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
A southern gentleman?
Fehrenbacher can't even get the DATE right, the trial was held in March of 1819. Of note, Jaffa didn't get it right either in New Birth of Freedom ("a Maryland trial in 1818"). The bond for Rev. Gruber's appearance was dated 31 Oct 1818, with Gruber to appear in Hagerstown 16 Nov 1818 to appear before a grand jury, which then took over two weeks before finding a true bill against Rev. Gruber. The trial was removed to Frederick county 1 Mar 1819, but the actual trial did not start until the 10th.
Beginning the same year, emancipated his own slaves to the number of at least eight. Whatever moral conviction may have encouraged these actions, it does not appear again in his public record or private correspondence.
Fehrenbacher obviously missed school the day they taught that "actions speak louder than words". Taney had inherited 10 slaves, freed 7 in 1818, another in 1821. The remaining two were old and feeble, and received pensions until their deaths. Taney freed eight slaves he could have sold, and cared for the two elderly slaves until they passed. What a racist! </sarcasm>
His attitude on the bench was consistently and solicitously proslavery. By 1857 he had become as fanatical in his determination to protect the institution as Garrison was in his determination to destroy it."
ROTF! Taney can't INVENT law as Fehrenbacher wishes him to do. We've already proven that Fehrenbacher can't even distinguish between citizens, aliens, non-citizens, and naturalization.
ROTF!
i didn't know about that & i'm a TEXICAN, born & bred.
free dixie,sw
there IS a GREAT deal of direct evidence that the KS Redlegs & the 5th KS VOL CAV did scalp their victims, to collect bountys posted by COL (and sitting US Senator) James Lane on MO citizens.
again, WELCOME to the war.
free dixie,sw
1. Raven,
2.Big Drinks (rather than drunk. his Indian neighbors were FASCINATED with how much firewater he could drink & still stand up!)&
3. Falls Down Much (after the death of his favorite & youngest son, by his Cherokee wife, Houston was PROSTRATED by that loss, as anyone who has kids can understand.)
free dixie,sw
oh, i HARDLY think so.
of course, to the arrogantly ignorant,self-serving hateFILLED, stupid,self-righteous,REVISIONIST damnyankee lunatics NOTHING, no matter how well documented, will suffice as FACT.
one of FR's main unionist loonies stated on a thread some months ago that OFFICIAL US DOCUMENTS at The US Archives "could not be believed, as all of the records have been contaminated by the rebels & forgeries have been planted in those records. the rebs just go over there and change things to suit their agenda". how NUTS is that????? (and some people wonder why i don't go to a great deal of trouble ANY MORE to post long, detailed bibliographies of my sources!)
free dixie,sw
ALL here know that you do NOT fit that description.
NOTHING, no matter how well researched, will satisfy you, if it proves that the damnyankees (and particuliarly the lincoln coven of thugs) were SELF-RIGHTEOUS, STUPID,ARROGANT,IGNORANT, CRIMINAL,RACIST,SELF-SERVING, POWER-HUNGRY,CRUEL or, for that matter, that they were ever less than perfect.
you are either a TROLL and/or one of the MOST dedicated of the drinkers of the damnyankee poison KOOL-AID in the world. further, you appear to have swallowed the REVISIONIST/LEFTIST bait, hook, line & sinker.
but as i''ve said numerous times: RANT ON! (you TOO serve the TRUE CAUSE.)
free dixie,sw
Good morning, stand. You're up early.
I have no trouble believing James Lane was into scalping. He was the bloodiest of the Jayhawkers before being elected to the Senate.
I don't know about Pea Ridge; I wasn't there (although a great grandfather was). The scalping story was generally believed and is still reported in histories of the battle.
Now about Houston: I suspect that Big Drinks or Drunk depends on the translation from the Cherokee. Doesn't seem to make much difference.You would have me believe that the name was given because he could drink so much without falling down? And his other name was Falls Down Much? You're kidding, aren't you?
I don't wonder but I am thankful.
free dixie,sw
free dixie,sw
you are HALF-correct about the translation problem. TSLAGI (the NAME of our native LANGUAGE) is DIFFICULT to EXACTLY translate into English.
"BIG DRINKS" is PRECISELY correct, as it indicates that Houston could "drink everyone else into insensibility", while remaining relatively "sober-looking" himself. (that ability is said to be one of the "marks" of the ALCOHOLIC. was Houston an "alkie"? i don't know.)
otoh, "FALLS DOWN MUCH" is a nice way (Cherokees are REALLY good at saying one thing for POLITENESS/DECORUM, while meaning something quite different!)of saying that Houston was "unable to cope with his loss", i.e. he was in the estimation of some tribal men to be "less than manly". you won't be surprised that DESPAIR/GRIEF/GUILT affect different people differently;SOME Indians didn't think he was "sufficiently spartan" about his loss.
does this help clear this up?
free dixie,sw
i USED to post my sources in a form that any historiographer would appreciate, upon the REQUESTS of the unionist lunatics that inhabit these WBTS threads.
BUT when i discovered that no matter how well documented, that they would NOT believe the ORIGIONAL SOURCE DOCUMENTS, i quit doing so, even when asked to do so.
they "brought it upon their own heads" and NOW save YOU & me trouble.
trust me on this, if YOU post ANYTHING that proves that the linoln cult and/or the damnyankee army EVER did anything that was "less than perfect", the unionist idiots here will attack you too. they have drunk the KOOL-AID,in great draughts.
free dixie,sw
We have, in the past, talked at length about farm equipment and agricultural mechanization. I don't believe you have made a case to support your contention about the imminent death of "chattel slavery" in the 1860's or 70's.
Not only is California the land of "Fruits and Nuts" (literally and figuatively), the central valley was also an import cotton-growing area. You can still see the old cooperative gins along Highway 99 in Kern and Fresno Counties. Some are still in operation, I believe. My ancestors came west and became involved in walnuts, citrus, and other fruit orchards. A lot of the cotton land in Kern County was replaced with almonds, in part because the land was owned by Tenneco (Tennessee Oil Company - it was oil country as well), which had an interest in the Blue Diamond company. It seems like everything these days is being put into grapes - table and wine varieties.
It is that sort of tirade that undercuts your credibility.
And then you're angry that the Mexicans, who were trying to overthrow Santa Anna when the Texans captured him, repudiate a treaty that he signed giving away a good chunk of their territory in order to save his own skin?
Is that about the size of it?
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