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 is a modern map (generated for the book, no doubt) in the book The Battle of Glorieta by Don E. Alberts that shows the border between New Mexico Territory and Arizona Territory going through Socorro, New Mexico. Beneath the Arizona Territory label is says in parenthesis, "As claimed by the CSA". If so, there may be some information on the boundary in the records of the Confederate Congress, but I've not searched them.
The southern part of New Mexico had definite sympathies with the South and the CSA may have simply claimed those parts of the New Mexico Territory that were in sympathy with them. Sort of like Lincoln and West Virginia.
I, John R. Baylor, lieutenant-colonel, commanding the Confederate Army in the Territory of Arizona, hereby take possession of said Territory in the name and behalf of the Confederate States of America.For all purposes herein specified, and until otherwise decreed or provided, the Territory of Arizona shall comprise all that portion of New Mexico lying south of the thirty-fourth parallel of north latitude."
This comes from the Sherod Hunter SCV site, History of the Arizona Territory
I'll wager your affectation of scorn wasn't shared by Benjamin Franklin and John Jay.
This was the British Empire we are talking about, not Sweden. Getting the British to accede was a huge legal and practical success -- and it changed the basis of American sovereignty from "if you say so ..... for now" to "okay, you won it, you've got it".
Remember, Britain's first offer was autonomy -- a status similar to Australia's. What our diplomats landed was sovereignty, which is the whole cake with icing and candles on top.
So if the British had referred to them as 'sovereign former colonies' would we be the United Former British Colonies of America today?
Bump. Quite so. This is one of the classic fallacies, demonstrated in a way amenable to exemplification in a collegiate-level course on logic.
I'd look up which fallacy it is, but my mouse hand seems particularly sluggish today. Perhaps it's the surfeit of last night's popcorn from the late-late-late show.
Bump to my last.
Ha, ha, ha. Thank you, George Burns. Give my regards to Gracie.
The point was, the British Crown conceded sovereignty. That is what got us from game and set, to set and match.
After that, it was all over, and we were free of George's claims forever.
Good work. It's fun when you run across something like that.
Here is another passage which bears light on the pow count. From Hunt's book, pg 66-67:
"After the Battle of Apache Canyon, a 48-hour truce was declared to bury the dead and remove the wounded. Sibley and his Confederates troops retreated to Santa Fe and the Colorado volunteers joined General Canby's command and pursued the Southerners down the Rio Grande river.
"Sibley's brigade was a two-day march ahead of the Union forces and by the second night had reached Peralta. The confederates followed down the west bank of the river, while the Union troops occupied the east side; both armies were in full view of each other, the river alone intervening.
"Sibley planned to reach Fort Craig ahead of the Union troops, but the latter were so close upon his heels that he (Sibley) decided to go around the fort. He abandoned his wagons and heavy artillery, and with seven days rations on mules, his entire force struck out after dark on the hazardous route through the hills. They succeeded in reaching Dona Ana safely and proceeded across the border to Fort Bliss.
"They were not able to move their sick or wounded, so left them at Santa Fe, Albquerque and Socorro. Mrs. Canby and the wives of other Union officers cared for these soldiers for several months, as it was not until the arrival of the column from California that the last patient and captured soldier was escorted to San Antonio."
Hunt cites the O.R., Ser. I, Vol IX, pg 506-512, 583; (Sibley's report of the battle of Valverde, etc.).
In your own mind.
That's where he's a legend.
And the complete absence of any response from you to the facts I raised is because?
If you want to carry on about Edgar Lee Masters, go right ahead.
Then I'll simply note that (1) everything we know about his politics points to "rigidly ideological Jeffersonian" as the most accurate description with very little beyond NS's far fetched innuendos suggesting "communist" and (2) his arguments, insofar as they have been introduced on this thread, remain unaddressed by the opposition and stand right now without rebuttal.
Since I am not singing "praises" of Carl Sandburg, it seems you are flailing at windmills. I simply note that Masters was a lesser light and a loathsome person, and frankly, not worth the time I have spent so far.
I am hoping he simply neglected to use sarcasm tags ... otherwise he is demonstrably off the deep end.
The Union pre-dated the Constitution of 1787. It pre-dated the Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union (the first constitution of the country). It even pre-dated the Declaration of Independence.
The Declaration gave the Union a legal basis as an independent polity. It also gave expression to the redefinition of colonies as states, and subject colonists as citizens of the new entity. First the Articles, and then the Constitution, provided an operating agreement between the nation's semi-sovereign states.
No state ever existed outside of the Union. This includes Texas, Hawaii, and other area thay may have as part of other sovereignties, or as sovereign entities themselves, as they were not part of the Union at that time.
Next you'll be saying that Great Britain doesn't exist as a state either.
We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.
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