The thing about Marx is he backed whichever side was more destructive of restraints on increased production. Probably he would have backed us against the Kaiser and Hitler. Most certainly he would back us against bin Laden. What Lenin would have done in 1940, 2002, or 1861 is a more interesting, though unanswerable, question.
Lincoln and Davis, Union and Confederacy faced each other head to head. Had Lincoln not taken measures to preserve the Union, and Davis taken measures to destroy it and secure his own power in the Confederacy, the Federals might have lost the war. Lincoln would have kept his purity, but would have been condemned for cowardice or indecisiveness for not counteracting the repression of the other side.
What Davis was doing is relevant to what Lincoln did -- and vice versa. It's the same way with two sides in any war. What the other side is doing doesn't serve as a justification for whatever our side does, but it does provide a context for understanding our actions.
Certainly what Davis's actions were more relevant to our understanding of Lincoln's than Lincoln's are to our understanding of FDR's or Clinton's. One can't say that the comparison across centuries is solid and dependable while comparison of what the other side in a war is doing is off-limits.
If that is true then the Executive could claim ANY power. A despot for ruler? See Madison's opinion in Federalist 47 and others.
Note as I stated earlier that in Ex parte Bollman and Swartwout the Supreme Court held that the federal courts had the authority to issue a writ of habeas corpus even in the absence of statutory authorization from Congress. Where is that power enumerated in the Constitution?
Article III. It doesn't say that they can have a bathroom in their chambers either. No specific powers are delegated (contrasted with Articles I & II). In Article I there is no specifications on the mundane operations of Congress, the same for Article II. The legislature is delegated the power to suspend the writ, and historically, who commands that a person be brought into court at a given time and place? Lincoln?
Aside from the logistical difficulties of getting Congressmen from Oregon and California to D.C ... I'm not sure when Lincoln called for the special session, but it appears he wanted to give every Congressman plenty of time to get their personal affairs in order and travel to Washington ....
On 15 Apr 1861 Lincoln issued the order to convene a special session on 4 July 1861. How thoughtful of the President - basically declaring war by himself, appropriating millions for ships, suspending the writ of habeas corpus (and maintaining it after Taney ruled otherwise), to allow the congressmen to get their personal affairs in order. What emergency? A quorum could have quickly been assembled in days for the Eastern/Northern/Midwestern states. Lincoln avoided any possible repercussions by keeping Congress from meeting.
Stack up all of the paper it has taken to interpret the U.S. Constition and then tell me if you still believe that.
The only people that think it's ambiguous are those that try to read something into it that isn't there.
Of course, that provision still requires judges to determine exactly what power has been delegated and whether the powers not delegated are reserved to the people or the states.
"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." See prior comment. How hard is that to understand?
As I've stated, Lincoln was acting within the scope of a plausible, good faith interpretation of his Article II powers as Commander in Chief. Would you have preferred that he acted meekly and permitted the Southern slaveocracy to survive in perpetuity?
Yes. If the states had not seceded from the Articles, if the Constitution prohibited secession, or if the ratification agreements of Virginia, Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, and New York had not reserved the right to resume self-govenment, or if the 10th Amendment had not been added, or if the Constitution somewhere held that it was a permanent, unbreakable relationship, I might agree. Would you want X42 or any President to have any power (judicial, legislative and executive)?
"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.
I agree with the "father" of the Constitution.
Now you've gone way off the deep end into Confederate fantasyland. The Union forces prevailed on the battlefield without slaughtering women and children. Certainly there were innocent civilians who were caught in the crossfire from time to time as in all wars, but they were not targeted by the Union forces ... In comparison to other wars before and after, however, the Civil War was a rather civilized conflict.
Pulling a Buchanan? The Holocaust didn't occur? Sherman didn't destroy entire cities? More people were killed in that war than any war prior. Civil? It was most uncivil - civilians are not prone to running onto the battlefield and being caught in crossfires. And with the men off fighting the war, destroying homes, raping women (black and white), pillaging, looting, destroying towns, kidnapping women and children (read about the Roswell women), destroying crops are all evidence that UNARMED and DEFENSELESS civilians were attacked, either injured immediately, or left to starve with the wanton destruction of entire food-crops.
Lincoln had nothing to do with reconstruction. In fact, it was the Confederates' assassination of him that triggered the harshness of reconstruction, and once again, the ambiguities of the Constitution made it easier for that harsh treament to occur.
Lincoln was the only decent person in the North?
Check the Illinois "Database of Servitude and Emancipation Records (1722-1863)", or their "Servitude Register". Blacks were sold into slavery in Illinois - The Illinois Senate issued the following: 1 SENATE JOINT RESOLUTION
2 WHEREAS, The State of Illinois, at the time of its
3 acceptance into the Union in 1818 and for a longtime
4 thereafter, practiced de facto slavery masqueraded as
5 "indentured servitude"; the census of 1840 enumerated slaves
6 in Illinois in violation of the Ordinance of 1787, which
7 outlawed slavery in the Northwest Territories; and
8 WHEREAS, The State of Illinois passed the infamous and
9 unjust Black Laws (1819), otherwise known as the Black Codes,
10 which were a denial of human rights designed to cover up
11 slavery and the slave trade within the borders of the State;
12 and
13 WHEREAS, The State of Illinois supported the Black Codes
14 for more than forty-six years until they were finally
15 repealed; and
16 WHEREAS, In the State of Illinois the majority of
17 Illinois citizens favored closing the State to
18 African-American residents and withholding the right of
19 citizenship from those African-American residents already
20 living in the State; and
21 WHEREAS, The State of Illinois passed dehumanizing laws
22 stating that slaves were not persons, but property, and as
23 property the ownership of enslaved Africans was to be fully
24 protected by Illinois law; and ...
There is an immense moral difference between merely not wanting to associate with people and enslaving them. Americans (especially poorer white people) have never been very enthusiastic about hordes of refugees pouring into their neighborhoods. The Northern Democrats certainly took advantage of that anxiety in their campaigns against the Republicans. Nevertheless, by the end of the war people like Frederick Douglass and Abraham Lincoln had made great strides in persuading most fair minded Americans that negroes could become full citizens without shattering American society.
Northerners wanted nothing to do with blacks, except to send them out of the country, keep them in the south, or prevent them from migrating north and west. In the South many whites worked side by side with the slaves. But you should read the Slave Narratives in the Federal Writers project. Real, honest-to-goodness, ex-slaves. You'll find some mistreated, and many more that state that they loved their masters, loaned them money, defended them, even wished for the good old days. "Our white folks was good to us an' treated us like we was w'ite as dey was ." "She was raised close by Springfield, but she was freed, and her master deeded her this property and grounds ." "The whites and colored people live next door to each other ." "But, honey, de good ole days is now gone foreber. De ole days was railly de good times. How I wish I could go back to de days w'en we lived at Johnson's landing on de riber, when de folks would come to ketch de steamboats and we neber knowed how many to put on breakfas', dinner or supper fo', cause de boats mought be behin' times.
The Slave Narratives, "Richard Kimmons", McLennan County, Texas
The Slave Narratives, "Charles Johnson", Nevada, Missouri
The Slave Narratives , "Parson and Hannah Allen", Fredericktown, Missouri
The Slave Narratives , "Aunt" Charity Anderson, Mobile, Alabama.
" By 1872, there were 4.25 million free blacks and mulattos, and they accounted for at least three-quarters of all African Brazilians (as compared to a mere 262,000 or 6 percent of all African Americans in the U.S. South on the eve of emancipation)." Source. Despite these much more favorable numbers, slavery was not abolished in Brazil until 1888. If you were a slave in the South in 1865, would you be comfortable with waiting even as little as 23 years for your liberty?
See prior post. There were never massive slave revolts before the war, no revolts against the women and children remaing at home when the EP was issued.
Hardly. Lincoln made it very clear when he was inaugurated that his first priority was preserving the Union.
"The power confided to me will be used to hold, occupy, and possess the property and places belonging to the Government and to collect the duties and imposts; but beyond what may be necessary for these objects, there will be no invasion, no using of force against or among the people anywhere. Where hostility to the United States in any interior locality shall be so great and universal as to prevent competent resident citizens from holding the Federal offices, there will be no attempt to force obnoxious strangers among the people for that object. While the strict legal right may exist in the Government to enforce the exercise of these offices, the attempt to do so would be so irritating and so nearly impracticable withal that I deem it better to forego for the time the uses of such offices."
Hardly. Lincoln made it very clear when he was inaugurated that his first priority was holding onto the forts, post offices, and tariff houses - and collecting the MONEY. He said nothing about forcing states to rejoin the union.