Weren't Davis' Confederacy "rebels"? Why on earth would you expect them to follow the law?
No, what you are trying to do is to claim that "Because the rebels broke the law, it's okay for Lincoln to break the law."
You are trying to justify Lincoln abuses by claiming criminals he was fighting didn't obey the law.
You want to employ this tactic because you really really have no justifiable argument as to why Lincoln was breaking these laws other than "they did it too!" (Argumentum tu quoque.)
in due time replacing the extant system of chattel bondage with something more consistent to our declared 1776 ideals.
Funny how you get this "Penumbra" of freeing slaves out of the Declaration of Independence, but deliberately ignore the actual words that say people have a right to abolish an existing government and form one more to their liking.
Why are your imagined 1776 ideas about freeing slaves more important than actually articulated ideas about a right to independence?
How do you pick your imaginary 1776 values over the real 1776 values of right to independence?
It's called the "Declaration of Independence." It is not called the "Declaration of freeing slaves."
So you agree that Confederates were lawless rebels?
Fine, I have no problem with that.
DiogenesLamp: "No, what you are trying to do is to claim that 'Because the rebels broke the law, it's okay for Lincoln to break the law.' "
So long as you've totally confessed & proclaimed Confederates to be lawless rebels, then I'm willing to consider allegations that the Union itself did not always follow the letter or spirit of its own laws.
But that's not really the case, is it?
In fact, you've proclaimed the opposite -- that Confederates were the real law-abiders and Lincoln, in effect, the lawless rebel.
I think, so long as you insist Confederates were lawful, then it's legitimate to compare their actions to Lincoln's, don't you?
DiogenesLamp: "You want to employ this tactic because you really really have no justifiable argument as to why Lincoln was breaking these laws other than 'they did it too!' (Argumentum tu quoque.) "
Nonsense.
Lost Causers often tell us Confederates were more lawful than Lincoln and that claim makes "tu quoque" a valid comparison.
But if you now wish to flip and confess that Confederates were just lawless rebels, then we can entertain the question of whether the Union crossed all its legal "t's" and dotted all its "i's".
My opinion is that Union officials, including Lincoln, did the best they could given the circumstances.
I think it's significant that virtually none of what Lost Causers claim was soooooo "illegal" in Lincoln's actions was ever challenged in court or in Congress.
So such claims have no merit.
You disagree?
DiogenesLamp: "Funny how you get this 'Penumbra' of freeing slaves out of the Declaration of Independence, but deliberately ignore the actual words that say people have a right to abolish an existing government and form one more to their liking."
Total nonsense, since there's no "penumbra" in the Declaration's clear language of "all men are created equal", it is what it is.
By sharp contrast, the "right" to abolish an existing government is clearly tied to the necessity spelled out in great details in the Declaration.
DiogenesLamp: "Why are your imagined 1776 ideas about freeing slaves more important than actually articulated ideas about a right to independence? "
Because in 1776 most Founders, including Jefferson & Washington, believed slavery a moral evil which should eventually be abolished.
By contrast they tied the "right" to abolish a government to the kinds of necessity they listed.
DiogenesLamp: "It's called the "Declaration of Independence."
It is not called the "Declaration of freeing slaves.""
But still, in 1776 most Founders, including the slaveholders, believed slavery wrong and it should be abolished eventually.
They recognized that they themselves did not then live up to the ideal they expressed.