maintained. They both made appeals of that sort. You can hammer out the details ad nasuem.

A: The one that is most plain and reasonable to think about, I think, is the suspension of habeas corpus. That is authorized in the United States Constitution. DiLorenzo and his friends niggle on a small point: that it's Article 1, Section 9, and not Article 2 under the executive power. But the whole first article is about the power of the United States government. Section 10 of Article 1 prohibits the states from doing a number of things. It is not restricted to the powers of Congress. The complaint, if I'm being obscure …

A: What I'm saying is this: The complaint is Lincoln suspended habeas corpus for the sake of the security of the national capitol. When the bulk of the active powers in Maryland were about to prevent him from being inaugurated, prevent the United States Congress from meeting, organizing military forces to oppose the national government and the like, Lincoln cited Article 1, Section 9. Namely, that habeas corpus could be suspended in the case of insurrection or rebellion in defense of the Constitution and laws that he was sworn to uphold.

The confederates suspended habeas corpus, too, and for the same reason. Namely, that they were concerned with security within the Confederacy. I think in their own lights, both men were right. If the Confederacy was a government and had real independence, it couldn't put up with insurrection in the Confederacy. And there was insurrection in the Confederacy.

Q: What about the repression of all those newspaper editors? The numbers vary; I've heard from 13,000 to a gazillion.

Q: No, but were the incarcerated people all preaching desertion and sedition, or were they merely critical of Lincoln and as a result got thrown in stony lonesome?

A: There were blockade runners. There was an extensive Confederate spy network. There were plans to disrupt public meetings in Ohio and Indiana. To look at that fairly, you have to look at the scholarship on it. There was an organized seditious campaign, especially in Ohio and Indiana. It was run in part by exiles from Canada in Canada, across the Great Lakes, with actual plans for violent acts and the encouragement of desertion from the United States armed forces. Among those people were newspaper editors. How would you have felt about that during the Vietnam War? What if there had been in Vancouver an organized pro-Viet Cong movement with financial arrangements to the North Vietnamese paying and organizing newspaper writers, agitators on the ground, and planning to disrupt American political meetings?

Q: I wouldn't tell or involve my government, but I'd take about four A-Teams and covertly visit and counsel the offenders with extreme prejudice.

A: Yes, but we didn't want to invade Canada. I feel kind of the same way. But that was the actual situation. When his generals went over the line on that and suppressed people who shouldn't have been suppressed, Lincoln was consistently on the side of clemency. It is an old and ugly grudge that is held against Lincoln and the Union for various reasons. I think partly regional sentimentality, partly racism sometimes and various other reasons make people state a one-sided case against a man who sustained the founding principles of this country.

Q: You are accusing DiLorenzo of sloppy and disingenuous scholarship. Can you give me an example?

A: In support of his thesis, he says, "In virtually every one of the Lincoln-Douglas debates, Lincoln made it a point to champion this corrupt economic agenda …"

A: It's like chartering canal companies and banks and things. He gives a footnote to that, and it's to the Lincoln-Douglas debates. Go look in those debates; there is not a word about this economic agenda. Not a word! Let me read from the Oxford history of this period. It's called "Battle Cry of Freedom," written by Dr. James McPherson, and it is a very respectable book. It's sort of the standard work on the matter. He talks about the Lincoln-Douglas debates:

"Desiring to confront Douglas directly, Lincoln proposed a series of debates." The famous debates that school kids used to read back in the days when we actually taught them something about American history. "The stakes were higher than a senatorial election. Higher even than the looming presidential contest of 1860 … for the theme of the debates was nothing less than the future of slavery and the Union. Tariffs, banks, internal improvements, corruption and other staples of American politics received not a word in these debates."

A: Nothing. I teach this at my college. I must have read and re-read seven debates 20 times. Trust me, Geoff, there is not a word about tariffs in those debates. Nothing.

Q: There is no argument that the tariffs imposed by the North on the South were draconian. You wouldn't refute that, would you?

A: The tariff of 1857, which was the existing tariff at the time, had bipartisan support. The South Carolina delegation voted for it. It was the lowest tariff in 20 years. That's not to say there wasn't debate about tariffs.

Q: The tariffs went from about 15 percent to 40 percent. I'd call that a big hike.

A: Yes, but that's two-and-a-half years later, in 1861. Democrat president James Buchanan signed that tariff, and it had bipartisan support. He called for its passage; he didn't just support it. In the '58 Senate contest and their seven famous debates, Douglas and Lincoln did not cross swords once over tariffs or the bank or internal improvements. I'm sorry to say this, Geoff, but what DiLorenzo says is a lie. These debates are available online. The books are widely published. Your readers should just go out and look. Also, the Declaration Foundation has a number of articles and a forum discussing this very matter of DiLorenzo's book and the legacy of Lincoln.

Q: DiLorenzo includes references to Frances Key Howard and Rep. Vallandigham. What can you tell us about them?

A: I don't know about the first one, but Clement Vallandigham was a Democrat from Ohio. When I mentioned Ambrose Burnside, Vallandigham was the congressman who gave speeches calling for the end of the war and for resistance to conscription …

A: That's right, but there was an income tax when he gave the speech that got him in trouble.

Q: My question is about congressional immunity. Unfortunately, Congress critters can get away with saying anything they want, as long as they say it in the well of Congress. How did Vallandigham end up getting his front door kicked in by federal soldiers?

A: He gave his speeches out in his home area in Ohio. The local general, Ambrose Burnside, thought it was treason and put him under arrest right away. When the facts came back to Lincoln, he thought it was unwise and possibly illegal, and he undid Burnside's action. What they offered him was a free pass through Confederate lines. And it's Vallandigham who wound up in Canada organizing seditious anti-Union, and sometimes violent, groups in the period of '63-'64, to undermine the national war effort. But Lincoln let him out. Lincoln turned the key. Burnside is the guy who did that, and Lincoln didn't think it was the right thing to do.

Q: What about the Morrill tariff bill, which bumped the tariff from 15 percent to 47 percent?

A: That bill would never have passed if the Southern states had not seceded. It passed in the Senate – before Lincoln was president, by the way – because 14 Southern senators were out of the Senate. They could have blocked it, but they walked out in advance.

When the neo-Rebels say the tariff was the cause of the war, they conveniently overlook the fact that South Carolina withdrew on December 20th of 1860 – not because of any tariff that had been passed or signed, but because Abraham Lincoln, who declared that slavery was a moral wrong, had been elected president of the United States. The Morrill tariff that you are referring to was not passed until three months after South Carolina and six other states went out.

Q: So if they blame secession on the tariff, they are being more than a little disingenuous.

Treated as plural? How do you figure? Did you read the part where it referred to the treaty as being between the two countries? And if Great Britian did consider the 13 colonies as sovereign and independent states then why didn't they insist on a treaty with each? You are the one grasping at straws here.

Your post says, in pertinant part, "and the said United States on their part". This is clearly plural. You also choose to ignore the plain language of Article I.

Furthermore, the Declaration of Indepedence is "The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America." Clearly indicating that the states veiwed themselves as distinct.

It also says, "That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do.

Again, independent states. Not part of the United States, but independent states."

From the Articles of Confederation: "Each state retains its sovereignty, freedom and independence, and every Power, Jurisdiction and right, which is not by this confederation expressly delegated to the United States, in Congress assembled."

This clearly indicates that your theory that the states were never soveriegn, independent entities just doesn't hold water.

Historically, your claim is completely inaccurate. It is time to review your preconceived notions in light of solid historical evidence. When you do, I beleive you will have no choice but to concede that the Southern states had a right to leave the union.

This clearly indicates that your theory that the states were never soveriegn, independent entities just doesn't hold water.

The Chief Justice of the Supreme Court saw it differently.

The revolution, or rather the Declaration of Independence, found the people already united for general purposes, and at the same time, providing for their more domestic concerns by state conventions, and other temporary arrangements. From the crown of Great Britain, the sovereignty of their country passed to the people of it; and it was then not an uncommon opinion, that the unappropriated lands, which belonged to that crown, passed, not to the people of the colony or states within whose limits they were situated, bt to the whole people; on whatever principles this opinion rested, it did not give way to the other, and thirteen sovereignties were considered as emerged from the principles of the revolution, combined with local convenience and considerations; the people nevertheless continued to consider themselves, in a national point of view, as one people; and they continued without interruption to manage their national concerns accordingly; afterwards, in the hurry of the war, and in the warmth of mutual confidence, they made a confederation of the States, the basis of a general Government. Experience disappointed the expectations they had formed from it; and then the people, in their collective and national capacity, established the present Constitution. It is remarkable that in establishing it, the people exercised their own rights and their own proper sovereignty, and conscious of the plenitude of it, they declared with becoming dignity, "We the people of the United States," 'do ordain and establish this Constitution." Here we see the people acting as the sovereigns of the whole country.; and in the language of sovereignty, establishing a Constitution by which it was their will, that the state governments should be bound, and to which the State Constitutions should be made to conform. Every State Constitution is a compact made by and between the citizens of a state to govern themeselves in a certain manner; and the Constitution of the United States is liekwise a compact made by the people of the United States to govern themselves as to general objects, in a certain manner. By this great compact however, many prerogatives were transferred to the national Government, such as those of making war and peace, contracting alliances, coining money, etc."

--Chief Justice John Jay, 1793

Walt

If Lincoln ever read Elliot's Debates, or Farrand's records, the state debates or the Anti-Federalist Papers, it is without a doubt that he would have found the following:

"In the same section it is provided, that "the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in cases of rebellion and invasion, the public safety may require it." This clause limits the power of the legislature to deprive a citizen of the right of habeas corpus, to particular cases viz. those of rebellion and invasion; the reason is plain, because in no other cases can this power be exercised for the general good."
Brutus, Anti-Federalist Papers, No. 24 (Brutus' No. IX), "Objections to a Standing Army (part 1)", 17 January 1788

"The legislature of the United States shall pass no law on the subject of religion; nor touching or abridging the liberty of the press: nor shall the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus ever be suspended, except in case of rebellion or invasion."
Elliot's Debates, Vol. V, p.131.
"The privileges and benefits of the writ of habeas corpus shall be enjoyed in this government in the most expeditious and ample manner, and shall not be suspended by the legislature, except upon the most urgent and pressing occasions, and for a limited time, not exceeding months."
Elliot's Debates, Vol. I, p.249.
"That every person restrained of his liberty is entitled to an inquiry into the lawfulness of such restraint, and to a removal thereof if unlawful; and that such inquiry or removal ought not to be denied or delayed, except when, on account of public danger, the Congress shall suspend the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus."
Elliot's Debates, Vol. I, p.328"But the insertion of the negative restrictions has given cause of triumph, it seems, to gentlemen. They suppose that it demonstrates that Congress are to have powers by implication. I will meet them on that ground. I persuade myself that every exception here mentioned is an exception, not from general powers, but from the particular powers therein vested. To what power in the general government is the exception made respecting the importation of negroes? Not from a general power, but from a particular power expressly enumerated. This is an exception from the power given them of regulating commerce. He asks, Where is the power to which the prohibition of suspending the habeas corpus is an exception? I contend that, by virtue of the power given to Congress to regulate courts, they could suspend the writ of habeas corpus. This is therefore an exception to that power."
Gov. Randolph, 17 Jun 1788, Elliot's Debates, Vol. III, p. 464.
"There are express restrictions, which are in the shape of a bill of rights; but they bear the name of the 9th section. The design of the negative expressions in this section is to prescribe limits beyond which the powers of Congress shall not go. These are the sole hounds intended by the American government. Whereabouts do we stand with respect to a bill of rights? Examine it, and compare it to the idea manifested by the Virginian bill of rights, or that of the other states. The restraints in this congressional bill of rights are so feeble and few, that it would have been infinitely better to have said nothing about it. The fair implication is, that they can do every thing they are not forbidden to do. What will be the result if Congress, in the course of their legislation, should do a thing not restrained by this 9th section? It will fall as an incidental power to Congress, not being prohibited expressly in the Constitution. The first prohibition is, that the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus shall not be suspended but when, in case of rebellion or invasion, the public safety may require it. It results clearly that, if it had not said so, they could suspend it in all cases whatsoever. It reverses the position of the friends of this Constitution, that every thing is retained which is not given up; for, instead of this, every thing is given up which is not expressly reserved. It does not speak affirmatively, and say that it shall be suspended in those cases; but that it shall not be suspended but in certain cases; going on a supposition that every thing which is not negatived shall remain with Congress. If the power remains with the people, how can Congress supply the want of an affirmative grant?"
Patrick Henry, 17 Jun 1788, Elliot's Debates, Vol. III, p. 461.
"All laws regulating commerce shall require the assent of two thirds of the members present in each house. The United States shall not grant any title of nobility. The legislature of the United States shall pass no law on the subject of religion, nor touching or abridging the liberty of the press; nor shall the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus ever be suspended, except in case of rebellion or invasion."
Elliot's Debates, Vol. I, p.131.
"That the powers of government may be reassumed by the people whensoever it shall become necessary to their happiness; that every power, jurisdiction, and right, which is not by the said Constitution clearly delegated to the Congress of the United States, or the departments of the government thereof, remains to the people of the several states, or to their respective state governments, to whom they may have granted the same; and that those clauses in the said Constitution, which declare that Congress shall not have or exercise certain powers, do not imply that Congress is entitled to any powers not given by the said Constitution; but such clauses are to be construed either as exceptions to certain specified powers , or as inserted merely for greater caution."
Elliot's Debates, Vol. I, p.327

As far as that goes, every single quote I find ascribes the power to suspend the writ of habeas corpus to Congress, and as a legislative power. Never an executive power. Even in the signatory duties or veto powers previously mentioned in Article I, thay are in response to a legislative act, never as a substitute for their actions.

... every single quote I find ascribes the power to suspend the writ of habeas corpus to Congress, and as a legislative power. Never an executive power.

Of course, none of your quotes specify any intention to deny the President the power to suspend habeas corpus during a rebellion. Nor does Art. II contain any such restriction.

Again, my point is not that Lincoln's suspension of habeas corpus would or should have been upheld had it come before the U.S. Supreme Court. My only point is that he had a plausible good faith argument that under the unusual and dangerous exigencies of April 1861 (i.e. the Capitol itself being imminently threatened by Confederates and their operatives who essentially had the place surrounded), he could properly and Constitutionally suspend habeas corpus.

Congress has the power (and arguably the duty) to impeach any President who commits a high crime or misdemeanor. Certainly the violation of his oath to "preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution" would constitute a high crime. Ultimately that is what prevents a President from using the military he commands to become a de facto dictator.

Anyone who claims that Lincoln egregiously overstepped his Constitutional authority is condemning the Congressmen who allowed him to get away with it. Lincoln didn't lock the doors of Congress or otherwise prevent them from instituting impeachment proceedings against him, so he wasn't acting as a dictator. Certainly he stretched his Presidential powers as far as he could to preserve the Union, but that is to be expected in a time of crisis, and every American President has done likewise, some far more aggressively (eg. FDR's "internment" of 70,000 American citizens -- many women and children -- during WWII based merely on their ethnicity).

The Constitution is far from perfect and is horrendously ambiguous. I wish the people who waste so much of their time criticizing Lincoln's actions would spend more time helping to come up with some Constitutional improvements that would more perfectly preserve ordered liberty. By focusing their criticism on a single government official for eroding our liberties, they lend credence to the "if we could only elect better people" pipe dream. To quote Thomas Jefferson:

"The framers of our constitution certainly supposed they had guarded, as well their government against destruction by treason, their citizens against oppression under pretense of it; and if these ends are not attained, it is of importance to inquire by what means, more effectual, they may be secured."

The Confederates certainly didn't create a more perfect union, because their primary intent was to preserve their ability to perpetuate the oppression of 3,000,000 negroes and their progeny. By suppressing the Confederate rebellion, Lincoln made it clear that a slaveholderocracy was a dead end road. That may have not been Lincoln's primary intent in doing what he did, but he accomplished that end with the able assistance of millions of Americans who were dedicated both to preserving the Union and radically improving it by effecting the abolition of slavery.

The right to revolution is not a right to alter or abolish one's government any old time one pleases. The right to self-government can be legitimately claimed only by men willing to grant it to others. Southern secession/revolution was illegitimate because it was a claim to exercise the sovereignty of a self-governing community -- to alter a fundamental political order -- precisely in order to avoid granting the right of self-government to others.

This is tantamount to a claim that the Declaration of Independence was invalid because the 13 colonies allowed slavery. If the South may not secede because it allowed slavery, the same must apply to the 13 colonies.

The Declaration is absolutely clear that revolutionary alteration or abolition of government is a profoundly serious act, justified ONLY by the honest judgment that the current government has manifested an undeniable resolve to tyrannize over a people. Tyranny is defined, in the Declaration, as a government which has become destructive of the rights government is instituted among men to secure, among them life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, rights which follow from men's equality before the Creator.

The honest judgement of the people of the south was that the current government had manifested an undeniable resolve to tyranize the people of the South. You may disagree with their judgement. But that certainly doesn't give you the right to impose your view on others. And it did not give Lincoln that right either.

It is either naive or intentionally misleading to interpret the Declaration as declaring an absolute right to change governments at pleasure. It declares a right to change them, as a profoundly serious measure, when such a step is the only means remaining by which to secure the rights that are due to all men because of their equality.

Actually that's what "consent of the governed means". It means that when people no longer consent to a particular form of government, they have the right -- indeed the obligation -- to change it. The Declaration points out that people will be slow to do this because it is a serious thing. They will tolerate injustice rather than change their government. But when they reach the point that they no longer consent to that government, then they have the absolute right to change it.

It is no accident, in my opinion, that the Southern states do not make such a claim, having as they did no conceivable right to appeal to the rights of man, in order to alter their government to secure the right to own slaves.

You ignore the fact that many of the states did make such declarations. And they did have the right to do so. The tariff alone was enough to prove federal tyranny.

You must not be so quick to apply our ideas to the past. We are, at least theoretically, against slavery. We think it wrong. (Though our government goes out of its way to toady to countries such as Red China and Saudi Arabia where slavery is still practiced.) But that was not the view for most of human history. Slavery was an accepted practice and had been on every inhabited continent. Slavery was on the way out in the Western world -- though it is still practiced in much of the world today. Most of the western world achieved emancipation peacefully. But that was not even tried here.

It is simply a fallacy, a cheat of reason, to attempt to substitute the arbitrary right to change government for the right of revolution articulated in the Declaration. The South Carolina assertion of a right to leave the Union is a lawyers claim, presuming that acts of ratification are revocable at pleasure. The Tennessee document assumes that the right of revolution requires no defense in natural law, such as the Declaration clearly demands. Neither document, as quoted, offers any reason for the step taken. Neither was justified or licit. I would distinguish between them only by saying that South Carolina claims a non-existent legal right to alter the national government by departure, while the Tennessee document invokes the genuinely extra-legal right to revolution but omits to make a claim in justice to support such invocation, which is the whole point to the Declaration. Neither is, finally, more than acts of political will in the service of passion, as is clear from their careful avoidance of any REASON for the action taken.

As noted above, many states promulgated a separate document giving their reasons for secession. I suspect this doesn't matter to you. You will no doubt find their reasons invalid. No matter how many hoops they may have jumped through, you will always find an excuse to claim that they should have jumped through at least one more. You will continue to embrace your preconceived notions in spite of all evidence or reason. And of course, that is your right.

But it does disturb me that you have completely missed the point of the Declaration of Independence. That point is that the people have an absolute right to self-determination. The absolute right to have the form of government that suits them. And no government is legitimate that does not have the freely given consent of the governed.

me: The right to revolution is not a right to alter or abolish one's government any old time one pleases. The right to self-government can be legitimately claimed only by men willing to grant it to others. Southern secession/revolution was illegitimate because it was a claim to exercise the sovereignty of a self-governing community -- to alter a fundamental political order -- precisely in order to avoid granting the right of self-government to others.

you: This is tantamount to a claim that the Declaration of Independence was invalid because the 13 colonies allowed slavery. If the South may not secede because it allowed slavery, the same must apply to the 13 colonies.

Sorry to reply in pieces, but I have a class in five minutes, so I'll take this piece now. The colonies/states may or may not have been entirely clear on the implications that they declared. As I'm sure you know, Jefferson sought to include the imposition of slavery by the Crown as one of the grievances enunciated in the Declaration.

The point is that the Founders expressed, and in significant measure acted on, a willingness to grant the universal right of self-government. The inconsistency of this principle with the existing principle of slavery was noticed at the time, and the emancipation movements that resulted in the end of slavery in about half of the states of the new republic is evidence of this.

Please note that what I said was NOT that the right of self-government can be legitimately claimed only by men "currently granting that right in practice" to others, but by men "willing to grant it" to others. The "gotcha" of pointing to the existence of slavery at the time of the Revolutionary War overlooks the extraordinary step TOWARD the universal acknowledgment of human equality that the document represents.

The distinction relating to the South is that secession was not an attempted revolution in partial and imperfect, but sincere service of human equality, but -- as I say quite plainly in the words you quote: "in order to avoid granting the right of self-government to others."

Failure perfectly to accomplish a duty one acknowledges is simply not the same as action undertaken for the purpose of avoiding that duty. Don't you agree?

you: The honest judgement of the people of the south was that the current government had manifested an undeniable resolve to tyranize the people of the South. You may disagree with their judgement. But that certainly doesn't give you the right to impose your view on others. And it did not give Lincoln that right either.

You can't mean this as a universal principle. Hitler no doubt had reached an honest judgment that the Jews manifested an undeniable resolve to tyranize over the Arians. I trust you won't think I intend the comparison beyond this basic point -- the Declaration cannot mean only that groups of "sincere" people have the right to establish whatever form of government they sincerely want. Fanatics and tyrants are frequently quite sincere.

The Declaration BEGINS with the assertion that a people finding it necessary to dissolve political bands must, out of a decent to the opinions of mankind, declare the causes that impel them to the separation. The document, from its first sentence, implies a court of rational judgment, presided over by the reasonable opinions of mankind, to which appeal must be made if a revolution is to be considered just.

Of course such a court of opinion, of judgment, may be mostly or entirely composed of people who have no power or political authority to stop the revolution. But the Declaration means nothing if it is not an assertion that revolutions are legitimate only if they can give rationally compelling reasons that the radical step of dissolving political bonds is justified. Unless we are to choose absolute moral relativism over the principles of the Declaration, I think we have to say that every revolution is either justified or not, that morally wise men can reach some kind of agreement on that in each case, and that whether or not such agreement gets practically applied by someone, we should not abandon our belief that moral truth on the question exists. So, I and others would say about the American Revolution, it was justified because of the compelling case its agents made that it was necessary in order for the Americans to secure their unalienable rights by establishing a government substantially devoted to securing them. And we would say that the Southern rebellion can give no such compelling justification.

So the first question is -- what were the reasons the South could offer that made their revolt necessary? And given the overwhelming proof that that revolt was motivated chiefly by the passionate insistence on keeping the institution of slavery, can they possibly have offered the kind of reasons that the Declaration judges necessary -- to avert tyranny which subverts the possibility of government in the service of human equality?

Finally, the secession was a withdrawal from a previously compacted political community, in which the non-seceeders had placed their fundamental political trust for the securing of their unalienable rights. One particular reason that revolution-makers must make their case is that they are proposing to cancel fundamental arrangements and commitment that they have already made with other, equal, human beings. Fellow citizens of the Union do most emphatically have a stake in that question -- because the Union was a government THEY made to secure THEIR rights. And President Lincoln was the man solemnly charged to execute that commitment for the four years of his term. When you are in an office like that, "imposing your view" of the very matter for which you are responsible is more accurately called "doing your duty."

Of course, none of your quotes specify any intention to deny the President the power to suspend habeas corpus during a rebellion. Nor does Art. II contain any such restriction.

"This government is acknowledged by all, to be one of enumerated powers. The principle, that it can exercise only the powers granted to it, would seem too apparent, to have required to be enforced by all those arguments, which its enlightened friends, while it was depending before the people, found it necessary to urge; that principle is now universally admitted.''
Chief Justice Marshall, McCulloch v. Maryland, 4 Wheat. 315, 17 U.S. 316 (1819)
"But may it not be asked, with infinitely more propriety, and without the possibility of a satisfactory answer, why, if the terms were meant to embrace, not only all the powers particularly expressed, but the indefinite power which has been claimed under them, the intention was not so declared; why, on that supposition, so much critical labor was employed in enumerating the particular powers, and in defining and limiting their extent?"
James Madison, "Letter of Mr. Madison to Mr. Stevenson", 27 Nov 1830, Elliot's Debates, Vol IV, p. 612.
"I, sir, have always conceived--I believe those who proposed the Constitution conceived--it is still more fully known, and more material to observe, that those who ratified the Constitution conceived--that this is not an indefinite government, deriving its powers from the general terms prefixed to the specified powers--but a limited government, tied down to the specified powers, which explain and define the general terms."
James Madison, "On the Cod Fishery Bill, granting Bounties", 3 Feb 1792, Elliot's Debates, Vol IV, p. 428.
"I admit that it is a government of strictly limited powers,--of enumerated, specified, and particularized powers,--and that whatsoever is not granted is withheld."
Daniel Webster, "State Rights.--Foote's Resolutions", Jan 1830, Elliot's Debates, Vol IV, p. 508.

Where is the grant of this power to the Executive? And Article II contains NO grant of power. Would you argue that the Judicial branch has this power as well?

Again, my point is not that Lincoln's suspension of habeas corpus would or should have been upheld had it come before the U.S. Supreme Court. My only point is that he had a plausible good faith argument that under the unusual and dangerous exigencies of April 1861 (i.e. the Capitol itself being imminently threatened by Confederates and their operatives who essentially had the place surrounded), he could properly and Constitutionally suspend habeas corpus.

So why have a three month delay before Congress convened? The first major battle of the war was 1st Manassas (The Battle of Bull Run to Yankees). Fought on 21 Jul, 1861, it was still after the special session called by Lincoln back in April. Besides, Congress could have been notified by telegraph (Morse’s patent officially approved in 1854).

Ambiguous? Only if you don't believe in "separation of powers", limited powers, "checks and balances". What do we do, add an amendment "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people"?

By focusing their criticism on a single government official for eroding our liberties, they lend credence to the "if we could only elect better people" pipe dream.

And your point is? Do we let everyone slide? Was Lincoln above the law? Pardon me, but Lincoln insisted that the seceded states had never left, yet southern property was seized in the blockades, a violation of property rights. Unable to win on the battlefield, Lincoln made innocent civilians legitimate military targets, women and children slaughtered, property and crops destroyed. The South was starved into submission. After the war, the Confederate states ratified the 13th as a condition of RE-admission to the union, then refused to ratify the 14th Amendment, which promptly led to them being "declared out of the union" (which is what they wanted in the 1st place, but their vote on the 13th put them back into a union they allegedly never left), the federal government deprived millions the right of suffrage. Hundreds of thousands of southerners were killed, raped, robbed, and starved, millions of dollars of property stolen during reconstruction, and you and others have the audacity to insist that "we" are picking on someone?

"The accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive, and judiciary, in the same hands, whether of one, a few, or many, and whether hereditary, selfappointed, or elective, may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny."
James Madison, Federalist Papers, Federalist No. 47, "The Particular Structure of the New Government and the Distribution of Power Among Its Different Parts", 1 Feb 1788.

Slavery was legal at the time, and was still practiced in Illinois after the start of the War for Southern Independence. Blacks were not wanted in the North, and what few were there were despised. Besides that, Brazil and several other countries all ended slavery well after the war - and without a war. In his inaugural address, Lincoln made it perfectly clear that all he wanted was the revenues from Southern ports. He stated uneqivocally that he had no desire nor authority to interfere with anything - only that he wanted the money. That in itself, puts to rest any legitimate claims that the war was to preserve the union, or to free the slaves.

you: Actually that's what "consent of the governed means". It means that when people no longer consent to a particular form of government, they have the right -- indeed the obligation -- to change it. The Declaration points out that people will be slow to do this because it is a serious thing. They will tolerate injustice rather than change their government. But when they reach the point that they no longer consent to that government, then they have the absolute right to change it.

"Consent of the governed" means that it is the governed -- NOT THEIR GOVERNMENT -- that is the rightful ultimate authority to judge whether their unalienable rights are being respected. It means to say that government does not have an independent basis -- God or tradition, disregarding the people -- for its rightful power in the task of securing those rights.

"Consent of the governed" does not mean that any government that a group of people "consent" to, for whatever reason, and assigned any purpose, thereby has "just powers." The notion that the Declaration is announcing the right of a people to establish any kind of government they want, on any principles whatever, and that the "just powers" of that government would require only that the mob continue to "consent" for now, is amazing to me.

The "governed" mentioned are previously mentioned under the notions of "created equal," "endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights" and as "instituting governments" IN ORDER to "secure THESE rights". The consent that is mentioned is most plainly, by any serious reading of the document, intended to convey the ongoing superintendence of the people that the government they have INSTITUTED for a defined and non-negotiable purpose remains ORDERED to that purpose. The people exercise on-going consent on a particular question, viz. that the government that is their instrument for a defined purpose -- securing the unalienable rights men are endowed with, EQUALLY, by their Creator -- is still securing those rights for them.

Springing loose the single clause: "securing their just powers from the consent of the governed" from this context is just literary deconstruction and philosophical incoherence, to speak plainly. Even then, the word "just" seems oddly out of place in such an interpretation. Can you really maintain that the Declaration means by "just" simply "whatever a group agrees together to do."?

I see that it serves the desires of secession to read the document as though it establishes the right of any group strong enough to establish any rules for its common life. In fact, the document identifies the people as those responsible for the ongoing, solemn judgment that their government is still the instrument they intended -- which it is their duty to continue intending -- to make.

you:You ignore the fact that many of the states did make such declarations. And they did have the right to do so. The tariff alone was enough to prove federal tyranny.

As I say, let's see those declarations. I'd like to see the ones that offer the tariff as the reason for secession. At the time of secession, the tariff was at the 1857 rate, and Democrat President Buchanan was calling for the passage of the Morrill Tariff bill, which he eventually signed, not Lincoln.

But, really, rather than open the door to all the "tariff" sophisms, why don't you just see if you can find one state that offered the tariff as the reason for leaving?

I don't know what you mean to suggest here, unless that the Declaration was not understood to apply to all men, but only white men. Lincoln famously said that there was no man on earth who thought, at the time of the founding, that "all men" meant "all white men." He dared anyone to find evidence that this was so.

But be serious. The northern states "achieved emancipation peacefully," so I don't know what you mean by "that was not even tried here." It was repudiated in the most solemn way as even an ultimate, distant goal by the Southern states who cast their lot with a regime based on slavery, after they had almost a century to think the matter over carefully, and while the rest of the world moved toward emancipation and substantially accomplished it. The civilized world of 1776 was very clear on the moral issues involved in slavery, and the civilized world of 1860 was even clearer -- the South just ILLEGITIMATELY DISAGREED. And they quite openly based their revolt on that disagreement. So let's see what statements by seceeding states you have that a) offer reasons for the justice of secession as an avoidance of tyranny, and b) don't make slavery the principal, even only, cause of secession.

You're not really suggesting that the South's decision to peacefully withdraw from the Union is in any way comparable with Hitler's decision to murder millions of Jews, are you? Perhaps not. But you should be more careful in your analogy.

Yes. I do mean that the people have the right to establish the form of government that suits them. Even if they choose unwisely. (That does not give the government the right to murder people though.)

I consider socialism tyranny. It is nothing more than slavery to the government. But the people of Sweden have chosen such a government. Do I consider it wise? No. But it is their right to chose such a form of government.

The Declaration of Independence makes this very clear. The Declaration does not say that the right to self-determiniation is conditional. No court of world opinion may deprive people of that right. World opinion may disapprove of Islamic fundementalism, but if the people of the middle east choose to live under such a system, we have no right to force them to adopt another.

As for the argument that the North had something to lose if the South seceded, that is true. Over 80% of the federal taxes were paid by the South and most of the expenditures were made on improvements in the North. The Republicans had promised to raise tariffs so that the South would pay even more and had also promised to spend more on Northern industries, railroads, and canals. We in the South were the cash cows that the North was determined to milk dry. If the South left the Union, the North might have to pay their own way. The power to tax is the power to destroy and the North was determined to use that power to destroy the South.

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