Posted on 08/20/2004 5:43:21 AM PDT by TexConfederate1861
That is incorrect. Lincoln himself stated in his inaugural that he believed ratification would be a sure thing - so much to the point that he urged the country to treat it as if it were already enrolled. He even believed he could obtain ratification from the seceded states. Most state legislatures in the north took up the measure very promptly. The Governor of New York publicly endorsed it and one of the two chambers in several of the states passed it. But the war threw it off the list of priorities with only the four states I mentioned approving of it.
The real question is: Is the description of the Mitchell provided incorrect?
No. Mitchell was an American citizen. So your analogy still fails.
As to those areas that had purported to secede, and were in armed insurrection against the Union and the Constitution, you would have us believe they still benefitted from some protections it provided?
Your arguments are nonsense. The only law that governed the the Union armies in the South during the war was the Law of War.
Winners of the war conduct the trials, not the losers.
The big deal is that this seems to be a recurring problem with you, capitan. Not only did you do this with Hamdi, but you also did it with the Prize Cases (presenting an argument as if it were the decision), Bollman (presenting the dissent as if it were the decision), and this latest case that NC pointed out. That's a a pretty bad track record, especially considering that the "decision" part of the case is easily found. It's the one that usually starts with "Justice So-and-so delivered the opinion of the court" and ends with something to the effect of "so held."
He wantonly raped its core tenets thus rendering it a useless document during his reign, which is by any other name throwing off the constitution.
The constitution continued to function just fine in the loyal states.
The fact that tens of thousands of private citizens in those states were imprisoned without charges for such things as political speech that was unfavorable to Lincoln, and considering that the civil authority in northern-controlled states and regions was in at least five cases disregarded to the convenience of the military (specifically the habeas corpus cases in Maryland, Massachusetts, Missouri, New York, and the District of Columbia - all of which Lincoln disregarded), that statement seems to be without validity.
The largest of all the war "crimes" committed was starting the war in the first place, and that dishonor belongs to the South. You neo-rebs are not unlike the insurrectionists in Iraq. You venerate the Ayatollah (Davis), try to pull down the lawful government, misrepresent yourselves, play to sectional prejudices, use lies and deceit to further your propaganda. The Iraqi insurgents have taken a page right out of the southern playbook, by hoping to unsettle an upcoming, lawful election by the loyal people, and change administrations.
It didn't work in 1864 and it won't work in 2004. Watch what happens over the next 12-18 months, and I am sure when all is said an done, there will still remain a few insurrectionists Iraqi pigs to squeal about the big bad Yankees.
The losers don't get to make those claims, because by their surrender, they acknowledge the errors in their way.
Southern partisan lurkers:
Post your documentation. Hold it up to the scrutiny of history.
It was a good thing the south was devastated in the ACW.
There has not been since then another attempt to overthrow the government of the people.
It was a good thing the south was devastated in the ACW.
The inhumane institution of human slavery was, in this country, snuffed out because of it.
It was a good thing the south was devastated in the ACW.
The vital principle of constitutional rule was upheld, rather than be allowed to degenerate into despotism and anarchy.
It was a good thing the south was devastated in the ACW.
A "balkanized" North America, without a strong and free United States, would have become the devil's playground in misery, oppression, and endless war.
It is an especially good thing the south was devastated in the ACW.
Because the founding principles of "all men are created equal," and that they have the right to "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" actually continued to mean something.
The United States, today, is the greatest nation in the history of mankind, a beacon of liberty and freedom to the rest of the world, due in no small part to the victory of the Union over the forces of the confederacy.
The South seemed to shun the Constitution at its convenience.
WHile it is great to post such material, I have no doubt that you will ignore it just as you ignored the extensive documentation, a full transcript among it, of the atrocities at the hands of Robert Milroy. Your bar changes whenever somebody introduces proof that meets your previous standard and confronts you with an undesired fact. It's all word games.
Too bad you forfeited your right to pass moral judgment against slavery, a sin against human liberty, by demonstrating your reckless approval of indefensible and truly vile acts of murder, a sin against human life which is thus more grevious in its effect than one that merely deprives liberty.
If you want to skip around on some moral high horse over slavery then prove you have that right by retracting your endorsements of Robert Milroy and his and other acts of pure evil comitted upon southern civilians. Otherwise you have no more moral credibility than the partial birth abortionist who protests the "immorality" of capital punishment, or, put another way, your senator.
Which, even if we are to take your unsourced claim as accurate, still leaves the other 70%, or a clear majority. To put that figure in perspective, if Bush were to win the election by 55% it would be called a landslide.
How can a government be constituted "of the people" when half of its very existence is predicated upon holding a bayonet to the chests of the people living there?
The inhumane institution of human slavery was, in this country, snuffed out because of it.
Once again, you've forfeited your right to pass moral judgment on that institution by giving your sanction and endorsement to a far more grievous sin: murder by torture. Your position is thus akin to the abortionist who crusades against capital punishment.
The vital principle of constitutional rule was upheld, rather than be allowed to degenerate into despotism and anarchy.
Tearing down a constitution in a professed attempt to save it still leaves you with a violated and thus voided document. As to despotism, one cannot degenerate into what is already established in the policies of Lincoln, most notably his wanton abuses of the judicial branch of the government.
A "balkanized" North America, without a strong and free United States, would have become the devil's playground in misery, oppression, and endless war.
Exactly how would an agreement to separate in peace, or even the successful reaching of a separation by war in which definitive boundaries were decided, produce "balkanization," a tendency that occurs only in locations where (1) two or more historically conflicted peoples share the same land or (2) the same historically conflicted people live in different locations but are forced against their will to unite under a common political boundary and government.
Because the founding principles of "all men are created equal," and that they have the right to "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" actually continued to mean something.
How can life mean something when it is wantonly deprived to almost a million men? How can liberty mean something when it is trumped by military convenience? How can the pursuit of happiness mean something when a despot employs force to prevent men from exercising that pursuit?
I must admit, you neo-reb are an endless source of entertainment. Especially the self-righteous use of the Millgan decision to prove some hypercritical point you attempt to make. But it just doesn't wash. It didn't wash in the 1860's either.
Professor Thomas D. Morris in his article, "The Constitution: A Law for Rulers in War and Peace?" documents the post-case clarifications by Justice David Davis to the wrong-headed interpretations then being made by southern whites and other unreconstructed losers. Morris writes:
"But there was still more at stake in Milligan than a libertarian protection of dissent during war. The case must be seen within the context of Reconstruction as much as that of Civil War. Throughout the South during 1865 and 1866 federal authorities used the military to prevent a resurgence of power by conservative southern white and to protect blacks and their allies from violence and oppression. Throughout the South, trials were held by military commissions, or in military provost courts, or in courts of the Freedmen's Bureau, an agency largely run by military personnel. What was the relationship between the Milligan opinion and the use of the military in the South? President Andrew Johnson argued that the opinion prohibited the use of military courts. Justice Davis, in an extensive letter, tried to explain his view of the relationship. There was none, he wrote. The was "not a word said in the opinion about reconstruction & the power is conceded in insurrectionary states." He was particularly stung by charges in Republican newspapers that Milligan was a second Dred Scott opinion in that it stripped the power to protect blacks and carry out an effective reconstruction policy. Dred Scott, Davis retorted, "was in the interest of Slavery, & the Milligan opinion in the interest of liberty." But he immediately gave away the game when he added in the next sentence: "I did not suppose the Republican party would endorse such trials after the war is over. Yet they do it."
The points made by Prof. Morris and by Justice Davis are very clear. Milligan was not intended to apply to "insurrectionary states." It was not intended to interfere with military rule there in times of war.
As Morris had noted earlier in his article:
"Despite these profound affirmations of civil liberties [i.e. "the Constitution ... is a law for rulers and people, equally in war and peace"], however, there was something slightly disingenuous about Davis's opinion. He opened it with an admission that during the 'wicked Rebellion' the temper of the country precluded a calmness vital to judicial resolution. Once the war ended and the public safety was secured, he maintained, the issues could be discussed and resolved. This was nearly an admission that during the war itself, 'adequacy' constitutionalism necessarily prevailed."
In other words, you cannot refute what the decision itself so you turn to outside obfuscation and word games in attempt to discredit its plain meaning. Oh well. At least this time you aren't claiming those ad verecundiam quotes came from the decision itself!
Defending the indefensible is the genre of the neo-rebs. "Cruel and unusual" is a provision from the Constitution - something the southerners had renounced. it didn't apply to traitors. Besides, there is nothing unusual about executing guerillas, spies, partisans, bushwackers, and other traitors. Catch them, shoot them, bury them - by the book.
Oh, and who is Thomas D. Morris by the way? Another pro-northern "academic" with an obsession over slavery - the very same issue you forfeited your moral right to condemn by giving your personal sanction to murder and torture. The thrust of his work consists of two books: one about slavery in the south, the other a contrasting work about supposed "personal liberty" in the north, which if you know anything about the yankee black codes, was virtually non existant.
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