Posted on 08/20/2004 5:43:21 AM PDT by TexConfederate1861
Justification they needed before Deity, and no doubt that depended on their treatment of their slaves, and whether it comported with Leviticus.
As for their politics, they needed no justification, since they had on their side the independence of the country, the law, and, through the ratification conventions and the Constitution, the consent of their neighbors -- not to put too fine a point on it, the consent of their Northern neighbors, who had ratified the Constitution at the same time they did.
No he didn't, he instigated a civil war. I think he instigated secession, too, but that's just my opinion.
Those involved in the insurrection were criminals.
No way. They were the People, resuming their powers and asserting both their political and their natural rights.
It wasn't a "blockade" under internationally recognized terms of the time.
Yes it was. He called it a "blockade", and he imposed it as if it were a blockade, and he administered the blockade as a blockade in all respects for the duration of the war.
There was no way that he could constitutionally do what he did, if his assertion were correct that the Southern States had not left the Union. He was forbidden by the Constitution from closing some ports in some States, and directing commerce to ports in other States -- and yet that is exactly what he did. Falsus in uno, falsus in omnibus. However you look at it, Lincoln broke the law and ruled as a despot, while levying war on the Southern States and their People, some of them even before they'd left the Union.
The rebellious states were not foreign countries and were never diplomatically recognized as such.
After their alienage through secession, they were. Diplomatic recognition was not germane, as its extension was a matter of sovereign discretion in other countries. The United States didn't recognize the Soviet Union until 1933.
Wrong. Lincoln worked with the Congress when it was in session.
No, right. As nolu chan has carefully documented -- you really ought to pay attention sometime and quit blowing off his posts just because they annoy you -- Lincoln waited until Congress adjourned sine die, and then got busier than a one-armed paperhanger, instigating his war on the South.
Wrong. The President properly ignored Taney and the Merryman as invalid and irrelevant.
Okay, this is open defiance and arrant BS. Lincoln did not "properly ignore" Taney -- he issued a warrant for Taney's arrest, and we're going to have it out right now on that point. Concede! He did issue that warrant, and he did interfere with the Courts when it suited him, and he did interfere precisely in cases brought on the same grounds as Ex Parte Merryman, because he was battling the court system across the board on his arrogation of the power to hold people without trial.
And far from being "irrelevant", Ex Parte Merryman applied directly to Lincoln's unconstitutional usurpation of a Congressional power in suspending habeas corpus, and that case has application to this very day, as the Courts prepare to consider cases under the Patriot Act.
What an absolutely arrogant, baldfaced, and annoying BS'er you are! You are dead wrong, but you won't admit it -- you just do a Wlat and come back after you've been totally shelled on a subject, and start posting the same garbage de novo, as if nobody had ever posted a document to you. Stop it!
Courtesy ping....
Wrong. Per the federal Constitution Article IV § 4 the governor or the state legislature had to petition the federal government for help if such were the case. 0 for 1.
Wrong. It wasn't a "blockade" under internationally recognized terms of the time. Read the Supreme Court decision in the Prize Cases.
Wrong. Just how stupid are you? Grier wrote, and I quote, "we are of the opinion that the President had a right, jure belli, to institute a blockade of ports" [italics in original, emphasis mine]. Jure belli, latin for "Law of War". See Grotius' De Jure Belli ac Pacis, or International law. 0 for 2.
Wrong. Southern mythology. The rebellious states were not foreign countries and were never diplomatically recognized as such.
Wrong. Anybody see a pattern here? Again Grier wrote,
It is not necessary that the independence of the revolted province or State be acknowledged in order to constitute it a party belligerent in a war according to the law of nations. Foreign nations acknowledge it as war by a declaration of neutrality. The condition of neutrality cannot exist unless there be two belligerent parties0 for 3.... [T]he Queen of England issued her proclamation of neutrality, recognizing hostilities as existing between the Government of the United States of American and certain States styling themselves the Confederate States of America. This was immediately followed by similar declarations or silent acquiescence by other nations.
After such an official recognition by the sovereign, a citizen of a foreign State is estopped to deny the existence of a war with all its consequences as regards neutrals....
Wrong. Lincoln worked with the Congress when it was in session.
Wrong. Per the Constitution Article II § 3 ("he may, on extraordinary Occasions, convene both Houses"), which in this EXTRAORDINARY Occasion, he refused to do. In ther interim, he did "bypass the legislature", calling forth an army, appropriating monies for ships etc. 0 for 4.
Wrong. The President properly ignored Taney and the Merryman as invalid and irrelevant.
Wrong. Please cite the revelent section or clause of the Constitution granting the executive the power to refuse to abide by a judicial decision. 0 for 5.
Wrong. Exaggeration.
Lincoln shut down hundreds of newspapers, arrested and imprisioned over 14,000 dissidents, held them without trial. Among them were legislators, editors, citizens, even preachers that failed to pray for him. This is too fun:
[Y]ou are, therefore, hereby commanded forthwith to arrest and imprison in any fort or military prison in your command the editors, proprietors, and publishers of the aforesaid newspapers. ... You will also take possession, by military force, of the printing establishments of the New York World and Journal of Commerce and hold the same until further orders, and prevent any further publication therefrom.
Abraham Lincoln to General Dix, 18 May 1864
The President directs that immediately upon receipt of this order you take military possession of the officers of the Independent Telegraph Company at New York (one corner Cedar and Nassau streets, Gold Room, William street, and Brokers" Exchange), and of all the instruments, dispatches, and papers that may be found in the office or upon the person of the manager, superintendent, and operators, and keep possession thereof, and arrest the manager, operators, superintendent, and hold them, in close custody until further order, and permit no telegraph to be sent over the line until further orders.(Similar orders to General Cadwalader, Philadelphia; Colonel Bomford, Harrisburg, and Captain Foster, Pittsburg.)
Stanton to Gen. Dix, 18 May 1864.
0 for 6.
Wrong again. When you ape Tommy D "Fighting Facts with Slander", you should give him credit. Isn't that what the drooler has been saying?
Newspaper publishers did not escape the government's watchful eye either. The Administration was especially concerned about the New York press, which had a disproportionate impact on the rest of the country. In that era before press wire services, newspapers in smaller cities frequently simply reprinted stories which had been run earlier in the metropolitan press. In New York, the Tribune, the Herald, and the Times generally supported the Northern war effort, but several other papers did not. In August 1861, a Grand Jury sitting in New York was outraged by an article in the New York Journal of Commerce--a paper which opposed the war--that listed over one hundred Northern newspapers opposed to "the present unholy war." The Journal of Commerce frequently editorialized in no uncertain words about the malfeasance of the Administration.0 for 7. Game. Set. Match.The grand jurors inquired of the presiding judge whether such vituperative criticism was subject to indictment. Because the Grand Jury was about to be discharged, the judge did not oblige. Nevertheless, the jurors simply requested that a list of several New York newspapers, including the Journal of Commerce, be called to the attention of the next Grand Jury. They had heard no evidence, and received no legal instructions from the judge; they simply made a "presentment"--a written notice taken by a Grand Jury of what it believes to be an indictable offense.
On this thin reed, the Administration proceeded to act [no trial was held, no one was found guilty of anything]. Postmaster General Montgomery Blair directed the Postmaster in New York to exclude from the mails the five newspapers named by the Grand Jury. This was significant because the newspapers of that day were almost entirely dependent upon the mails for their circulation. Gerald Hallock, the part owner and editor of the Journal of Commerce, was obliged to negotiate with the Post Office Department to see what the paper would have to do to regain its right to use of the mails. The Post Office Department told him that he must sell his ownership in the newspaper. Hallock reluctantly agreed, and retired, thereby depriving the paper of its principal editorialist opposing the war. The New York News, owned by Benjamin Wood, brother of New York Mayor Fernando Wood, decided to fight the ban against his paper. He sought to send its edition south and west by private express, and hired newsboys to deliver the paper locally. The government ordered U.S. Marshals to seize all copies of the paper. In fact one newsboy in Connecticut was arrested for having hawked it. Eventually Wood, too, gave up.
Chief Justice Rehnquist, speech at Indiana University School of Law, 28 Oct 1996.
You compared slaveholders to crack addicts. In the Bible, God commands His people to take slaves. Given the choice of your opinion or obeying God, I think the Hebrews took the wisest course.
"I do not pretend to know what many ignorant men are sure of."
Clarence Darrow, agnostic. "I do not pretend to know where many ignorant men are sure—that is all that agnosticism means."
If a pesky federal judge comes along and gets in the way, just throw him under house arrest and gratuitously smear him as a "confederate sympathizer," hoping that the incident will be forgotten. It's the Cult of Harry's favorite trick.
As an interesting aside, the Confederacy did attain a small degree of diplomatic recognition.
One country recognized them outright - the German principality of Saxe-Coburg Gotha.
Several quasi-nations, the 5 civilized Indian tribes (which have historically and constitutionally enjoyed a degree of protectorate sovereignty unto themselves, which have historically made determinations and declarations of war unto themselves under the laws of nations, and which conduct their affairs by treaty requiring senate ratification), recognized and openly supported the confederacy.
Substantial evidence also suggests that an unusually structured degree of recognition was obtained with the Vatican, not only in the famous address to Davis by the pope but also in diplomatic correspondence between the two in which vatican authorities referred to the CSA as a nation. The Catholic Bishop of Charleston was also authorized by Davis to conduct diplomacy on behalf of the confederacy to the vatican.
Typically, the word criminals is reserved for those convicted of a crime.
I will take you at your word then. But the 1700's and the 1800's were not Old Testament times. The New Testament gives use a little bit more insight.
In the New Testament, slaves and slavery are usually referred to in the negative sense, as in "slave to sin." But 1 Timothy 1:10 gives use a window into how slavery is viewed in light of the New Covenant:
"for adulterers and perverts, for slave traders and liars and perjurers - and for whatever else is contrary to sound doctrine"
And 1 Corinthians 7:20-22 gives direction the those who have been enslaved:
"were you a slave when you were called? Don't let it trouble you - although if you can gain your freedom, do so."
And I believe nowhere in the Bible is there the sanction for racial/African slavery. I will leave this issue here. If you wish to try and make the New Testament case for slavery, I will listen without comment.
"The parties belligerent in a public war are independent nations. But it is not necessary, to constitute war, that both parties should be acknowledged as independent nations or sovereign States. A war may exist where one of the belligerents claims sovereign rights as against the other. Insurrection against a government may or may not culminate in an organized rebellion, but a civil war always begins by insurrection against the lawful authority of the Government. A civil war is never solemnly declared; it becomes such by its accidents -- the number, power, and organization of the persons who originate and carry it on. When the party in rebellion occupy and hold in a hostile manner a certain portion of territory, have declared their independence, have cast off their allegiance, have organized armies, have commenced hostilities against their former sovereign, the world acknowledges them as belligerents, and the contest a war. They claim to be in arms to establish their liberty and independence, in order to become a sovereign State, while the sovereign party treats them as insurgents and rebels who owe allegiance, and who should be punished with death for their treason. (italics mine for emphasis)
Grier here notes that insurrection is not a "public war" but rather is a "civil war." Civil wars are not declared.
"Just how stupid are you?"
Grier also notes that:
"[The President] is Commander-in-chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, and of the militia of the several States when called into the actual service of the United States. He has no power to initiate or declare a war either against a foreign nation or a domestic State. But, by the Acts of Congress of February 28th, 1795, and 3d of March, 1807, he is authorized to called out the militia and use the military and naval forces of the United States in case of invasion by foreign nations and to suppress insurrection against the government of a State or of the United States.... He does not initiate the war, but is bound to accept the challenge without waiting for any special legislative authority."
Grier debunks your invalid assertion of Article IV, Section 4.
"Just how stupid are you?"
A recognition that there were "belligerents" in a civil war, is not diplomatic recognition. What you claim to be "recognition", is no such thing. Grier explains:
"The laws of war, as established among nations, have their foundation in reason, and all tend to mitigate the cruelties and misery produced by the scourge of war. Hence the parties to a civil war usually concede to each other belligerent rights. They exchange prisoners, and adopt the other courtesies and rules common to public or national wars."
"Just how stupid are you?"
"4CJ quoting - After such an official recognition by the sovereign, a citizen of a foreign State is estopped to deny the existence of a war with all its consequences as regards neutrals...." "
Recognition of what, I ask. The answer is right there in black and white - "two belligerent parties" in a "civil war." That's not diplomatic recognition.
By way of example, here is just one of thousands of similar articles on the web concerning the CSA's lack of full diplomatic recognition.
"In foreign affairs, the South had been initially confident of the power and influence of "King Cotton", the crop that accounted for more than half the value of U.S. exports before the war. Confederates felt that the importance of cotton would force diplomatic recognition from the Federal government and European countries. Neither the commissioners sent abroad in 1861 nor the permanent envoys that replaced them were able to secure recognition from Great Britain, France, or any other European power."
"Just how stupid are you?"
I'll give you a chance to redeem yourself. I will concede that you are correct and publicly apologize to you if you can name for me Great Britain's "ambassador plenipotentiary" to the Confederate States of America. Otherwise, I must ask again, IN YOUR VERY OWN WORDS:
"Just how stupid are you?"
[cr #576] I think the reviews all came from the dust jacket or the online reviews - verbatim.
[cr #184] "No mere review can do justice to this new book; suffice to say that it as a stunning work of scholarship and erudition that vindicates Lincoln against both his contemporary adversaries and those who in our own time would diminish him and the principles of the American Founding he sought to perpetuate." - The Washington Times
[nc note] LINK "No mere review can do justice to this remarkable new book; suffice to say that it is a stunning work of scholarship and erudition that vindicates Lincoln against both his contemporary adversaries and those who in our own time would diminish him and the principles of the American Founding that he sought to perpetuate." -- Prof. Thomas Mackubin Owens, in The Washington Times
Deleting the name of the author, Thomas Mackubin Owens, hiding the fact that the review issued from the Claremont Institute, is not appropriate documentation, in content and context.
[nc #566] ...a district official suggested if she changed her son's paperwork to re-classify him as white, as she is, he'd be able to take the test.
If the mother classifies her child as black, he cannot be given the test.
If the mother classifies her child as white, he can take the test.
This is California law as handed down by a California court.
There is no context missing.
It is racism and discrimination. It is no less racist or discriminatory because it issued from a California court. It is rather, State-sanctioned discrimination, or State-ordered discrimination.
Senator D'Amato referred to a Jewish person. Putzhead is a Yiddish slur, meaning dickhead. When confronted about it, Senator D'Amato denied having said it. To his chagrin, it was caught on tape.
Again, it is distinctly a Yiddish slur. Perhaps you can justify the use of ethnic or racial slurs on the basis that truth is a valid defense. Using your "truth is a valid defense" argument, what other ethnic or racial slurs do you approve of?
[cr #582 to lg] See #576 in response to the thumb sucker. The key word is "verbatim."
See cr#535. The key phrase is "appropriate documentation, in content and context."
Deliberately excising the name of the author and hiding his affiliation with the Claremont Institute is not appropriate.
If, by being properly elected, Lincoln instigated several states to secede, I will say you are correct. South Carolina apparently did not even wait to participate in the Electoral College vote - "the real election."
As I quoted from Justice Grier in the Prize Cases majority opinion, in the previous post, Lincoln not only had the Constitutional power and authority, but also the obligation to respond to Southern aggression, insurrection, and rebellion.
"No way. They were the People, resuming their powers and asserting both their political and their natural rights."
If that were so, then they should have cast it as a war of independence. Instead, they purported to invoke an unwritten, unlegislated procedure to "legally" leave the Union.
"[Lincoln] called it a "blockade", and he imposed it as if it were a blockade, and he administered the blockade as a blockade in all respects for the duration of the war.
I'm not one to parse terms. Grier termed it as a "blockade de facto" but cast the question in this manner (and answered in the affirmative):
"Had the President a right to institute a blockade of ports in possession of persons in armed rebellion against the Government, on the principles of international law, as known and acknowledged among civilized States?"
A blockade of a foreign port constitutes an act of war. When Lincoln shut off shipping in certain ports, in certain insurrectionist southern states, he was not dealing with a "foreign" country.
"However you look at it, Lincoln broke the law and ruled as a despot, while levying war on the Southern States and their People, some of them even before they'd left the Union."
I look at it the same way the Court looked at it, and similarly conclude that the President was fully within his rights.
Nor does a state's purported status in the Union make any difference. Lincoln was obligated to fight insurrection everywhere within the Union. This included places like Virginia, between the time the legislature voted secession, and the people voted in the referendum.
"As nolu chan has carefully documented -- you really ought to pay attention sometime and quit blowing off his posts just because they annoy you -- Lincoln waited until Congress adjourned sine die, and then got busier than a one-armed paperhanger, instigating his war on the South."
(1) I only blow them off when they have been posted for the third or fourth time - then they fall into the category of "hairballs."
(2) When Congress ends a term and adjourns sine die, they provide for the first meeting date of the next congress. In 1861, the new Senate went immediately into session, as was the custom, to confirm nominations. It was abundantly clear, in late February and early March, that the nation was in dire straits, as several states had purported to secede, and several other were contemplating similar actions. The House was under no obligation to wait until December 1861 to meet. There has never been an entirely adequate explanation as to why they chose not to immediately go into session on March 4, as did the Senate (there are several competing theories, but that is fodder for another thread).
The House chose not to be there. Lincoln, by proclamation recalled the entire Congress in mid-April 1861, to assemble on July 4. Some poster read "evil intent" into that. I don't see the evidence. I do see the speculation.
I read the "feature article" for this thread, and recall the earlier threads. Where is the "warrant"? Where is the record of the "warrant"? The "Taney arrest warrant" is properly classified as Civil War apocrypha.
Taney was spoiling for a fight with the Lincoln administration. In Merryman he saw an opportunity. Taney made two rulings. One of the rulings is factually in error. Taney cast Merryman as a civilian, and therefore not subject to military arrest. Taney wrote:
(2) A military officer has no right to arrest a person not subject to the rules and article of war ..."
If fact, John Merryman was an officer of a militia cavalry company, involved in armed insurrection by way of burning bridges and tearing up rails, for the purpose of impeding the movement of Union troops into Washington, D.C. Merryman was very much subject to the rules and articles of war. Taney's rationalization ... or should I say "lie"? ... gave him the opportunity to grind his axe on the other point. If Taney had conceded that "his neighbor, and a personal friend" was part of an insurrectionist force, by implication from his own words, he would not then have had the opportunity to rule on the habeas issue (or at least, he would have had to find another case). The Court has along tradition of not meddling into military matters, especially in times of war. It may be that Taney also utilized "selective blindness" to deny insurrection existed.
Modern day scholars, such as Farber and Jaffa, are not the only people who contend that Lincoln was within his constitutional rights to ignore Taney. At the time, the leading Constitutional scholar in the Congress and a leading academic scholar both sided with Lincoln.
Former Att. Gen. and soon Senator Reverdy Johnson published "Power of the President to Suspend the Habeas Corpus Writ." Professor Horace Binney wrote "the Privilege of the Writ of Habeas Corpus under the Constitution." There was also Atty. Gen. Bates "position paper" delivered to congress on July 5, 1861. And finally, Lincoln himself was a well-versed lawyer and understood the principles of constitutional law.
If Taney was out of line and out of bounds, then the other cases which may or may not have parroted Merryman (I have seen scant documentation posted), seem not to make much difference. Lincoln himself presented Congress with his rationale and Congress chose not to condemn his actions.
An exceedingly weak whimper that has already been refuted. In fact, I have no knowledge that Owens was even the author of the review. I'm just taking your word for it. Change your diaper.
Racial discrimination is illegal in California. If an activist judge handed down a ruling, then it must not be contrary to the law! Judges never go against the law. (Where are those darned sarcasm tags?)
(Realizing that the term also means "a person regarded as stupid, simple, foolish, etc.")
"the world wonders"
[cr #184] That is Professor of Political Philosophy (Emeritus), Harry Jaffa, in his recent book, A New Birth of Freedom: Abraham Lincoln and the Coming of the Civil War (2000).
[nc - Four quotes from reviews appear here.]
The 2000 edition of Jaffa's book is the hardcover edition.
GOPcap questioned Jaffa's legal qualifications. To document Jaffa as an authority on law it is inappropriate to cite reviewers who have no legal expertise.
As for the book, to any who buy it, do like I did. Buy it used and do not donate a penny to Harry V. Jaffa.
That is not what capitan_refugio said at #131. Here is what capitan_refugio said.
[cr #131] Assuming that Lincoln's exercise of emergency warpowers and suspension of (the privilege of the writ of) habeas corpus were constitutional, then, as Farber points out in Lincoln's Constitution (pg 190-191), the court would have utterly lacked jurisdiction to hear a habeas petition. After Congress retrospectively approved Lincoln's actions, Taney's pique in Ex parte Merryman became a moot point.
[CAPN R] "as Farber points out in Lincoln's Constitution (pg 190-191), the court would have utterly lacked jurisdiction to hear a habeas petition."
-- compared to reality:
[FARBER] "Arguably... a plausible argument can be made... if this jurisdictional analysis is rejected, however, we should concede that Lincoln's action was unlawful."
[nc #146] What Farber actually said, page 191, is "Arguably, a valid suspension of the writ does eliminate the courts very power to proceed. This was apparently Congress's view in the Habeas Corpus Act, which confirmed the suspension." ... "Thus, a plausible argument can be made that during a suspension, the executive not only has a valid legal defense that the habeas court should accept, but he is entitled to ignore any order to appear or to produce or releae the prisoner." Page 192 "Still, allowing the president to ignore an adverse ruling about the validity of the suspension is undoubtedly dangerous." ... "If this jurisdictional analysis is rejected, however, we should concede that Lincoln's action was unlawful. It is fruitless to argue for a general power of executive nullification. Lincoln himself did not even offer this defense, and history speaks strongly against it. Instead, we are thrown back on the necessity defense that he did in fact offer."
Farber did not "point out" that "the court would have utterly lacked jurisdiction to hear a habeas petition."
Farber wrote that arguably, a plausible argument can be made that the court lacked "the power to hear the case," (p. 190) and "the executive has a valid legal defense which the court should accept" (p. 191) Ex Parte Milligan held that the writ issues as a matter of course. The executive would still be required to file a proper return of the writ asserting its defense. If the court accepted the legal defense, then the court could proceed no further. It would not hear the case.
In the Merryman case, there was no proper return of the writ, and no evidence that habeas corpus had been suspended by Lincoln or anyone else prior to the issuance of Taney's opinion.
In Merryman, the issue is not directly President Lincoln's suspension of the privilege of the writ, but that of a military officer who claimed such authority. Even conceding that Lincoln had the authority to suspend the privilege of the writ would not show that General Cadwalader had the authority to suspend the writ. The record is abundantly clear that, in Merryman, Lincoln did not personally suspend the privilege of the writ. Further, the Official Records show that a purported authorization to do so was sent to General Cadwalader the day after Taney issued his opinion.
And Congress never approved the actions of the Lincoln administration involving the suspension of the privilege of the writ by military officers. Not even the Act of 1863 granted such authority retrospectively or prospectively. It granted indemnity from criminal prosecution for unlawful acts, and protection from civil liability.
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