Wrong. Lincoln responded to armed insurrection. Those involved in the insurrection were criminals.
"It was Lincoln that instituted a Naval blockade - an act of war - over our ports.
Wrong. It wasn't a "blockade" under internationally recognized terms of the time. Read the Supreme Court decision in the Prize Cases.
"It was Lincoln that desired to occupy foreign countries ..."
Wrong. Southern mythology. The rebellious states were not foreign countries and were never diplomatically recognized as such.
"... that bypassed the legislature..."
Wrong. Lincoln worked with the Congress when it was in session.
" ... that refused to abide by the courts ..."
Wrong. The President properly ignored Taney and the Merryman as invalid and irrelevant.
"... that imprisioned any and all dissenters ...
Wrong. Exaggeration.
that destroyed presses and shut down newspapers.
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?
0 for 7. Keep this up and you'll be benched.
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!
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.