"But chiefly, the terms of the President's proclamation instituting [67 U.S. 635, 641] this so-called blockade, are important to be considered upon this question of intent. The condition of things was unprecedented. From the nature and structure of our peculiar system of government, it could have had no precedent. The co-existence of Federal and State sovereignties, and the double allegiance of the people of the States, which no statesman or lawyer has doubted till now, and which this Court has repeatedly recognized as lying at the foundation of some of its most important decisions; the delegation of special and limited powers to the Federal Government, with the express reservation of all other powers 'to the States and the people thereof' who created the Union and established the Constitution; the powers proposed to be granted and which were refused, and the general course of the debates on the constitution; all concurred in presenting this to the President as a case of the first impression. Assuming the power to close the ports of the seceded States, he evidently did so with doubt and hesitation. If the power be conceded to him, it cannot be denied that he might modify the strict law of blockade, and impose a qualified interruption of commerce. He might well have doubted whether, under the Constitution which he had sworn to support, a state of war could exist between a State, or States, and the Federal Union; whether, when it ceased to be insurrection, and became the formal and deliberate act of State sovereignty, his executive powers extended to such an exigency. Certainly, the words of the Acts of Congress authorizing him to use the navy did not embrace such a case. It was not quite certain that it had assumed this imposing shape. The President, so late as his message of July, was confident that it had not. He believed that the State sovereignties had been usurped by discontented leaders and a factious and inconsiderable minority. With the information laid before him, he declared that these seceded States were full of people devoted to the Union. Well, therefore, might he hesitate to exercise, even if he supposed himself to possess, the power of declaring or 'recognizing' a state of war. His powers in cases of insurrection or invasion were clear and undoubted. He had the army, the navy, and the militia of [67 U.S. 635, 642] the States (the United States having no militia except in the federal territories) confided to his command, sub modo.
"But insurrection is not war; and invasion is not war. The Constitution expressly distinguishes them, and treats them as wholly different subjects. But this belongs to a subsequent question in the argument. It is now referred to as bearing upon the construction of the proclamation, and consequently upon the question of intent to break a blockade. It is true that the proclamation calls it a blockade. But the message speaks of it as proceedings 'in the nature of a blockade.' And the proclamation itself, by its terms and provisions, substantially conforms to the latter description. It founds itself upon the existence of 'an insurrection.' It ronounces the disturbance to be by 'a combination of persons.' It proceeds upon the Acts of Congress provided for ' insurrections' by 'combinations of persons.' It declares that the executive measures are provisional and temporary only, 'until Congress shall have assembled and deliberated upon the said unlawful proceedings.' It requires the seceded States to disperse, and return peaceably 'to their respective place of abode in twenty days."
The Supreme Court finds:
(1) The rebellion is an insurrection and not a war betwenn countries,
(2) The "so-called blockade" was not a blockade under international law, and
(3) Closing the ports was a valid exercise of executive authority.
I would call you proof "sophistry" - but it isn't that good - except maybe for your fellow "true believers."
Grier wrote, 'On this first question, therefore, we are of the opinion that the President had a right, jure belli, to institute a blockade of ports in possession of the States in rebellion which neutrals are bound to regard.'
I cited this yesterday, jure belli - from Grotius' De Iure Belli ac Pacis [On the Law of War and Peace], or International law.
Ctrl-Alt-Del. You are citing from the argument of Mr. Carlisle. Justice Grier's opinion starts at 665.
This is the part of the Prize Cases unique to the Amy Warwick. You did, however, find a different way to cite the case without referring to the Prize Cases. It is one ruling dealing with four ships, (1) The Amy Warwick, (2) The Hiawatha, (3) The Brilliante, and (4) The Crenshaw.
I. The case of the brig Amy Warwick.This vessel was captured upon the high seas by the United States gunboat Quaker City, and with her cargo was sent into the district of Massachusetts for condemnation. The brig was claimed by David Currie and others. The cargo consisted of coffee, and was claimed, four hundred bags by Edmund Davenport & Co., and four thousand seven hundred bags by Dunlap, Moncure & Co. The title of these parties as respectively claimed [67 U.S. 635, 675] was conceded. All the claimants at the time of the capture, and for a long time before, were residents of Richmond, Va., and were engaged in business there. Consequently, their property was justly condemned as 'enemies' property.'
The claim of Phipps & Co. for their advance was allowed by the Court below. That part of the decree was not appealed from and is not before us. The case presents no question but that of enemies' property.
The decree below is affirmed with costs.
That is the text of Amy Warwick which you cited.
[cr #636] A blockade is considered an act of war when one country does it to another country. But there are not two or more countries in a "civil war." In fact, your compatriots have been belly-aching about Lincoln's blockade of port "before they seceded!" Lincoln's blockade was not an act of war, but (to use a more modern term) it was an internal "police action."
[cr #649] The Supreme Court finds:
(1) The rebellion is an insurrection and not a war betwenn countries,
(2) The "so-called blockade" was not a blockade under international law, and
(3) Closing the ports was a valid exercise of executive authority.
"Blockade is a belligerent right. There must be war, before there can be blockade in the international sense, giving jurisdiction in prize. There may be an interruption of commerce, 'in the nature of a blockade.' But this is the exercise of the legislative power, and is purely municipal." -- Justice Grier.
Lincoln did eventually get around to closing the ports -- on April 11, 1865, four days before he died.
Just before the war ended, Lincoln issued an order closing the ports, rather than blockading them.
From Gideon Welles, Lincoln and Johnson, First Paper, Galaxy Magazine, April 1872, p. 523
Mr. Seward, who had been uneasy since his return, [nc: Seward had been thrown from his carriage and injured] read to the Secretary of the Treasury and myself the draft of a proclamation he had prepared for the President to sign, closing the ports of the Southern States. This was a step which I had earnestly pressed at the beginning of the rebellion, as a domestic measure, and more legitimate than a blockade, which was international, and an admission that we were two nations.* * *
The President reached Washington on the evening of Sunday, the 9th of April. When I called on him the next morning he was in excellent spirits, the news of Lee’s surrender, which however was not unanticipated, having been received. While I was with him he signed the proclamation for closing the ports and expressed his gratification that Mr. Seward and myself concurred in the measure, alluding to our former differences.
OFFICIAL RECORDS: Series 3, vol 5, Part 1, page 107
(Union Letters, Orders, Reports)
VII. April 11, 1865.-Closing certain ports.
BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA:
A PROCLAMATION.
Whereas, by my proclamations of the nineteenth and twenty-seventh days of April, one thousand eight hundred and sixty-one the ports of the United States in the State of Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Texas were declared to be subject to blockade; but whereas, the said blockade has, in consequence of actual military occupation by this Government, since been conditionally set aside or relaxed in respect to the ports of Norfolk and Alexandria, in the State of Virginia; Beaufort, in the State of North Carolina; Port Royal, in the State of South Carolina; Pensacola and Fernandina, in the State of Florida, and New Orleans, in the State of Louisiana;
And whereas, by the fourth section of the act of Congress approved on the thirteenth of July, eighteen hundred and sixty- one; entitled "An act further to provide for the collection of duties on imports, and for other purposes," the President, for the reasons therein set forth, is authorized to close certain ports of entry:
Now, therefore, be it known that I, Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States, do hereby proclaim that the ports of Richmond, Tappahannock, Cherrystone, Yorktown, and Petersburg, in Virginia; of Camden (Elizabeth City), Edenton, Plymouth, Washington, New Berne, Ocracoke, and Wilmington, in North Carolina; of Charleston, Georgetown, and Beaufort, in South Carolina; of Savannah, Saint Mary's, and Brunswick (Darien), in Georgia; of Mobile, in Alabama; of Pearl River (Shieldsborough), Natchez, and Vicksburg, in Mississippi; of Saint Augustine, Key West, Saint Mark's (Port Leon), Saint John's (Jacksonville), and Apalachicola, in Florida; of Teche (Franklin), in Louisiana; of Galveston, La Salle, Brazos de Santiago (Point Isabel), and Brownsville, in Texas, are hereby closed, and all right of importation, warehousing, and other privileges shall, in respect to the ports aforesaid, cease, until they shall have again been opened by order of the President; and if, whole said ports are so closed, any ship or vessel from beyond the United States, or having on board any articles subject to duties, furniture, and cargo, shall be forfeited to the United States.
In witness whereof I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal of the United States to be affixed.
Done at the city of Washington this eleventh day of April, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-five, and of the Independence of the United States of America the eighty-ninth.
Four years previously, on April 19, 1861, Lincoln had proclaimed a BLOCKADE. He invoked the Law of Nations. He proclaimed the punishment of piracy.
The international community understood it perfectly well to be a BLOCKADE. They declared NEUTRALITY. And Justice Grier found that Lincoln didn't really, really mean to say BLOCKADE, as three months after proclaiming a BLOCKADE he wrote a message referring to it as being "in the nature of a BLOCKADE," so after he proclaimed to the world that it was a BLOCKADE, and after various nations declared neutrality, the court decided that it was not really, really a BLOCKADE, but rather something like a BLOCKADE, but not a BLOCKADE, and the declarations of neutrality did not really count, and the CSA was not really, really recognized as a separate nation.
It was sort of a municipal action invoking the Laws of Nations and proclaiming the penalty of piracy.
And even though it was not a BLOCKADE, but a Closing of the Ports, for some reason, four years later, Lincoln felt compelled to proclaim a Closing of the Ports and say, "Whereas, by my proclamations of the nineteenth and twenty-seventh days of April, one thousand eight hundred and sixty-one the ports of the United States in the State of Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Texas were declared to be subject to blockade; but whereas, the said blockade has, in consequence of actual military occupation by this Government, since been conditionally set aside or relaxed..." and he proclaimed a Closing of the Ports.
To sum up, he BLOCKADED the ports before the court said he really, really, closed them, and then Lincoln proclaimed, in 1865, that they had been BLOCKADED all that time, and he proclaimed that they were then being closed.
http://www.angelfire.com/my/abrahamlincoln/Blockade.html
BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA:
A PROCLAMATION:
Whereas an insurrection against the Government of the United States has broken out in the States of South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Florida, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Texas, and the laws of the United States for the collection of the revenue cannot be effectually executed therein comformably to that provision of the Constitution which requires duties to be uniform throughout the United States:
And whereas a combination of persons engaged in such insurrection, have threatened to grant pretended letters of marque to authorize the bearers thereof to commit assaults on the lives, vessels, and property of good citizens of the country lawfully engaged in commerce on the high seas, and in waters of the United States: And whereas an Executive Proclamation has been already issued, requiring the persons engaged in these disorderly proceedings to desist therefrom, calling out a militia force for the purpose of repressing the same, and convening Congress in extraordinary session, to deliberate and determine thereon:
Now, therefore, I, Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States, with a view to the same purposes before mentioned, and to the protection of the public peace, and the lives and property of quiet and orderly citizens pursuing their lawful occupations, until Congress shall have assembled and deliberated on the said unlawful proceedings, or until the same shall ceased, have further deemed it advisable to set on foot a blockade of the ports within the States aforesaid, in pursuance of the laws of the United States, and of the law of Nations, in such case provided. For this purpose a competent force will be posted so as to prevent entrance and exit of vessels from the ports aforesaid. If, therefore, with a view to violate such blockade, a vessel shall approach, or shall attempt to leave either of the said ports, she will be duly warned by the Commander of one of the blockading vessels, who will endorse on her register the fact and date of such warning, and if the same vessel shall again attempt to enter or leave the blockaded port, she will be captured and sent to the nearest convenient port, for such proceedings against her and her cargo as prize, as may be deemed advisable.
And I hereby proclaim and declare that if any person, under the pretended authority of the said States, or under any other pretense, shall molest a vessel of the United States, or the persons or cargo on board of her, such person will be held amenable to the laws of the United States for the prevention and punishment of piracy.
In witness whereof, I have hereunto set my hand, and caused the seal of the United States to be affixed.
Done at the City of Washington, this nineteenth day of April, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-one, and of the Independence of the United States the eighty-fifth.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN
By the President:
WILLIAM H. SEWARD, Secretary of State
I refer you to the text of Amy Warwick (1862)"But chiefly, the terms of the President's proclamation instituting [67 U.S. 635, 641] this so-called blockade, are important to be considered upon this question of intent. The condition of things was unprecedented. From the nature and structure of our peculiar system of government, it could have had no precedent. The co-existence of Federal and State sovereignties, and the double allegiance of the people of the States, which no statesman or lawyer has doubted till now, and which this Court has repeatedly recognized as lying at the foundation of some of its most important decisions; the delegation of special and limited powers to the Federal Government, with the express reservation of all other powers 'to the States and the people thereof' who created the Union and established the Constitution; the powers proposed to be granted and which were refused, and the general course of the debates on the constitution; all concurred in presenting this to the President as a case of the first impression. Assuming the power to close the ports of the seceded States, he evidently did so with doubt and hesitation. If the power be conceded to him, it cannot be denied that he might modify the strict law of blockade, and impose a qualified interruption of commerce. He might well have doubted whether, under the Constitution which he had sworn to support, a state of war could exist between a State, or States, and the Federal Union; whether, when it ceased to be insurrection, and became the formal and deliberate act of State sovereignty, his executive powers extended to such an exigency. Certainly, the words of the Acts of Congress authorizing him to use the navy did not embrace such a case. It was not quite certain that it had assumed this imposing shape. The President, so late as his message of July, was confident that it had not. He believed that the State sovereignties had been usurped by discontented leaders and a factious and inconsiderable minority. With the information laid before him, he declared that these seceded States were full of people devoted to the Union. Well, therefore, might he hesitate to exercise, even if he supposed himself to possess, the power of declaring or 'recognizing' a state of war. His powers in cases of insurrection or invasion were clear and undoubted. He had the army, the navy, and the militia of [67 U.S. 635, 642] the States (the United States having no militia except in the federal territories) confided to his command, sub modo.
"But insurrection is not war; and invasion is not war. The Constitution expressly distinguishes them, and treats them as wholly different subjects. But this belongs to a subsequent question in the argument. It is now referred to as bearing upon the construction of the proclamation, and consequently upon the question of intent to break a blockade. It is true that the proclamation calls it a blockade. But the message speaks of it as proceedings 'in the nature of a blockade.' And the proclamation itself, by its terms and provisions, substantially conforms to the latter description. It founds itself upon the existence of 'an insurrection.' It ronounces the disturbance to be by 'a combination of persons.' It proceeds upon the Acts of Congress provided for ' insurrections' by 'combinations of persons.' It declares that the executive measures are provisional and temporary only, 'until Congress shall have assembled and deliberated upon the said unlawful proceedings.' It requires the seceded States to disperse, and return peaceably 'to their respective place of abode in twenty days."
The Supreme Court finds:
(1) The rebellion is an insurrection and not a war betwenn countries,
(2) The "so-called blockade" was not a blockade under international law, and
(3) Closing the ports was a valid exercise of executive authority.I would call you proof "sophistry" - but it isn't that good - except maybe for your fellow "true believers."
The case is better known as The Prize Cases, 67 U.S. 635 (1862) [ LINK ]
The entire quote, as presented, is mistakenly excerpted from the statement of Mr. Carlisle, attorney for the government, rather than the opinion of the court. This mistaken quote is in conflict with the findings of the court in The Prize Cases, and other cases. In the Prize Cases, the court found that there was a BLOCKADE, not a closing of the ports.
The there was a war was found in The Prize Cases, and further referenced as such in Ex Parte Vallandigham, Texas v. White, and Ex Parte Quirin.
I would call your "proof" evidence of your inability to read and comprehend a court decision. You may be the last person in the country to discover that there was a war and a blockade back in the 1860s.
From the Prize Cases 67 U.S. 635 (1862), Opinion of the Court, Mr. Justice Grier
That a blockade de facto actually existed, and was formally declared and notified by the President on the 27th and 30th of April, 1861, is an admitted fact in these cases.
* * *
Let us enquire whether, at the time this blockade was instituted, a state of war existed which would justify a resort to these means of subduing the hostile force.
* * *
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.
* * *
As soon as the news of the attack on Fort Sumter, and the organization of a government by the seceding States, assuming to act as belligerents, could become known in Europe, to wit, on the 13th of May, 1861, the 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. They cannot ask a Court to affect a technical ignorance of the existence of a war, which all the world acknowledges to be the greatest civil war known in the history of the human race, and thus cripple the arm of the Government and paralyze its power by subtle definitions and ingenious sophisms.
* * *
If it were necessary to the technical existence of a war, that it should have a legislative sanction, we find it in almost every act passed at the extraordinary session of the Legislature of 1861, which was wholly employed in enacting laws to enable the Government to prosecute the war with vigor and efficiency. And finally, in 1861, we find Congress 'ex majore cautela' and in anticipation of such astute objections, passing an act 'approving, legalizing, and making valid all the acts, proclamations, and orders of the President, &c., as if they had been issued and done under the previous express authority and direction of the Congress of the United States.'
* * *
On this first question therefore we are of the opinion that the President had a right, jure belli, to institute a blockade of ports in possession of the States in rebellion, which neutrals are bound to regard.
From Ex Parte Vallandigham, 68 U.S. 243 (1863)
As to those words the prisoner was not guilty; but of the charge he was guilty, and the commission, therefore, sentenced him to be placed in close confinement in some fortress of the United States, to be designated by the commanding officer of this department, there to be kept during the war.
From Texas v. White, 74 U.S. 700 (1868)
The position thus assumed could only be maintained by arms, and Texas accordingly took part, with the other Confederate States, in the war of the rebellion, which these events made inevitable. During the whole of that war there was no governor, or judge, or any other State officer in Texas, who recognized the National authority. Nor was any officer of the United States permitted to exercise any authority whatever under the National government within the limits of the State, except under the immediate protection of the National military forces.
* * *
Considered therefore as transactions under the Constitution, the ordinance of secession, adopted by the convention and ratified by a majority of the citizens of Texas, and all the acts of her legislature intended to give effect to that ordinance, were absolutely null. They were utterly without operation in law. The obligations of the State, as a member of the Union, and of every citizen of the State, as a citizen of the United States, remained perfect and unimpaired. It certainly follows that the State did not cease to be a State, nor her citizens to be citizens of the Union. If this were otherwise, the State must have become foreign, and her citizens foreigners. The war must have ceased to be a war for the suppression of rebellion, and must have become a war for conquest and subjugation.
* * *
No one has been bold enough to contend that, while Texas was controlled by a government hostile to the United States, and in affiliation with a hostile confederation, waging war upon the United States, senators chosen by her legislature, or representatives elected by her citizens, were entitled to seats in Congress; or that any suit, instituted in her name, could be entertained in this court.
* * *
Of this, the case of Texas furnishes a striking illustration. When the war closed there was no government in the State except that which had been organized for the purpose of waging war against the United States.
* * *
It is proper, however, to observe that almost immediately after the cessation of organized hostilities, and while the war yet smouldered in Texas, the President of the United States issued his proclamation appointing a provisional governor for the State, and providing for the assembling of a convention, with a view to the re- establishment of a republican government, under an amended constitution, and to the restoration of the State to her proper constitutional relations.
* * *
Whether the action then taken was, in all respects, warranted by the Constitution, it is not now necessary to determine. The power exercised by the President was supposed, doubtless, to be derived from his constitutional functions, as commander-in-chief; and, so long as the war continued, it cannot be denied that he might institute temporary government within insurgent districts, occupied by the National forces, or take measures, in any State, for the restoration of State government faithful to the Union, employing, however, in such efforts, only such means and agents as were authorized by constitutional laws.
From Ex Parte Quirin, 317 U.S. 1 (1942)
Such was the practice of our own military authorities before the adoption of the Constitution, and during the Mexican and Civil wars.
* * *
During the Civil war the military commission was extensively used for the trial of offenses against the law of war.
NEUTRALITY, international law. The state of a nation which takes no part between two or more other nations at war with each other.Bouvier's Law Dictionary, 1856 Edition