Posted on 08/20/2004 5:43:21 AM PDT by TexConfederate1861
Imagine that America had a Chief Justice of the United States who actually believed in enforcing the Constitution and, accordingly, issued an opinion that the war in Iraq was unconstitutional because Congress did not fulfill its constitutional duty in declaring war. Imagine also that the neocon media, think tanks, magazines, radio talk shows, and television talking heads then waged a vicious, months-long smear campaign against the chief justice, insinuating that he was guilty of treason and should face the punishment for it. Imagine that he is so demonized that President Bush is emboldened to issue an arrest warrant for the chief justice, effectively destroying the constitutional separation of powers and declaring himself dictator.
An event such as this happened in the first months of the Lincoln administration when Abraham Lincoln issued an arrest warrant for Chief Justice Roger B. Taney after the 84-year-old judge issued an opinion that only Congress, not the president, can suspend the writ of habeas corpus. Lincoln had declared the writ null and void and ordered the military to begin imprisoning thousands of political dissenters. Taney’s opinion, issued as part of his duties as a circuit court judge in Maryland, had to do with the case of Ex Parte Merryman (May 1861). The essence of his opinion was not that habeas corpus could not be suspended, only that the Constitution requires Congress to do it, not the president. In other words, if it was truly in "the public interest" to suspend the writ, the representatives of the people should have no problem doing so and, in fact, it is their constitutional prerogative.
As Charles Adams wrote in his LRC article, "Lincoln’s Presidential Warrant to Arrest Chief Justice Roger B. Taney," there were, at the time of his writing, three corroborating sources for the story that Lincoln actually issued an arrest warrant for the chief justice. It was never served for lack of a federal marshal who would perform the duty of dragging the elderly chief justice out of his chambers and throwing him into the dungeon-like military prison at Fort McHenry. (I present even further evidence below).
All of this infuriates the Lincoln Cult, for such behavior is unquestionably an atrocious act of tyranny and despotism. But it is true. It happened. And it was only one of many similar constitutional atrocities committed by the Lincoln administration in the name of "saving the Constitution."
The first source of the story is a history of the U.S. Marshal’s Service written by Frederick S. Calhoun, chief historian for the Service, entitled The Lawmen: United States Marshals and their Deputies, 1789–1989. Calhoun recounts the words of Lincoln’s former law partner Ward Hill Laman, who also worked in the Lincoln administration.
Upon hearing of Laman’s history of Lincoln’s suspension of habeas corpus and the mass arrest of Northern political opponents, Lincoln cultists immediately sought to discredit Laman by calling him a drunk. (Ulysses S. Grant was also an infamous drunk, but no such discrediting is ever perpetrated on him by the Lincoln "scholars".)
But Adams comes up with two more very reliable accounts of the same story. One is an 1887 book by George W. Brown, the mayor of Baltimore, entitled Baltimore and the Nineteenth of April, 1861: A Study of War (Johns Hopkins University Press, 1887). In it is the transcript of a conversation Mayor Brown had with Taney in which Taney talks of his knowledge that Lincoln had issued an arrest warrant for him.
Yet another source is A Memoir of Benjamin Robbins Curtis, a former U.S. Supreme Court Justice. Judge Curtis represented President Andrew Johnson in his impeachment trial before the U.S. Senate; wrote the dissenting opinion in the Dred Scott case; and resigned from the court over a dispute with Judge Taney over that case. Nevertheless, in his memoirs he praises the propriety of Justice Taney in upholding the Constitution by opposing Lincoln’s suspension of habeas corpus. He refers to Lincoln’s arrest warrant as a "great crime."
I recently discovered yet additional corroboration of Lincoln’s "great crime." Mr. Phil Magness sent me information suggesting that the intimidation of federal judges was a common practice in the early days of the Lincoln administration (and the later days as well). In October of 1861 Lincoln ordered the District of Columbia Provost Marshal to place armed sentries around the home of a Washington, D.C. Circuit Court judge and place him under house arrest. The reason was that the judge had issued a writ of habeas corpus to a young man being detained by the Provost Marshal, allowing the man to have due process. By placing the judge under house arrest Lincoln prevented the judge from attending the hearing of the case. The documentation of this is found in Murphy v. Porter (1861) and in United States ex re John Murphy v. Andrew Porter, Provost Marshal District of Columbia (2 Hay. & Haz. 395; 1861).
The second ruling contained a letter from Judge W.M. Merrick, the judge of the Circuit Court of the District of Columbia, explaining how, after issuing the writ of habeas corpus to the young man, he was placed under house arrest. Here is the final paragraph of the letter:
After dinner I visited my brother Judges in Georgetown, and returning home between half past seven and eight o’clock found an armed sentinel stationed at my door by order of the Provost-Marshal. I learned that this guard had been placed at my door as early as five o’clock. Armed sentries from that time continuously until now have been stationed in front of my house. Thus it appears that a military officer against whom a writ in the appointed form of law has first threatened with and afterwards arrested and imprisoned the attorney who rightfully served the writ upon him. He continued, and still continues, in contempt and disregard of the mandate of the law, and has ignominiously placed an armed guard to insult and intimidate by its presence the Judge who ordered the writ to issue, and still keeps up this armed array at his door, in defiance and contempt of the justice of the land. Under the circumstances I respectfully request the Chief Judge of the Circuit Court to cause this memorandum to be read in open Court, to show the reasons for my absence from my place upon the bench, and that he will cause this paper to be entered at length on the minutes of the Court . . . W.M. Merrick Assistant Judge of the Circuit Court of the District of Columbia
As Adams writes, the Lincoln Cult is terrified that this truth will become public knowledge, for it if does, it means that Lincoln "destroyed the separation of powers; destroyed the place of the Supreme Court in the Constitutional scheme of government. It would have made the executive power supreme, over all others, and put the president, the military, and the executive branch of government, in total control of American society. The Constitution would have been at an end."
Exactly right.
August 19, 2004
Thomas J. DiLorenzo [send him mail] is the author of The Real Lincoln: A New Look at Abraham Lincoln, His Agenda, and an Unnecessary War, (Three Rivers Press/Random House). His latest book is How Capitalism Saved America: The Untold Story of Our Country’s History, from the Pilgrims to the Present (Crown Forum/Random House, August 2004).
Copyright © 2004 LewRockwell.com
There were southern guerrilas in the war zones. Throughout the war! You continue to deny the undeniable.
Some were open and used names like the "Partisan Rangers." Others were irregular bands of rebel deserters, bushwhackers, and other criminals. Some were simply psychopaths.
I don't know why would deny they exited. Your compatriots glorify their history. See here: http://www.geocities.com/mosouthron/partisans/
I know he wasn't the dead guy.
You never asked ME, but I'll answer it anyhow. Taney was not correct. He did not say that. You quote is not found in the text [*I'm shocked*] The correct citation is this:
But the public history of every European nation displays it in a manner too plain to be mistaken. They had for more than a century before been regarded as beings of an inferior order, and altogether unfit to associate with the white race, either in social or political relations; and so far inferior, that they had no rights which the white man was bound to respect."Taey is NOT maintaining the position you attribute to him [*I'm shocked*], but noting that for the past century every European nation had done so.
in point of fact, a doctoral dissertation done at the Univ of MN by James A. Ranchino in the 1960s said that the CORRECT figure was 5-6% of southerners, which was about the same percentage as that of the northerners who owned slaves.
as i'm NOT at home & thus have no access to my library, i can't give you more documentation than that now.
i was privileged to take some grad classes under Jim Ranchino in the 1970s.
free dixie,sw
torture, mass rapes,arson of private residences,the intentional looting & destruction of places of worship,the taking of civilian hostages & MURDER of civilians is now & have always been WAR CRIMES, which are punishable by DEATH.
you're smarter than that!
free dixie,sw
do you have one?
free dixie,sw
.the WHOLE TEXT of the resolution has been posted NUMEROUS times on these threads.
free dixie,sw
ONE of the OBVIOUS things that heyworth doesn't know is that LTC John S. Mosby was NOT the commander of CSA forces at the battle of Ft Pillow. (as i'm sure you are aware, Nate Forrest was the CG for our side).
heyworth has since said (NUMEROUS times) that he was "just confused". more likely he did NOT know & is now trying DESPERATELY to cover up his ignorance of BASIC FACTS.
free dixie,sw
even the USPS exhibit at Camp Sumpter admits that.
free dixie,sw
the Law of War CANNOT be set aside by any power.
free dixie,sw
COL James Lane & "doc" Jennison were TWO of the most vicious of the FILTH IN BLUE! BOTH raided BOTH sides.
free dixie,sw
When you go on about the (add your own invective here) march of Sherman through the south, a close study of the history will show that much of the damage was due to the bummers (not under control of the military authorities), the retreating southern forces, the "army of contrabands" (also not under military control) that followed the Union armies, and common criminals who tagged along.
The point remains - what some of you throw around as "war crimes" were nothing of the sort.
The United States Park Service refers to it as the "Andersonville National Historic Site."
And whatever your interpretation of the exhibit might be, you have yet to post your "evidence" for others to view and make their own decision.
Nathan Bedford Forrest's post-war activities were apparently more to the liking of the hardcore rebs.
The total figure I have for officially recorded deaths says 624,726 for military deaths of all type on both sides combined. Since the numbers are incomplete most reasonable estimates place the total closer to 700,000, give or take. Add 50,000 confederate civilians directly killed for 750,000. We can up things beyond that as well by counting union and border state civilians and civilians who were indirectly killed by displacement. I don't believe there is an exact figure on that anywhere so it's anybody's guess as to how many. Suffice to say, 800,000 deaths is not at all out of the picture. And yes, they were WANTON as they resulted directly from an unnecessary and needless war.
Yeah, and even your beloved Lieber Codes say that torturing people and executing civilians without some kind of charge against them are forbidden. Of course you would prefer that we think otherwise, hence your willful removal of those clauses from the excerpts of it that you posted.
free dixie,sw
LOL!
i'm an admirer of BOTH.
btw, at his death, what office did COL Mosby hold???? (this should send most people to the library!!!!!)
free dixie,sw
free dixie,sw
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