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
That is the legacy which you embrace.
[cr #264] What?! I'm not part of the "Wlat Brigade" anymore? I am truly hurt. You should at least ping others you attempt to smear.
I find the fact that much of the brigade has been barred from FR to be very revealing.
I wasn't involved with those flame wars. Those who were participating were embarassing themselves.
Taney and took an oath to defend the Constitution, not one to worship Lincoln.
You want the Mods to remove a post quoting Hitler (which supported Lincoln), yet #3Fan's posts espousing white supremacy/separatism to go unchallenged?
I am "accused" of associations that don't exist - except maybe in the paranoid minds of your cabal. (The "Wlat Brigade" is an invention of your tortured ego.) I agree or disagree with posters based on the content of their posts. I was supposed to have "lavish conversations" with them. Odd that I don;t remember any such thing. With few exceptions, I know none of them personally or correspond with them. Watching your cabal for several years only reinforces that I wouldn't want to know you personally. We may agree on some points, and disagree on others, but I avoid associating with those whose espouse an inherently racist position.
With regard to posting quotations from Hitler on FR, or smearing posters with nazi innuendo, would you like to put the question directly to Jim Robinson? He is our host, afterall, and personally yanked the thread that you guys turned into a flame war.
I'll wait for your reply.
Take responsibility for your own posts, and don't suggest I'm responsible or support posts I never saw. Do you too support the posting of Hitler quotations by GOPcapitalist and others at FR?
I asked GOPcapitalist to remove it. He posted it. He was responsible for its content.
To: GOPcapitalist; Non-Sequitur
What?! I'm not part of the "Wlat Brigade" anymore? I am truly hurt. You should at least ping others you attempt to smear.
264 posted on 08/29/2004 4:12:50 AM CDT by capitan_refugio
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GOPcap #259
To: nolu chan
Check out 255. He actually seems astounded to discover that there are a bunch of law articles out there that denote awareness of the presence of obiter dictum in the Bollman ruling!
Of course, in the capitan_refugio/non-sequitur school of law, all it takes to find obiter dictum is to do a google search for a case name and the word "dicta." If it pulls up a hit then you get free license to go through the case and slap the obiter dictum label on any passage of it that you don't like.
259 posted on 08/29/2004 3:38:59 AM CDT by GOPcapitalist ("Can Lincoln expect to subjugate a people thus resolved? No!" - Sam Houston, 3/1863)
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Tell that to Dred Scott.
While I was at the hotel to-day an elderly gentleman called upon me to know whether I was really in favor of producing a perfect equality between the negroes and white people. [Great laughter.] While I had not proposed to myself on this occasion to say much on that subject, yet as the question was asked me I thought I would occupy perhaps five minutes in saying something in regard to it. I will say then that I am not, nor ever have been in favor of bringing about in any way the social and political equality of the white and black races, [applause]---that I am not nor ever have been in favor of making voters or jurors of negroes, nor of qualifying them to hold office, nor to intermarry with white people; and I will say in addition to this that there is a physical difference between the white and black races which I believe will for ever forbid the two races living together on terms of social and political equality. And inasmuch as they cannot so live, while they do remain together there must be the position of superior and inferior, and I as much as any other man am in favor of having the superior position assigned to the white race.
-- Abraham Lincoln, Charleston, Illinois, on Saturday, September 18, 1858
[cr] With regard to posting quotations from Hitler on FR, or smearing posters with nazi innuendo, would you like to put the question directly to Jim Robinson?
An accurate quote of Hitler or anyone else is acceptable. What is unacceptable is espousing or praising the doctrine therein, such as was done by the most recently banned brigade member. He was not smeared, he was quoting and espousing neo-nazi doctrine. The other thread where he was posting the same neo-nazi doctrine was also pulled in its entirety and none of us was on that thread at all. That clearly narrows down the reason the two threads were pulled.
We know your position. Anyone else?
Back to your roots, I see.
1. Lincoln 'saved the Constitution.'
2. Some disagreed that Lincoln was acting per the Constitution.
3. How can they say such a thing about someone who saved the Constitution???
Cry me a river. Do you expect me to believe that all those yankee flesh peddlers didn't consider slaves to be property? That they considered them their equals? In 1790, the very FIRST US Naturalization/Citizenship ACT expressly limited citizenship to WHITES only:
Be it enacted by the Senate and House Of Representatives of the United States of America, in Congress assembled, That any alien, being a free white person, who shall have resided within the limits and under the jurisdiction of the United States for the term of two years, may be admitted to become a citizen thereof ...Taney defended the Constitution.
An ACT to Establish a Uniform Rule of Naturalization, 26 Mar 1790
I didn't ping you on the posting of Hitler quotations. If you read through the latest posts, you would seen the discussion. Do you have a position?
It's painfully obvious what you're trying to do.
Such may be acceptable in a strip 100 miles inland between LALA land and the Land of Fruits and Nuts. In the balance of the country, it's the mark of a true ass.
I'm asking nicely: Please, pretty please with sugar on top, knock it off.
You are quite welcome....good to see another Texan on board.
With respect to the nature of the Union, the same positions espoused by Lincoln's modern-day apologists, even if different from those of the man himself.
I believe it all started with a note that Lincoln and name redacted used indifferentiable methods to overthrow the civil authority with military force, regardless of where either ultimately took it. Rather than respond properly, or point out any flaw in the argument itself, it looks like screaming and stomping of feet seemed like the thing to do.
I take it that in your perverse world "bigotry, predjudice, and racism" is defined to be the act of denouncing nazis and getting aryan nation types like your buddy #3 kicked off the forum? Strange...
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