You provided nothing because you have nothing. Not surprising.
The figure of 14,000 political prisoners comes from Mark E. Neely Jr., The Fate of Liberty: Abraham Lincoln and Civil Liberties
I have Neely's book and he does not identify 14,000 "political prisoners" unless you classify "political prisoner" as anyone who supported the Southern rebellion. It should be noted that "political prisoner" as used by the federal government during the Civil Was is not the same definition used today. People arrested for running the blockade, smuggling goods to the Confederacy, refugees from the Confederacy or people slipping across the border were all classified as "political prisoners" by the administration. Neely details, had either you or Bulla bothered to read the book, that these kind of people make up the large majority of people arrested. Arrests for opposing the government, i.e. political prisoner as we define it today, were by far the minority.
And Neely wrote a companion piece to The Fate of Liberty titled Southern Rights: Political Prisoners and the Myth of Confederate Constitutionalism. His findings make it clear that on a percentage of population basis one was far more likely to be jailed without trial for political reasons in the Jeff Davis Confederacy than in Abe Lincoln's U.S.
Abraham Lincoln and Press Suppression Reconsidered
I'm not paying $44 to access the paper. But assuming you have can you list the 300 papers he's talking about?
Your comments are not surprising.
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>>DoodleDawg wrote: "The figure of 14,000 political prisoners comes from Mark E. Neely Jr., The Fate of Liberty: Abraham Lincoln and Civil Liberties. I have Neely's book and he does not identify 14,000 "political prisoners" unless you classify "political prisoner" as anyone who supported the Southern rebellion."
No doubt that Neely is a devout Lincoln apologist who went out of his way to place the Lincoln administration in the most favorable light. But he did not seem to doubt there were over 13,000 political prisoners, which he associated with the number of arrests:
"[T]he statistical record proves that Seward by no means crushed dissent. From a study of the Official Records, from the Democratic Almanac for 1867, from the American Annual Cyclopaedia, from Seward's unpublished papers, and from published reminiscences of political prisoners, one can ascertain that the secretary of state presided over the arrest of only 864 civilians. Most modern estimates of the total number of civilians arrested by federal military authority during the entire Civil War have put the number at over thirteen thousand, and the figure for Seward's period of control certainly looks modest by comparison. Whatever the accuracy of the traditional estimate of some thirteen thousand arrests of civilians for the whole war, one thing seems certain: William H. Seward did not administer the internal security system in its harshest period. That would come later under the supervision of the War Department" [Mark E. Neely Jr., "The Fate of Liberty: Abraham Lincoln and Civil Liberties." 1992, p.23]
He also admits that far more than 13,500 civilians were arrested:
"There is no point in going further with this exercise. It is clear that far more than 13,535 civilians were arrested. And it is clear that, wherever the prison was located, most of its civilian prisoners came in as victims of the war's incidents and friction. On one point, anyone familiar with the records must agree with Colonel Ainsworth: no one will ever know exactly how many citizens were arrested by military authority during the Civil War. But to answer the question most historians have been asking does not require knowledge of that total." [Ibid. p.131]
That said, I highly recommend Neely's book for the sheer volume of information on Lincoln's atrocities; but leave your Rose-colored glasses on the desk if you desire history over propaganda. Whatever you do, don't confuse Neely's ideological bias with historical facts. For example, this is Neely rejecting the wide-spread belief that Lincoln acted like a dictator:
"The dominant popular view today has been forged outside the historical profession, where literary critics, political scientists, and historical novelists unembarrassedly assume that Abraham Lincoln was a dictator. Such an assumption underlies the influential works of the eminent literary critic Edmund Wilson and of his less-able intellectual offspring, Dwight C. Anderson, Gore Vidal, and William Safire.
"Wilson set the stage in 1962 in his widely read book Patriotic Gore, which compared Lincoln to Bismarck and Lenin. Like them, Wilson argued, Lincoln united a great national power, became an uncompromising dictator in the process, and was "succeeded by agencies which continued to exercise this power and to manipulate the peoples he had been unifying in a stupid, despotic and unscrupulous fashion." Wilson was fascinated by Freudian psychology, and in a remarkably influential section of the book, he argued that Lincoln foresaw the tyrant he would become in the speech (discussed in Chapter 10) that the youthful Illinois lawyer delivered in 1838 before the Young Men's Lyceum of Springfield. Psychohistorians found Wilson's work stimulating and later focused obsessively on the warning against a tyrant in the Lyceum speech. The root of Wilson's interest in the speech was his personal fear of the growth of the power of the federal government. The ultimate source of his view that the Civil War president wielded Bismarckian or Leninist powers was Wilson's own extremist theories of individual freedom."
[Ibid. p.231]
Let's analyze:
First, Wilson's "extremist" theories of individual freedom seem to be those of Thomas Jefferson, which are no doubt extreme to central-planning crony-marxists. Bill Clinton labeled conservatives who wanted to reduce the amount of deficit spending as extremist.
Next, Neely makes use of the "you are not a historian unless you believe like me" ad hominem. That smear is common among academics who engage in indoctrination and suppression, rather than education; and no doubt the History Establishment will make life miserable for historians who do not kiss the ring of Lincoln.
Last, Neely's insinuation that no one "inside the historical profession" believes Lincoln was a dictator, rings hollow. This is the late Clinton Rossiter on Lincoln as a dictator:
"This last point deserves consideration. It was a judicious resolution of the President not to have convoked a divided Congress in the period between his inauguration and the fall of Sumter. It was a rather arbitrary decision not to have done so immediately after April 12. It can only be interpreted as a considered determination to crush the rebellion swiftly without the vexatious presence of an unpredictable Congress to confuse the narrow issue. It is highly probable that Lincoln expected the whole thing to be over by July 4. Whatever the judgment as to the rationale and wisdom of this audacious stroke, its significance for history cannot be doubted. He was allowed to proceed without external check to a series of unusual measures which he alone deemed necessary to lay the rebellion. Unlike Cincinnatus, this great constitutional dictator was self-appointed…"
"Although he had been able to point to statutory authority allowing him to call out the militia of the several states, his proclamation of May 3 (appealing for "42,034 volunteers to serve for the period of three years" and enlarging the regular army by 23,000 and the navy by 18,000) was an out-and-out invasion of the legislative power of the Congress of the United States, an invasion hardly mitigated by the President 's declared purpose of submitting these increases for the approval of Congress as soon as it should assemble. This amazing disregard for the words of the Constitution, though considered by many as unavoidable, was considered by nobody as legal…"
"What the Supreme Court held was simply this: that the President of the United States has the constitutional power, under such circumstances as he shall deem imperative, to brand as belligerents the inhabitants of any area in general insurrection. In other words, he has an almost unrestrained power to act toward insurrectionary citizens as if they were enemies of the United States, and thus place them outside the protection of the Constitution. This, it seems hardly necessary to state, is dictatorial power in the extreme. The Constitution can be suspended after all by any President of the United States who ascertains and proclaims a widespread territorial revolt. "In the interval between April 12 and July 4, 1861 a new principle thus appeared in the constitutional system of the United States, namely, that of a temporary dictatorship…"
"In all this suspension of civil liberty he had the acquiescence of Congress and the overwhelming support of the loyal population [my comment: "weasel words."] This does not mask the fact that he was exercising dictatorial power. It was not until the Act of March 3, 1863 that Congress itself authorized the President to suspend the writ of habeas corpus, and incidentally ratified his past actions in this regard. As far as Lincoln was concerned, this statute was simply an expression of congressional opinion, having no effect on his past or future activities."
[Clinton Rossiter, "Constitutional Dictatorship: Crisis Government in the Modern Democracies." Princeton University Press, 1948, pp.225-226, 230, 236]
To be fair, Rossiter was a devout Lincolnite, and did kiss Lincoln's ring (sorta):
"These actions are the sum total of "the Lincoln dictatorship," an extraordinary eleven weeks of presidential activity unparalleled in the history of the United States. By the time Congress had come together, he had set on foot a complete program executive, military, legislative, and judicial for the suppression of the insurrection. When it is considered what forms of government have in recent years been labeled "dictatorships," the application of this word to Mr. Lincoln's few weeks of unrestrained power is a blatant exaggeration. Yet it cannot be denied that he had proceeded to acts of a radical, dictatorial, and constitutionally questionable character." [Ibid. p.228]
But a few pages later, he reverted back to being a historian:
"THE President not only asserted that the crisis brought him unique executive, legislative, and even constituent power; he further assumed authority of a judicial nature[my words: that is the very definition of a dictator]. Throughout the war the governmental control of individual liberty, such as it was, was almost completely in his hands, not because Congress had decided that this would be a good policy, but because he as President undertook such responsibility on his own initiative. The entire program to suppress treason was based on the presidential suspension of the writ of habeas corpus. Although Lincoln had invited congressional ratification of his suspensions during the eleven weeks dictatorship, he had also made clear that he considered this dictatorial power to belong to him as well as to Congress under the terms of the Constitution. He was able to maintain this stand in defiance of Chief Justice Taney and all precedent; nor was Congress itself ever able effectively to gainsay this claim. His most sweeping cancellation of the writ, on September 24, 1862, was effected without even a reference to Congress. This proclamation is all the more remarkable in its assertion of presidential power to institute martial law proceedings for persons indicted for aiding the rebellion." [Ibid. p.235]
The late historian James Ford Rhodes also claimed Lincoln was a dictator:
"The Federal government may be called a dictatorship. Congress and the people surrendered certain of their powers and rights to a trusted man." [James Ford Rhodes, "History of the Civil War, 1861-1865." The MacMillan Company, 1919, p.394]
"'One of the most interesting features of the present state of things,' wrote Schleiden to Sumner,"is the illimited power exercised by the government. Mr. Lincoln is, in that respect, the equal, if not the superior, of Louis Napoleon. The difference consists only in the fact that the President rests his authority on the unanimous consent of the people of the loyal States, the emperor his on the army." Lincoln was strong with Congress; he was stronger still with the people. The country attorney of Illinois had assumed the power of a dictator. Congress agreed that the times needed one, and the people backed their President. Yet there was method in this trust, for never had the power of dictator fallen into safer and nobler hands." [James Ford Rhodes, "History of the United States from the compromise of 1850 Vol III, 1860-1862." Harper & Brothers, 1895, p.442]
The late James Garfield Randall likewise pointed to Lincoln as a dictator:"
"This question of the dictatorship, however, should not be passed over lightly, and some of Lincoln's arguments in his own defense may have gone beyond the limits which sound legal reasoning would recognize. Lincoln's defense was two-fold: first, that the national safety imperatively demanded that these vigorous measures be taken; and second (and here is the doubtful part), that as he had not exceeded the power of Congress, he supposed that all would be made right by subsequent legislative approval. Lincoln's course was undoubtedly patriotic, capable, and forceful, for which reasons it has been generally applauded; and yet it argues a curious commingling of legislative and executive functions for a President to perform an act which he adjudges to be within the competence of Congress and then, when the measure has been irrevocably taken, to present Congress with an accomplished fact for its subsequent sanction. For not only is there the well-known principle that a legislature may not delegate legislative powers, but the possession of a constitutional power implies the right to withhold as well as the right to perform it. In other words, when a certain branch of the Government is given an optional, not a mandatory, power, it is thereby given full discretion to decide whether or not the power shall be used; and if the decision is in the affirmative it has discretion as to the circumstances, the extent, and the method of its use. This much of legislative discretion is entirely denied when Congress is confronted with an accomplished fact for its approval." [James G. Randall, "Constitutional Problems Under Lincoln." D. Appleton & Company, 1926, pp.57-58]
"If Lincoln was a dictator, it must be admitted that he was a benevolent dictator. Yet in a democracy it is a serious question how far even a benevolent dictatorship should be encouraged." [James G. Randall, "Constitutional Problems Under Lincoln." D. Appleton & Company, 1926, p.47]
That aside, the more I read the Lincolnite books, the more I realize that a common theme among them is, the Southern states were rebellious (which falls under federal power,) rather than secessionists (which was a retained power.) There is no other way to "justify" Lincoln's usurpations without resorting to sophistry. There will never be a way to justify his blood-thirsty terrorism against non-combatants.
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>>DoodleDawg wrote: "It should be noted that "political prisoner" as used by the federal government during the Civil War is not the same definition used today. People arrested for running the blockade, smuggling goods to the Confederacy, refugees from the Confederacy or people slipping across the border were all classified as "political prisoners" by the administration."
Newspaper publishers, local politicians, judges, congressmen, and even the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court were political prisoners under 'Lincoln Rules.'
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>>DoodleDawg wrote: "Neely details, had either you or Bulla bothered to read the book, that these kind of people make up the large majority of people arrested. Arrests for opposing the government, i.e. political prisoner as we define it today, were by far the minority."
I suggest you read the book; but this time while keeping in mind that Neely could never win a Pulitzer Prize on "Lincoln" by bashing Lincoln – not within this cult-like culture. He could have bashed any other president, but not Lincoln.
As for Bulla, this is his curriculum vitae:
His 19-page paper that I referenced is well-sourced with 74 footnotes. You can pretend he is irrelevant, but that will only render you irrelevant.
Have you read this statement from the back cover of Neely's book?
"Neely depicts Lincoln's suspension of habeas corpus as a well-intentioned attempt to deal with a floodtide of unforeseen events—from the disintegrating public order in the border states to the outcry against the first draft in U.S. history. Drawing on letters from prisoners, records of military courts and federal prisons, memoirs, and federal archives, he paints a vivid picture of how Lincoln responded to these problems, how his policies were actually executed, and the virulent political debates that followed. Lincoln emerges from this account with his legendary statesmanship intact—mindful of political realities and prone to temper the sentences of military courts, concerned not with persecuting his opponents but with prosecuting the war efficiently." [Mark E. Neely Jr., "The Fate of Liberty: Abraham Lincoln and Civil Liberties." 1992, Back Cover]
LOL! As you can see from that statement, and from practically every paragraph of the book, Neely's work is not about history, but protecting Lincoln's image. Ironically, Neely has co-authored at least two books on Lincoln's image.
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>>DoodleDawg wrote: "And Neely wrote a companion piece to The Fate of Liberty titled Southern Rights: Political Prisoners and the Myth of Confederate Constitutionalism. His findings make it clear that on a percentage of population basis one was far more likely to be jailed without trial for political reasons in the Jeff Davis Confederacy than in Abe Lincoln's U.S."
You didn't provide a reference, so I cannot evaluate your claim. If you provide the page number(s,) perhaps I can look up the reference for you.
It appears you are claiming that if the South suppressed political freedom, that would justify Lincoln's abuses. Strange. . .
No matter. I question your premise and your claim. Have you read this by David Herbert Donald?
"It is true that in January, 1862, the Confederate Congress did pass a law forbidding the publication of unauthorized news of troop movements, but even this slight regulation was bitterly protested and flagrantly ignored. No Southern newspaper was ever suppressed by the Confederate government for its opinions, however critical or demoralizing. The ardent wish of Secretary of War George W. Randolph was realized: that"this revolution may be... closed without suppression of one single newspaper in the Confederate States." More significant militarily was the Confederacy's insistence upon maintaining the cherished legal rights of freedom from arbitrary arrest and upon preserving due process of law. This sentiment was so strong that, though the Confederacy was invaded and Richmond was actually endangered, President Davis did not dare institute martial law until he had received the permission of his Congress. While General George B. McClellan was about to assault the Confederate capital in 1862, the Southern Congress debated the question and concluded that their President was "subject to the Constitution and to the laws enacted by Congress in pursuance of the Constitution. He can exert no power inconsistent with law, and, therefore, he cannot declare martial law." Grudgingly Congress permitted Davis to suspend the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus for three brief periods—once when McClellan was within sight of Richmond, again during the Fredericksburg- Chancellorsville threat, and once more when Grant was pushing through the Wilderness. Even then he was allowed to suspend the writ only in limited areas, not throughout the Confederacy. When he came to Congress for a renewal of his authority during the grim winter of 1864-1865, he was refused, lest too much power in the hands of a dictatorial president curb the democratic rights of the people." [David Herbert Donald, "Why the North Won the Civil War." Collier Books, 1962, p.85]
That doesn't sound like a lot of suppression of political freedom in the South. Donald also wrote this about the curtailment of Northern civil liberties and the imprisonment of dissidents:
"Yet, in comparison with the Confederacy, the Union government did curtail civil liberties. As soon as the fighting started, President Lincoln, without delaying to consult Congress, suspended the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus, at first for a small area in the East, later for the entire nation. At a subsequent date he reported his fait accompli to Congress: "These measures, whether strictly legal or not, were ventured upon, under what appeared to be a popular demand, and a popular necessity; trusting then, as now that Congress would readily ratify them." Congress had little choice but to ratify, and the disloyal citizen no alternative but to acquiesce. At least 15,000 civilians were imprisoned in the North for alleged disloyalty or sedition. They were arrested upon a presidential warrant and were kept incarcerated without due process of law. It did the disaffected citizen no good to go to court for a writ of habeas corpus to end his arbitrary arrest. On orders from President Lincoln himself, the military guard imprisoning him refused to recognize a judicial writ even when it came from Chief Justice Roger B. Taney." [Ibid. pp.86-87]
Incredible! Donald also wrote this about the suppression of Northern newspapers:
"Freedom of the press was also seriously abridged in the North. To be sure, Northern editors abused President Lincoln as "a slang-whanging stump speaker," a "half-witted usurper," a "mole-eyed" monster with "soul... of leather," "the present turtle at the head of the government," of "the head ghoul at Washington"—but they did so at the acknowledged risk of having their papers suppressed and going to prison. Over three hundred (300!) Northern newspapers were suppressed, for varying periods, because they opposed the administration's policies or favored stopping the war." [Ibid. p.87]
David Herbert Donald was awarded two Pulitzer Prizes.
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>>DoodleDawg wrote: "Abraham Lincoln and Press Suppression Reconsidered." I'm not paying $44 to access the paper. But assuming you have can you list the 300 papers he's talking about?"
Not in your lifetime.
Donald, who was also a Lincolnite, mentions them in the quote above. Perhaps you will trust his numbers. If not, you can rest assured knowing that Bulla also erred on the side of the Lincolnites:
"[F]reedom of the press was not something that could merely be an idea on paper. It had to be something lived, something that was part and parcel of the constitutional fabric of the nation. Freedom of the press in theory only was mere rhetoric. Lincoln set dangerous precedents by allowing interference with the press, but in the long run [Lincoln] understood that the nation could never be a democratic republic without the rule of law. That meant easing back on repressive measures." [David W. Bulla, "Abraham Lincoln and Press Suppression Reconsidered." American Journalism, Vol.26, Iss.4; Fall, 2009, p.29]
Frankly, Lincoln didn't give a rat's behind about the rule of law, but there is a army of people who believe he did.
Mr. Kalamata