On your recommendation a few years ago, I bought Bensel's book. It is an interesting book, and for that I thank you. Bensel tries to catagorize actions of the North and South as to which were more "statist," i.e., something where the central government exercised more authoritarian control.
From my reading of the book, what Bensel calls statist in the South were generally activities typically brought about by the fact that they were at war with a foe that had much larger material and manpower resources and one that had blockaded Southern ports depriving the South of imports and revenue. If they were going to win their independence, the South needed to control the production of key items (salt for the preservation of foodstuffs, gunpowder, etc.), transportation, and manpower needed for the war effort. To some extent what the South did in this regard worked because on paper it shouldn’t have taken the North four years to overwhelm their smaller, less equipped opponent.
As Bensel says, "… the South in a sense leapfrogged the more market-oriented (and thus less state-centered) Union war effort and produced a war mobilization very similar in some ways to the American experience in World War II." Internment of citizens of Japanese descent excepted, I didn’t realize the US was "tyrannical" in its war mobilization during World War II, to use your hyperbole, or that their war mobilization actions were not supported by the bulk of the people, as were the CSA’s.
Speaking of "tyranny," I don’t remember Bensel saying much about Lincoln’s assumptions of congressional and judicial powers in addition to his executive powers, particularly in the first months of his administration. According to Madison in Federalist 47:
The accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive, and judiciary, in the same hands, whether of one, a few, or many, and whether hereditary, self appointed, or elective, may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny.
Lincoln stiff armed the judiciary by ignoring the order issued against his suspension of the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus by Chief Justice Taney in ex parte Merryman. Lincoln's troops arrested a judge in his courtroom for following ex parte Merryman. They put a judge under house arrest in Washington to prevent him from going to court. They tossed civilians, editors, politicians, and legislators in jail and held them there for many months without charges. General Scott even reinforced a New York fort with troops to prevent a New York county judge from enforcing a writ of habeas corpus.
Lincoln bypassed Congress by spending money on things other than what Congress had appropriated the money for (unconstitutional). He expanded the regular army, something in the purview of Congress by the Constitution. He suspended habeas corpus, historically the protection by a legislative body against arrest without charges by the executive. The defense usually mounted to support Lincoln’s actions was that it had to be done from “necessity.” Ex parte Milligan destroyed that argument:
The Constitution of the United States is a law for rulers and people, equally in war and in peace, and covers with the shield of its protection all classes of men, at all times and under all circumstances. No doctrine involving more pernicious consequences was ever invented by the wit of man than that any of its provisions can be suspended during any of the great exigencies of government. [Justice Davis, ex parte Milligan, 71 U.S. 2, (1866)]
The Senate asked Lincoln whether it had anything important to tell them before they adjourned. He said no. On the same day the secret orders to resupply/reinforce Fort Sumter, something that would very probably lead to a shooting war, were drafted; they were secretly issued the next day. The probability of war, of course, was not important enough to tell the Congress about, what with it being their responsibility to declare war, not the president’s? After Sumter, Lincoln did not convene the Congress until July, effectively keeping them out of the loop enabling him to assume their function.
Lincoln had tried to provoke a shooting war eight days after his inauguration by sending secret orders to reinforce Fort Pickens without telling the other side, a violation of the truce there that had been negotiated by the previous administration to keep the South from attacking the fort. Fortunately, the man in charge of the US forces in Pensacola Bay recognized the seriousness of the order and did not obey it. Fort Pickens was not reinforced until after the attack on Fort Sumter.
[you in post 426]: Excuse me: Bensel's study showed that JEFF DAVIS suspended habeas corpus more than AL, arrested more dissenters, confiscated more property, levied more taxes, and stole more property, as well as imposing censorship that the North never dreamed of. The South had the tyrant and the king, not the north.
I will repeat what I posted earlier that you apparently chose to ignore: in a head-to-head study of the abusive power of the UNION and the CONFEDERACY on 150 separate items covering habeas corpus, censorship, taxes, and confiscation, the UNION was the freer of the two societies and the CONFEDERACY was the most statist.
Are we reading the same Bensel book, Yankee Leviatan? As Bensel says, "… the Confederate experience of suspension of the writ and martial law was considerably less statist than the administrative structure and implementation in the North." And, "In contrast, the relative absence of disloyalty in the South allowed the Confederacy to adopt less rigorous measures to suppress dissent and suspend judicial process."
And another Bensel quote, "In the South, Jefferson Davis was comparatively less assertive than Lincoln in several respects. For one thing, the Confederate president never suspended the writ without first getting and receiving congressional approval for this authority. For another, even when granted this power, Davis never used suspension as sweepingly or with as much overt political purpose." As Bensel points out, most arrests under martial law in the South "were probably related to the sale of liquor by civilians to enlisted men, usually in camps."
Bensel notes only two examples of newspapers closed in the South (I’ve found two or three more, some of which occurred before the war). Bensel says one of his Confederate examples was by national authorities (from what I’ve read it was shut down by local authorities or the editor simply shut it down himself) and another one by mob action. From my perusal of old newspapers and modern books, I have found documentation of over 100 newspapers suppressed by the Lincoln administration or destroyed by mob action in the North, and that does not count the wholesale blockage that prevented any Democrat newspaper from being sent into various cities and states. Others have claimed as many as 300 newspapers were supressed in the North. Could be, but I haven't confirmed that many.
Bensel notes that the South failed to provide a Supreme Court, but also points out that the Confederate district courts filled in the gap by issuing writs, etc., and followed the law and precedents established before the war in the US. As I have pointed out on these threads, a Confederate district court judge took control of the trial of a civilian away from the military, something that did not happen during the war in the North to my knowledge. Bensel doesn't mention anything like that. The Northern judiciary only ruled against military trials of civilians in areas where the civil courts were functioning in ex parte Milligan after the war. I'm not sure Bensel even mentions ex parte Milligan. If he does, please let me know.
But the actions were by definition 'statist' were they not? The government in Richmond did control whole industries. They did seize private property without compensation. They did impose centralized rule in place of states rights in areas where Lincoln never dreamed. However, you will ignore these in the confederacy or justify them was 'necessary war efforts' and pretend that all would have been better had the confederacy only won. The statist policies of Davis would immediately have ceased, small government would triumph, the rule of law would suddenly be respected, and all would be right with the world. One has to wonder why anyone would expect that to happen? After all, winning the war would not have reduced the threat. The Union would still have been there, and it's easy to see how someone like Jefferson Davis and the confederate congress would have used that as an excuse. Having seized power in such sweeping terms, why should Davis suddenly drop it? Having ignored their constitution at will during the war, why should we expect a sudden respect for it after the war? You don't destroy your constitutions and trample on your freedoms and then suddenly say, "Oops. My bad." Having gone down that statist path during the war, there is no reason to believe it would have changed once peace broke out.
Speaking of "tyranny," I don’t remember Bensel saying much about Lincoln’s assumptions of congressional and judicial powers in addition to his executive powers, particularly in the first months of his administration
I believe you exaggerate that a bit, and ignore the fact that Davis was taking the law into his own hands much later in the war.
Lincoln bypassed Congress by spending money on things other than what Congress had appropriated the money for (unconstitutional). He expanded the regular army, something in the purview of Congress by the Constitution.
I believe you're mistaken in both of those.
He suspended habeas corpus, historically the protection by a legislative body against arrest without charges by the executive.
An act allowed by the Constitution under specific circumstances.
The Senate asked Lincoln whether it had anything important to tell them before they adjourned. He said no. On the same day the secret orders to resupply/reinforce Fort Sumter, something that would very probably lead to a shooting war, were drafted; they were secretly issued the next day. The probability of war, of course, was not important enough to tell the Congress about, what with it being their responsibility to declare war, not the president’s? After Sumter, Lincoln did not convene the Congress until July, effectively keeping them out of the loop enabling him to assume their function.
Again, a combination of exaggeration and opinion.
As Bensel says, "… the Confederate experience of suspension of the writ and martial law was considerably less statist than the administrative structure and implementation in the North...In the South, Jefferson Davis was comparatively less assertive than Lincoln in several respects. For one thing, the Confederate president never suspended the writ without first getting and receiving congressional approval for this authority. For another, even when granted this power, Davis never used suspension as sweepingly or with as much overt political purpose."
It appears Bensel was mistaken. As Mark Neely noted in "Southern Rights", it was the confederate military and their series of shadow courts and their Habeas Corpus Commissioners who were the real threat to Southern liberties. These were established as part of the Habeas Corpus act the rebel congress passed in October 1862, and their activities of arresting and questioning people suspected of disloyalty continued long after the habeas corpus suspension expired. As Neely details, "...when the Congress refused to extend authority for the suspension of the writ of habeas corpus; the work of the War Department's shadow courts was never suspended, for there were always political prisoners in the Confederacy." In his book, Neely says he has identified by name over 4,100 political prisoners, and evidence of even more. This means that on a per-capita basis one was more likely to be locked up in a Jeff Davis confederacy than an Abe Lincoln Union. And as Neely also points out, this was for white citizens only. Denial of rights of the black citizens, free and slave, is impossible to detail because legally they had no rights to begin with.
Bensel notes only two examples of newspapers closed in the South...I have found documentation of over 100 newspapers suppressed by the Lincoln administration...
In all fairness, shouldn't you be comparing the number of newspapers suppressed by Lincoln with the number suppressed by Davis. In the introduction of his book, Neely relates the story of Lawrence H. Matthews, a Pensacola newspaperman, who was ordered arrested by Braxton Bragg for the crime of printing news about the construction of a battery outside of town. How many other newspaper reporters and editors were cowed by the threat of arrest in the confederacy? It seems fairly widespread, for McPherson quotes a Richmond diarist on page 434 of his "Battle Cry of Freedom" saying various editors had told him that they feared having their offices closed if they printed what they really felt. It's clear that press suppression existed throughout the South, perhaps not to the extent claimed in the North but it did exist.
Bensel notes that the South failed to provide a Supreme Court, but also points out that the Confederate district courts filled in the gap by issuing writs, etc., and followed the law and precedents established before the war in the US.
But what you persist in ignoring is the fact that a supreme court was required by their own constitution. It was not optional, and the refusal to establish one was a deliberate, calculated violation of the constitution. You can dismiss this by saying that local courts "filled in the gap" but wouldn't it also be true that other judged "filled in the gap" for those judges you claim Lincoln oppressed? At the end of the day it's a question of respect for the Constitution and the rule of law. Lincoln had it, Davis did not.
Glad you bought his book. Despite a few quotations, I don’t know how you can get around his conclusions. Moreover, to excuse the South as having done these because it was in a war, is puzzling. So the South gets to be statist in a war but the North doesn’t? As for Lincoln, what exactly was the response of Congress when he “abused” the financial process? At any rate, I know what Bensel concluded, I know his overall evidence, and I spent several hours with him discussing this and without question, he thinks the South was “more tyrannical” and the North less so. But at least someone here actually reads the material.
Update on last response: it’s been many years since I’ve read Ben: cover to cover. Let me get the book out, and let’s go over the details of his 150 points of comparison in detail so I’m not doing it from memory.