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.
Of course he did.
President Lincoln pointed out that Andrew Jackson suspended the Writ in and around New Orleans in 1814 when he wasn't even president!
He was however, the executive in that area. When Jackson was later fined by a judge he had arrested, Congress voted to refund this money to him with interest.
Surely that says something about how people felt about this in a time of less than instant communications.
Walt
"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).
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.
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.
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.
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.