[Non-Sequitur]

Ma'am, it doesn't matter how many were arrested by 4 Jul 1861. Or by September. The simple fact that Lincoln/Seward/Stanton et al arrested anyone as a political prisioner would have been enough to prevent many from voicing dissent over the administration's policies.

I guess that when you make a claim without any basis in fact then it does help to say that "it doesn't matter."

[4CJ]

I guess that when you make a claim without any basis in fact then it does help to say that "it doesn't matter."

Ma'am, Abraham Lincoln replied to the legislature that he was unanswerable to the legislature for political arrests made in May 1861.

WASHINGTON, July 27, 1861.

To the House of Representatives:

In answer to the resolution of the House of Representatives of the 24th instant, asking the grounds, reason, and evidence upon which the police commissioners of Baltimore were arrested and are now detained as prisoners at Fort McHenry, I have to state that it is judged to be incompatible with the public interest at this time to furnish the information called for by the resolution.