Evidence Builds for DeLorenzo's Lincoln

October 16, 2002 | Dr. Paul Craig Roberts

[l8pilot]

Evidence Builds for DiLorenzo’s Lincoln by Paul Craig Roberts

In an excellent piece of historical research and economic exposition, two economics professors, Robert A. McGuire of the University of Akron and T. Norman Van Cott of Ball State University, have provided independent evidence for Thomas J. Dilorenzo’s thesis that tariffs played a bigger role in causing the Civil War than slavery.

In The Real Lincoln, DiLorenzo argues that President Lincoln invaded the secessionist South in order to hold on to the tariff revenues with which to subsidize Northern industry and build an American Empire. In "The Confederate Constitution, Tariffs, and the Laffer Relationship" (Economic Inquiry, Vol. 40, No. 3, July 2002), McGuire and Van Cott show that the Confederate Constitution explicitly prohibits tariff revenues from being used "to promote or foster any branch of industry." By prohibiting subsidies to industries and tariffs high enough to be protective, the Confederates located their tax on the lower end of the "Laffer curve."

The Confederate Constitution reflected the argument of John C. Calhoun against the 1828 Tariff of Abominations. Calhoun argued that the U.S. Constitution granted the tariff "as a tax power for the sole purpose of revenue – a power in its nature essentially different from that of imposing protective or prohibitory duties."

McGuire and Van Cott conclude that the tariff issue was a major factor in North-South tensions. Higher tariffs were "a key plank in the August 1860 Republican party platform. . . . northern politicians overall wanted dramatically higher tariff rates; Southern politicians did not."

"The handwriting was on the wall for the South," which clearly understood that remaining in the union meant certain tax exploitation for the benefit of the north.

October 16, 2002

Dr. Roberts [send him mail] is John M. Olin Fellow at the Institute for Political Economy and Senior Research Fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University. He is a former associate editor of the Wall Street Journal and a former assistant secretary of the U.S. Treasury. He is the co-author of The Tyranny of Good Intentions Evidence Builds for DiLorenzo’s Lincoln by Paul Craig Roberts

In an excellent piece of historical research and economic exposition, two economics professors, Robert A. McGuire of the University of Akron and T. Norman Van Cott of Ball State University, have provided independent evidence for Thomas J. Dilorenzo’s thesis that tariffs played a bigger role in causing the Civil War than slavery.

In The Real Lincoln, DiLorenzo argues that President Lincoln invaded the secessionist South in order to hold on to the tariff revenues with which to subsidize Northern industry and build an American Empire. In "The Confederate Constitution, Tariffs, and the Laffer Relationship" (Economic Inquiry, Vol. 40, No. 3, July 2002), McGuire and Van Cott show that the Confederate Constitution explicitly prohibits tariff revenues from being used "to promote or foster any branch of industry." By prohibiting subsidies to industries and tariffs high enough to be protective, the Confederates located their tax on the lower end of the "Laffer curve."

The Confederate Constitution reflected the argument of John C. Calhoun against the 1828 Tariff of Abominations. Calhoun argued that the U.S. Constitution granted the tariff "as a tax power for the sole purpose of revenue – a power in its nature essentially different from that of imposing protective or prohibitory duties."

McGuire and Van Cott conclude that the tariff issue was a major factor in North-South tensions. Higher tariffs were "a key plank in the August 1860 Republican party platform. . . . northern politicians overall wanted dramatically higher tariff rates; Southern politicians did not."

"The handwriting was on the wall for the South," which clearly understood that remaining in the union meant certain tax exploitation for the benefit of the north.

October 16, 2002

Dr. Roberts [send him mail] is John M. Olin Fellow at the Institute for Political Economy and Senior Research Fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University. He is a former associate editor of the Wall Street Journal and a former assistant secretary of the U.S. Treasury. He is the co-author of The Tyranny of Good Intentions

[4CJ]

Curtis was not a Justice. He resigned in 1857.

How does that discredit the opinion of a former US Supreme Court justice?

Even in the excerpt you provide, there is no evidence that a warrant was issued.

I guess Taney et al just made it up?

Lincoln didn't have to have Taney arrested. Taney was powerless, and irrelevant.

So your assertion is that the decisions by the courts are non-binding, only to be obeyed at the whims of the Executive? Didn't Lincoln take an oath to faithfully "preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States", not just the parts he agrees with?

Taney was powerless in some ways simply because of the way he dscredited himself with decisions like Dred Scott, which was clearly wrong based on the record.

Au contraire, just the reverse - 6 of his brethren agreed.  As did the founders, and numerous Congresses.  The Naturalization Act of 26 Mar 1790, limited US citizenship to "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".  A similar act was signed into law in 1795.   The Militia Act of 8 May 1792 limited service to "every free able-bodied white male citizen."  All were signed into law by George Washington.

[I]it [Scott] was, as I have said before, as surely an attempt at judicial activism as Roe v. Wade was.

Nonsense, how did Taney et al invent anything extra-constitutional? From the evidence cited above, the decision followed Constitutional & congressional guidelines.    And of course, in Scott Justice Grier also held the same opinion that Taney did - remember him from the Prize Cases? Or what about Justice Curtis, that you dismiss for lauding Taney's habeas corpus decision? He was in the minority in Scott.

And Dred Scott helped bring on the war. Thanks, Roger.

The Scott decision was in what year? Try 1857.  4 years before the war.  Lincoln's attempts to seize Southern property brought on the war.

It should be noted that Merryman did actually take part in burning bridges in Maryland. The District of Columbia, or course, nestles between VA and MD. Virginia was in process of going for treason and secession.

The constitutional definition of treason does not include secession.  

Lincoln absolutely could not wait for Congress to come into session -- that was not scheduled until September, 1861.

Which is why the executive was granted the power in "extraordinary occasions" to "convene both Houses, or either of them" -  the founders forsaw that emergencies would arise.   Lincoln didn't want to convene congress to authorize his actions - they might have held different views.

Lincoln's actions were entirely properly and necessary.

Taney ruled against Lincolns actions, as did Lincoln's friend Davis who authored ex parte Milligan:

The Constitution of the United States is a law for rulers and people, equally in war and in peace, and covers with the shield of its protection all classes of men, at all times and under all circumstances. No doctrine involving more pernicious consequences was ever invented by the wit of man than that any of its provisions can be suspended during any of the great exigencies of government.

Taney was leaning towards treason himself simply by opposing Lincoln's actions.

You kill me when you make this stuff up Walt. Now it's a treasonable offense to disagree with someone? You know what the constitutional definition of treason is - and it does not include disagreeing with the executive. The Judiciary's delegated power is to deciding what is illegal or unconstitutional, not the executive. Yet now, in your fantasy world, the judiciary is making war by disagreeing with the executive? ROTFL!

His ruling in Dred Scott shows he cared not a fig for the law.

Again, justices Taney, Catron, Wayne, Nelson, Grier, Daniel and Campbell concurred with the founders and the Constitution. 

[fightu4it]

After the rebels fired on Old Glory Greeley called for force to put down the rebellion

Greeley was slow to understand what an independant South with a low tarrif would do to the Northern economy with their high tarrif. When he at last understood he aligned himself with the Northern monied interests who stood ready to shed blood; as long as it wasn't their blood. You know of course that for a price the wealthy could buy a surrogate to serve in their stead.

[GOPcapitalist]

Lincoln ignored no ruling made during his adminstration. Merryman was an ex parte decision by Taney acting on his own.

Yet it was nevertheless a ruling and it was made during The Lincoln's administration. You just said The Lincoln ignored no ruling made during his administration, yet he ignored the Merryman ruling.

Article I, section 9 does NOT state specifically that the writ of habeas corpus is reserved to the Congress

Such reasoning is stupid, as Article I, section 9 does not need to state this. It is already stated in Article I, section 1: "All legislative Powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States"

Lest you claim it is a Congressional right becaause of its placement in the first Article

It's kinda hard not to, considering that the first article explicitly identifies itself as pertaining to the legislature and the legislature's interactions within the government. It's all there in Article I, section 1: "All legislative Powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States"

I would point out to you the text, and context of Section 10, as well. Seen together, these are issues, not specifically Congressional or State issues.

Nonsense. The opening clause of Section 9 identifies itself as pertaining to Congress. The 8th clause also identifies Congress as the institution at hand. 4 of the 6 remaining clauses in Section 9 specifically refer to the making or laying of laws - a legislative function. Combined with the text of Article 1, Section 1 it is simply absurd to think that this section applies to a branch other than the legislature. As for section 10, it deals with activities of states that infringe upon the rights of Congress and specifies them repeatedly to be matters of the "Consent of the Congress."

(Personally, I see the laundry list of things in Section 9 as being a list of things that may not do, not a list specifically reserved to the Congress, or the states.)

Only a tortured and ignorant reading of the document that completely neglects its straight forward plain text meaning could result in that belief.

Article IV, Section 4 states: "Section 4. The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government, and shall protect each of them against Invasion; and on Application of the Legislature, or of the Executive (when the Legislature cannot be convened) against domestic Violence." Clearly, acting in accordance with the power vested in him by this section of the Constitution, Lincoln had every right to issue a "limited" suspension of the writ of habeas corpus.

Nonsense. The clause is a reference to the president's powers as commander in chief. Nowhere in the Constitution is the power to suspend habeas corpus listed as a power of the commander in chief or the executive.

Since you cite 'Merryman', I would remind you that what Merryman did to get his butt slung into jail was to burn a bridge to inhibit the passage of Federal troops into the state of Maryland, at a time when great mobs of secessionists were controlling the streets of Baltimore (which caused the suspension) causing the deaths of several citizens and troops.

Irrelevant. Even the guiltiest of guilty criminals has a constitutional right to the judicial process. Suspending habeas corpus violates that right.

Article I Section 9 states in part: "The Privilege of the Writ of Habeas Corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in Cases of Rebellion or Invasion the public Safety may require it." (Fact: There WAS a rebellion, and the public safety DID require it.)

Even so, the suspension right permitted in that clause belongs to the Congress, not the President. Try again.

and Article I, Section 10 states in full ..... (Fact: All three clauses in this section were being violated by the slave states, openly, sub rosa, and by force of arms, and that includes Maryland --governor and legislators, mayor and chief of police in Baltimore!)

But again, nowhere does it say that the violation of any of those things gives the president the right to suspend habeas corpus. Try again.

If you think for one minute the Lincoln Administration was not faced with an unprecedented crisis of the highest severity

Crisis does not make the violation of the Constitution legitimate. It may make it practical and persons in a crisis may do it, but that does not instill legitimacy of the action. Try again.

Roger B. Taney was a slaveowner from Maryland.

Attacking the Taney instead of his argument is a logical fallacy, and even if his opinion is discarded, we still have the earlier ruling by John Marshall saying the same thing. Try again.

He had no business making rulings on issues dealing with slavery

Merryman was a ruling on the suspension of habeas corpus, not on slavery, and Taney was a properly seated judge with constitutional authority to rule on judicial matters. Try again.

He should have recused himself from Dred Scot

Perhaps so, but that is of no relevance to the separate case of Merryman. Try again.

and he had no business issuing ex-parte Merryman

Why not? He was a properly seated judge of a proper jurisdiction with the constitutional authority to issue Merryman. Therefore it was every bit a part of his business to issue it. Try again.

even though he did so as a Circuit Court judge, and not as a Supreme Court Justice.

Circuit court rulings are matters of legal weight too, you know, and especially so when they are not appealed and overturned. Try again.

He had a vested interest in the subject areas against which he ruled.

Exactly what was his vested interest in habeas corpus? He wasn't himself being arrested in suspension of the writ at the time, was he? If not, his jurisdiction over the case was sound. Try again.

Subsequently, the Congress, which was called into session, took Lincoln off the hook for this so called violation, making it clear that he DID have the right to suspend habeas corpus.

Congress is not the arbiter of the constitution and in fact violates it in an unpunished manner on a regular if not daily basis. Try again.

Had Congress been in session Lincoln most assuredly would have gone to them and asked for the suspension.

Hypotheticals that never happened are no substitute for reality nor are they an excuse for reality's shortcomings. Try again.

Congress was not in session, and there simply was no time to waste.

The Lincoln could have called it into session, or he could have made the arrests by having charges filed. Try again.

[Tribune7]

Evidence Builds for DeLorenzo's Lincoln

And a140-year-old photo of Abe with Christopher Lloyd indicates evidence is building for Lincoln's DeLorean.

[GOPcapitalist]

The Constitution nowhere says what the president may or may not do in regards to Habeas Corpus.

Nowhere does it even remotely extend the right to suspend it to him. Therefore it is unreasonable to assume he has it. Try again.

[WhiskeyPapa]

The Constitution nowhere says what the president may or may not do in regards to Habeas Corpus.

Nowhere does it even remotely extend the right to suspend it to him.

As you know, Chief Justice Rehnquist disagrees with you.

Why would you marginlaize yourself my taking such unreasonable positions?

Walt

[WhiskeyPapa]

Such reasoning is stupid, as Article I, section 9 does not need to state this. It is already stated in Article I, section 1: "All legislative Powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States"

The Writ of Habeaus Corpus is a privilege.

Walt

[WhiskeyPapa]

Only a tortured and ignorant reading of the document that completely neglects its straight forward plain text meaning could result in that belief.

Sorta like saying that the words of the Preamble: "In order to form a more perfect Union..." would allow of unilateral state secession, huh?

Walt

[WhiskeyPapa]

Curtis was not a Justice. He resigned in 1857.

How does that discredit the opinion of a former US Supreme Court justice?

It doesn't, necessarily.

It discredits -you- for calling him a Justice.

Walt

[WhiskeyPapa]

The clause is a reference to the president's powers as commander in chief. Nowhere in the Constitution is the power to suspend habeas corpus listed as a power of the commander in chief or the executive.

Nowhere is it forbidden either.

Article 1, Section 9 speaks --even by your interpretation -- to the powers of Congress. The document is silent on what the president may do, but it does refer to the Writ as a privilege.

This all, all of it, the whole neo-reb rant, comes down to this one thing:

The federalists soft-pedaled what they were selling with a lot of euphemistic language. But there is no doubt that over time most people in the United States came to adopt their view. That is why we are living in the United States and not the North American Balkan States.

All I can figure is that the United States is not European enough for you.

Walt

[WhiskeyPapa]

Here's something a bit more reasonable that your excuse filled screed:

"In these early months of the Civil War, the Lincoln administration overcame its fears of public reaction to restrictions on civil liberties, instituted a novel internal security system, and came to believe that it worked. Not every historian today would credit it with saving Maryland for the Union, but that conclusion became almost a truism in Lincoln's day. Nathaniel Banks, who commanded the Department of Annapolis in 1861, was a poor general but an astute politician, and he thought the system worked. Indeed, Maryland provided Banks with a model for reconstruction in Louisiana later:

The secession leaders—the enemies of the people—were replaced and loyal men assigned to... their duties. This made Maryland a loyal State.... What happened there will occur in North Carolina, in South Carolina, in Georgia, in Alabama and Mississippi. If... those States shall be controlled by men that are loyal... we shall then have loyal populations and loyal governments.

The success of the Maryland policy became a political byword and was celebrated, beyond the borders of Maryland, throughout the war. Thus in 1863, a Loyal Publication Society pamphlet on the War Power of the President explained the necessity of military arrests rather than reliance on the courts by pointing to that familiar example:

When the traitors of the loyal state of Maryland were concocting their grand scheme to hurl the organized power of that state against the government, probably not a handful of them was known to be guilty of any act for which he could ever have been arrested by civil process. And whatever their offenses against the laws might have been, and whatever the fidelity of the courts in that jurisdiction, the process of civil law would have been far too slow to prevent the consummation of the gigantic treason which would have added another state to the rebellion.... Courts could not have suppressed this unholy work, but the summary imprisonment of those few men saved the state of Maryland to the Union cause.

Republicans would later enjoy substantial bipartisan agreement on the necessity of the early arrests in Maryland.
William K. Seward thought they worked, too. When an old associate of Seward came to Washington to plead for the release of a political prisoner from Kentucky held in Fort Lafayette, the secretary of state readily admitted that no charges were on file against the prisoner. When asked whether he intended to keep citizens imprisoned against whom no charge had been made, Seward apparently answered: "I don't care a d—n whether they are guilty or Innocent. I saved Maryland by similar arrests, and so I mean to hold Kentucky."

The earliest days of the Lincoln administration taught the president and his cabinet lessons they never forgot. In fact, these days left fiercely indelible marks on them. This was especially true of Seward. In 1864, when the artist Francis B. Carpenter unveiled his huge historical canvas commemorating the first reading of the Emancipation Proclamation to the cabinet, the secretary of state scoffed at It. He told the artist, at a party given at Gideon Welles's residence, that he had been wrong to choose emancipation as "the great feature of the Administration."

Seward told him [Welles recalled] to go back to the firing on Sumter, or to a much more exciting one than even that, the Sunday following the Baltimore massacre, when the Cabinet assembled or gathered in the Navy Department and, with the vast responsibility that was thrown upon them, met the emergency and its awful consequences, put in force the war power of the government, and issued papers and did acts that might have brought them all to the scaffold.

The first suspension of the writ of habeas corpus occurred the very week after that fateful Sunday cabinet meeting. Gideon Welles, the secretary of the navy, did not care for Seward, but he remembered those days just as the secretary of state did:

Few, comparatively, know or can appreciate the actual condition of things and state of feeling of the members of the Administration In those days. Nearly sixty years of peace had unfitted us for any war, but the most terrible of all wars, a civil one, was upon us, and it had to be met. Congress had adjourned without making any provision for the storm, though aware that it was at hand and soon to burst upon the country. A new administration, scarely acquainted with each other, and differing essentially in the past, was compelled to act, promptly and decisively.

And act they did."

-- "The Fate of Liberty; Abraham Lincoln and Civil Liberties" p. 31 by Mark Neeley

People today who love the United States will pretty much agree with Neeley -- and Lincoln.

Walt

[4CJ]

It discredits -you- for calling him a Justice.

ROTFL! Has it come to this? Denigrating a position because of a title? In case you are not aware of customs of the several (meaning more than one entity) united (as in joined for common purposes) states (again, multiple distinct entities), it is proper to address local, state and federal officials by the title of the highest office they held.

Curtis liked the President - admired him greatly, even believed that the war was was fought for just cause. But he believed that Lincoln usurped powers and his Emancipation Proclomation was null and void.

[WhiskeyPapa]

It discredits -you- for calling him a Justice.

ROTFL! Has it come to this? Denigrating a position because of a title?

Curtis wasn't a justice. You said he was.

Walt

[WhiskeyPapa]

Curtis liked the President - admired him greatly, even believed that the war was was fought for just cause. But he believed that Lincoln usurped powers and his Emancipation Proclomation was null and void.

You'd probably like to have the EP made null and void too. That is the only rational basis of the neo-reb rant. Mean old Lincoln kicked your heroes' butts, but worse, he advocated equal rights for all. Can't have that.

Walt

[freedumb2003]

And a140-year-old photo of Abe with Christopher Lloyd indicates evidence is building for Lincoln's DeLorean.

WWLD?

(What Would Lincoln Drive?)

A Lincoln? ;)

[WhiskeyPapa]

The Constitution nowhere says what the president may or may not do in regards to Habeas Corpus.

Nowhere does it even remotely extend the right to suspend it to him. Therefore it is unreasonable to assume he has it. Try again.

The Court ruled in the Prize Cases that the executive power of the government rests upon the president. The Constitution requires that every state have a republican government. The Militia Act requires that United States law operate in all the states.

Chief Justice Marshall ruled in McCullough:

"The subject is the execution of those great powers on which the welfare of a nation essentially depends. It must have been the intention of those who gave these powers, to insure, as far as human prudence could insure, their beneficial execution. This could not be done by confining their choice of means to such narrow limits as not to leave it in the power of Congress to adopt any which might be approprate, and which were conducive to the end...to have prescribed the means by which the government, should, in all future times, execute its powers, would have been to change, entirely, the character of the instrument, and give it the properties of a legal code...To have declared, that the best means shal not be used, but those alone, without which the power given would be nugatory...if we apply this principle of construction to any of the powers of the government, we shall find it so pernicious in its operation that we shall be compelled to discard it..."

From McCullough v. Maryland, quoted in "American Constittutional Law"

A.T. Mason, et al. ed. 1983 p. 165.

President Lincoln had all the power and precedent he needed to suspend the Writ.

To say that it is nowhere "even remotely" extant, is simply partisanship -- and its partisanship that discredits almost everything you say. Your statements are mostly your opinion. Mine are well grounded in the words of the people who actually participated in these events.

Walt

[WhiskeyPapa]

even though he did so as a Circuit Court judge, and not as a Supreme Court Justice.

Circuit court rulings are matters of legal weight too, you know, and especially so when they are not appealed and overturned. Try again.

I'm not a lawyer, thank God, but I think a personal opinion written by a judge with a vested interest -- Taney was a slave owner with strong leanings towards slave power interests -- needs to be considered in its proper light. Taney was flirting with treason himself. He had no standing to make any ruling at all. He should have recused himself. But Lincoln showed himself a pretty canny lawyer too. He didn't need to arrest Taney -- that much is obvious because of the triumph of Union arms. I mean, after all, the traitors --were-- thrown down, their conspiracy --was-- foiled.

We may be taking this all from the wrong tack. If all you can point to is Merryman, you can in a sense pretty much be countered with a "so what?"

In this same time frame the mayor and police chief of Baltimore were actively aiding and abetting treason in that city. railroad bridges --were-- burned, telegraph lines --were- cut; there -was- an attempt by the slave power to consumate their revolution by destroying the seat of the lawful government.

You discount all that. You won't take the real world events into consideration. I don't suppose that is too surprising from someone who implies the Emancipation Proclamation should be revoked.

Walt

[WhiskeyPapa]

....even believed that the war was was fought for just cause...

Imagine that.

Walt

[Aurelius]

"-- Taney was a slave owner with strong leanings towards slave power interests --"

Wrong again!

Upon his father's death, Taney freed his slaves. As a Maryland litigator in the 1820s, Taney had declared, "Slavery is a blot on our national character, and every real lover of freedom confidently hopes that it will be effectually, though it must be gradually, wiped away."

Roger Brooke Taney

[Ditto]

In this same time frame the mayor and police chief of Baltimore were actively aiding and abetting treason in that city. railroad bridges --were-- burned, telegraph lines --were- cut; there -was- an attempt by the slave power to consumate their revolution by destroying the seat of the lawful government.

And they had "help" on the way.

"Raise the Flag, & Go!"

South Carolina Governor F. W. Pickens to Gen. James Simons of the 4th Brigade, S.C. Militia.

Dear Genl:

The Navy yard at Norfolk is all in flames -- Baltimore unanimous on our side, and all communications with Washington cut off -- & only 5,000 troops in Washington -- it can be taken.

Troops are meeting from Augusta to Norfolk & will be there before we start.

Send Gregg immediately with as many as he can get -- wait not a moment, or we are ruined. I will send companies as fast as possible. Let Gregg start immediately with as many possible -- no delay -- for God sake make every thing move. Let Kershaws start with as many companies as he can get immediately. I have seen Beauregard, & he is sending the detailed orders.

We will be disgraced if Georgia gets there before we do. Raise the flag, & go -- My whole heart is with you. Washington is cut off -- and if we could march on it we could take it -- as Baltimore is a unit for us and Maryland rising. They are alarmed in Va. Genl. Taliaferro & Letcher both telegraph me this morning to push forward.

---

Chronology: 1861

April 17: Virginia convention voted for secession.

April 18: Five companies of Pennsylvania troops reached Washington, the first to arrive. The U.S. Armory at Harper's Ferry, Va., at the confluence of the Potomac and the Shenandoah, was abandoned and burned by its garrison. In Richmond, the U.S. Custom House and Post Office was taken over by state troops on order of the Virginia Governor W.B. Letcher and two vessels seized in the James River. A pro-secession flag was raised on Federal Hill in Baltimore. Virginia was rapidly arming and organizing its state troops to defend its territory, even though not yet officially part of the Confederacy. President Davis told Gov. Letcher that the Confederacy would furnish whatever aid it could.

President Lincoln received eyewitness reports of what had happened at Charleston, quartered a group known as the "Frontier Guards" composed of Kansas men in the East Room of the White House.

April 19: President Lincoln declares blockade of Confederate states. Baltimore riots as the Sixth Massachusetts transfers trains in Baltimore. In Washington politicians as well as military men were organizing companies, patrolling streets, and guarding Federal buildings.

April 20: Several railroad bridges were burned to prevent passage of Union troops from Baltimore to Washington while rioting continued in the Maryland city. Col. Robert E. Lee formally resigned his commission in the U.S. Army. The night of April 20 the Federal Gosport Navy Yard near Norfolk, Va. was evacuated and partially burned by the garrison and several vessels scuttled.

---

Copyright © 1996, the South Carolina Historical Society.
Last modified: 6/2002/MDC.