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To: PeaRidge
So, you are in effect saying that if the Navy department did not have Congressionally approved funds for the action, then Lincoln would have violated the Constitution?

Absolutely not, and your claim that he did is sheer nonsense. Congress appropriates money, how it gets spent is up to the services themselves. As commander-in-chief of the Army and the Navy, moving ships and men from point A to point B is within his authority and does not need Congressional approval.

1,192 posted on 07/06/2009 12:31:55 PM PDT by Non-Sequitur
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To: Non-Sequitur; rustbucket; stand watie
When I plainly asked who paid for the fleet of Union and private ships that sailed south, you said in post #1126:

What do you mean 'who paid for it'? The federal government, of course. The budgets for the Navy Department and the War Department covered it. You want to imply that Lincoln violated the Constitution by appropriating money for the resupply effort instead of Congress. Such an implication is too ludicrous to deserve a reasonable answer.

I am not implying anything. I am stating fact.

According to several sources there were not enough funds in the Navy Department budget to finance the operation, but that did not stop Lincoln.

(Meigs, "Meigs on Civil War", 301; Crawford, "Genesis", 411-412; Basler, "Lincoln", 4:320; and the ORN, 4:108-09.)

"Money was needed to prepare and finance the expedition, and Congress had provided no secret service funds for the military.

"Seward's department (State) alone did have extra funds. With Lincoln's consent, he got $10,000 in coin from State, carried it home, and gave it to Meigs (Captain Montgomery C. Meigs) for his work."

Meigs then traveled to New York, and with Gustavus Fox, engaged and paid for civilian shipping to move troops and supplies south.

He clearly instructed a Cabinet member to remove cash from a non-military department, secretly move it to private hands, and directed it to be spent on an unauthorized and clandestine military operation against the South.

I am not implying that Lincoln violated the Constitution. I am giving you the evidence that he did.

1,220 posted on 07/07/2009 3:07:55 PM PDT by PeaRidge
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