The Confederacy’s actions made their war effort more effective. Bensel noted, as I quoted, that their war mobilization of controlling some industries, transportation, and manpower was not unlike that of the US in WW II. If you want to get hot and bothered about that, go right ahead.
… and pretend that all would have been better had the confederacy only won.
I never made any comment about whether things would get better had the Confederacy won. Whatever happened would have no doubt been better for the South than the "reconstruction" imposed by vengeful Northerners.
Having seized power in such sweeping terms, why should Davis suddenly drop it?
One major reason … he wasn’t Lincoln.
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.
You are talking about Lincoln, I presume.
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.
No exaggeration. Next you will try to have us believe Lincoln didn't admit to taking actions that were unconstitutional.
I believe you're mistaken in both of those. [Lincoln spent money for things that Congress hadn’t authorized and expanded the army also not authorized by Congress.]
I figure your Google skills are adequate enough to bring up the text of the Constitution so that you can check what it says. In case that doesn't work, here is Daniel Farber in his book, Lincoln's Constitution:
"... money was spent and the military expanded without the necessary authority from Congress...."
Congress later indemnified Lincoln for his transgressions of the Constitution and approved the expenditures and expansion. However, Congress doesn't have the authority to authorize anyone to violate the Constitution. Their duty should have been to impeach the offender, but we are talking about Republicans of that time and age. They didn't do it.
An act [suspending habeas corpus] allowed by the Constitution under specific circumstances.
Your statement is true but not responsive. The specific circumstances were that Lincoln had to get Congress's approval first. If Lincoln had the right to suspend habeas corpus without congressional approval, why did Congress authorize him to do it in 1863? Here is a long series of quotes from judges and government officials about Congress being the entity that authorizes suspension [Link]. And, of course, there was the New York ratifiers' statement of original intent:
That every Person restrained of his Liberty is entitled to an enquiry into the lawfulness of such restraint, and to a removal thereof if unlawful, and that such enquiry and removal ought not to be denied or delayed, except when on account of Public Danger the Congress shall suspend the privilege of the Writ of Habeas Corpus.
[me]: 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.
[you]: Again, a combination of exaggeration and opinion.
From the Congressional Globe, March 28, 1861, page 433:
Mr. Powell, from the committee appointed to wait on the President of the United States and inform him that, unless he nay have any further communication to make, the Senate is now ready to close the present session by an adjournment, reported that they performed the duty assigned them, and that the President replied that had no further communication to make. … The President pro tempore declared the Senate adjourned without day.
In looking up a reference for the order to prepare the Sumter expedition, I discovered in the book, Lincoln Takes Command, by John Shipley Tilley, that Lincoln asked Fox to prepare the order on March 27, the day before the Senate adjourned. I read elsewhere that the draft was presented to Lincoln on the 28th. The order was actually issued on March 29. Earlier Lincoln's cabinet and military officers had warned that Fox’s plan would lead to a shooting war, which it did. Lincoln had kept Congress in the dark about this risky plan that would probably lead to war.
Lincoln did not convene his Congress until July 4. Between the time of the attack on Sumter and Congress reassembling in July, Lincoln issued a call for troops to invade the South (resulting in four more states seceding), proclaimed a blockade of Southern ports, expanded the army and spent funds for items unauthorized by Congress. Congress, not being in session, couldn't stop him from doing the risky Sumter expedition, the call for troops, the blockade, the army buildup, the spending spree unauthorized by Congress, and enmeshing the country in war.
In contrast, Davis convened his Congress in April a couple of weeks after Sumter.
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.
I won’t pass judgment on Neely's book without having read it. I don’t know whether it is a whitewash or a hatchet job. I take it Neely disagrees with Bensel's conclusions.
In all fairness, shouldn't you be comparing the number of newspapers suppressed by Lincoln with the number suppressed by Davis.
That would be 100+ to 2 (or maybe 5 or 6 if you include Southern papers immediately before the war). I’m talking of cases where presses were destroyed, newspaper editions confiscated for pro-Southern views, editors, publishers, reporters, and newspaper boys arrested, papers prohibited from using the mails, etc. Neely has apparently found one newspaper reporter arrested in the South for publishing sensitive military information. It is to laugh. This is a case of David (the South) versus Goliath (the North) in numbers of physical suppression of newspapers.
I found the following site tonight that mentions the 300 newspapers suppressed by the North. See: Link. I have one of the reference books the site mentions, Lincoln and the Press by Harper, 1951. It describes a huge number of suppressions. I have not finished tabulating how many were mentioned in the book – it became a back shelf project for me after I reached 100 papers suppressed by the North – I've got too many other things to do. I asked you once to list Southern papers that were suppressed. You listed the few that are in Blue and Gray in Black and White, but I pointed out a number of problems with those cases.
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.
I’ve discussed this with you until I am blue in the face (or maybe gray). You usually claim Davis was responsible the failure to form a Confederate Supreme Court. Back in 2003 I posted Davis’ call for the Congress to do their duty to form the court, as proscribed in the Confederate Constitution. You have yet to provide any information showing that Davis worked against the formation of the court.
Judges that I claim Lincoln oppressed? Not Lincoln personally, but his army did the oppressing. Here is a web site that describes the arrest of Judge Richard B. Carmichael. Here's some information about Judge Merrick. Here’s some information about Judge Garrison that I posted to you before. Lincoln had respect for the law? Who knew?
Statism is something your side gets all 'hot and bothered' about. "Statist" is a term your compatriots love to toss around as a slur against Lincoln and his policies. Statest is defined as an ideology advocating the use of states to achieve goals, both economic and social. The question is were they statist or not? Is that not what Davis did with his controlling of industries, suppression of rights, and accumulation of powers that should properly have been held by the states? The wouldn't Bensel be right when he described the actions as statist?
Whatever happened would have no doubt been better for the South than the "reconstruction" imposed by vengeful Northerners.
That would most likely depend on what shade your skin was. Or whether you had been tossed in jail without trial. Or whether your property had been seized without compensation. Or...
One major reason … he wasn’t Lincoln.
No, he was Jefferson Davis. The man who ignored his constitution at will. Who said that an act was constitutional if it did what he wanted it to do. Who called for the execution of POWs. Davis the statist. Davis the tyrant. No, he wasn't Lincoln. He was much, much worse.
You are talking about Lincoln, I presume.
You know I'm not. And you know I'm right.
No exaggeration. Next you will try to have us believe Lincoln didn't admit to taking actions that were unconstitutional.
I would love to see the quotes you have, in context, where he admitted as much.
Congress later indemnified Lincoln for his transgressions of the Constitution and approved the expenditures and expansion.
Congress later indemnified Lincoln for his transgressions of the Constitution and approved the expenditures and expansion. However, Congress doesn't have the authority to authorize anyone to violate the Constitution. Their duty should have been to impeach the offender, but we are talking about Republicans of that time and age. They didn't do it.
An impeachable offense would have been nice. Farber himself admits that while Lincoln's shifting of funds from one department to another may have been unconstitutional, he does admit that Lincoln had no precedent to guide him. Lincoln had the power to call up the militia on his own if Congress was not in session per the various militia acts. He did that. Lincoln could not appropriate money to pay for this expansion. He did not do that. He did transfer existing appropriations as a stopgap pending the recall of Congress and while this may appear to violate the spirit of Article I, Section 9 it may not violate the letter of it. A Supreme Court ruling on that would be helpful.
Your statement is true but not responsive. The specific circumstances were that Lincoln had to get Congress's approval first.
A statement not necessarily supported by the Constitution, as justices as recent as William Rehnquist have admitted. The fact is that the question has never been definitively answered.
Lincoln did not convene his Congress until July 4. Between the time of the attack on Sumter and Congress reassembling in July, Lincoln issued a call for troops to invade the South (resulting in four more states seceding), proclaimed a blockade of Southern ports, expanded the army and spent funds for items unauthorized by Congress. Congress, not being in session, couldn't stop him from doing the risky Sumter expedition, the call for troops, the blockade, the army buildup, the spending spree unauthorized by Congress, and enmeshing the country in war.
Actions that are not illegal because you say they are.
In contrast, Davis convened his Congress in April a couple of weeks after Sumter.
And after he deliberately plunged the confederacy into war. A act which I believe that the confederate constitution also required congressional approval for. Not that Davis ever let his constitution stand in his way.
I won’t pass judgment on Neely's book without having read it. I don’t know whether it is a whitewash or a hatchet job. I take it Neely disagrees with Bensel's conclusions.
I highly recommend you do so. Neeley's similar study on Lincoln's administration and it's actions won him the Pulitzer for history in 1992.
That would be 100+ to 2 (or maybe 5 or 6 if you include Southern papers immediately before the war).
A hundred-plus papers shut down? Or suppressed? Which one is it? Because if it's suppressed then I posted some information showing suppression of journalists under Davis and widespread fear of what might happen to them if they stepped out of line among the rebel press. If it's 100-plus shut down then I'd like to see a list. In his history of journalism during the rebellion, "Blue & Grey in Black & White: Newspapers in the Civil War", Brayton Harris seems to have missed the overhwelming majority of those closed. Must be poor research on his part. </sarcasm>
I found the following site tonight that mentions the 300 newspapers suppressed by the North.
But, perhaps not surprisingly, nobody can come up with the 300+ names of those newspapers. Like oh so many Southern stories, this one seems to keep growing in the telling.
I’ve discussed this with you until I am blue in the face (or maybe gray). You usually claim Davis was responsible the failure to form a Confederate Supreme Court. Back in 2003 I posted Davis’ call for the Congress to do their duty to form the court, as proscribed in the Confederate Constitution. You have yet to provide any information showing that Davis worked against the formation of the court.
And yet no such court was ever established. Not that that stops you from trying to justify this clear and unquestionable constitutional violation until you're blue (or grey) in the face. Blame it on the rebel congress and claim Davis was blameless if you want, the fault lies with both parties. Davis didn't stop the court, but he did nothing to get it established, either. A clear constitutional requirement was ignored. One of a number of such examples of the contempt the rebel government had for their own constitution. And there is no reason to believe that this contempt would not have continued had the south won their rebellion.