Abraham Lincoln Was Elected President 143 Years Ago Tonight

Abraham Lincoln Probably Elected President by a Majority of the Entire Popular Vote

The canvass for the Presidency of the United States terminated last evening, in all the States of the Union, under the revised regulation of Congress, passed in 1845, and the result, by the vote of New-York, is placed beyond question at once. It elects ABRAHAM LINCOLN of Illinois, President, and HANNIBAL HAMLIN of Maine, Vice-President of the United States, for four years, from the 4th March next, directly by the People.

The election, so far as the City and State of New-York are concerned, will probably stand, hereafter as one of the most remarkable in the political contests of the country; marked, as it is, by far the heaviest popular vote ever cast in the City, and by the sweeping, and almost uniform, Republican majorities in the country.

ELECTION DAY IN THE CITY: All Quiet and Orderly At the Polls: Progress of the Voting in the Several Wards: The City After Nightfall: How the News Was Received: Unbounded Enthusiasm of the Republicans and Bell-Everett Headquarters: The Times Office Beseiged: Midnight Display of Wide-Awakes: Bonfires and Illuminations

The Atlanta Century Atlanta, GA Vol. 5, No. 21 (235) FRONT PAGE

ANDERSONVILLE Death Rate is Rising Among 33,000 Men in the Prison.

ANDERSONVILLE, Ga. -- Conditions of the federal prisoners here are becoming increasingly desperate.

More than 33,000 men are incarcerated in the stockade (near Americus), giving each man less than four square yards of living space. Exposure, poor food, bad sanitary facilities, jungle-like life and a wide range of diseases -- ranging from scurvy to body-wracking diarrhea--have taken their toll.

The death rate is up. In June, 1,203 federal prisoners died; in July, 1742 passed away, and the August figure is expected to be higher. (Illustrations of the crowded conditions are above and below.)

A CONFEDERATE officer, sent to Andersonville recently to report on the camp's conditions, noted the congestion, the polluted stream and filthy swamp, the lack of shelter, the grossly inadequate medical care, defective rations, insufficient cooking utensils and fuel, scarcity of soap and clothing, and the absence of police and sanitary regulations.

The officer's inspection of the camp earlier this month found 15 doctors attending to 1305 patients in the prison hospital. As an example of the mortality rate, half the patients admitted to the smallpox hospital, run by surgeon E. SHEPPARD, have died.

On the day there were 1,305 patients in the hospital, 5010 prisoners were on "sick call" within the stockade itself. Said another inspector sent by Richmond, VA., authority: "The condition of the prison at Andersonville is a reproach to us as a nation."

Within the camp, inmates have committed outrages against each other - including murder. When a prisoner dies, others go through his effects "like a dose of salts," said one, to steal any belongings There have been attempted escapes and occasional suicides.

What solace there is for the prisoners stems from three sources: (1) The hope the war will end quickly; (2) a burgeoning of religious revivals, and (3) the hope that elements of Gen. W. T. Sherman's army, now around Atlanta, will be able to seize the camp.

Administrators of the camp concede the difficulty in getting necessary supplies for the prisoners and the discipline of the reserve units, guarding the stockade, is subject to criticism. Guard duty at Andersonville is not a choice assignment.

Attempts to increase the size of the guard at Andersonville have not been successful: Gen. J. b. Hood's army at Atlanta is outnumbered and none can be spared.

Perhaps it was because that as secretary of state for a country without diplomatic relations with any other country in the entire workd he had nothing else to do?

Now that's an odd statement for you to make. In addition to the thoroughly documented formal diplomatic relations conducted between the confederacy and the vatican, Benjamin was thoroughly involved in informal diplomatic correspondence with countries all over Europe for the entirity of his tenure. In fact, there were so many diplomatic correspondences with the Confederate State Department, both formal and informal, that they fill an entire volume in the government's "Official Records" series.

Or maybe your reference is incorrect.

Nope, it's accurate. I quoted straight out of the Charleston Mercury on the said date. Look it up and check for yourself if you doubt this.

In any case one would assume that if any member of the Davis regime would push for a court it would be the attorney general. He had nothing else to do, either.

For all we know, the AG sought a supreme court as well. As for having nothing to do, that too is another of your willful falsehoods. There is actually a lengthy description of the Justice Dept's activities and personel in that article I quoted the court system description from. But since you are not interested in the truth but rather only making factually unsubstantiated cheap shots against Davis, I do not expect you will take the time to read it either.

The journal of the confederate congress disagrees.

No it doesn't. It documents literally dozens upon dozens of times that the bill was brought up on the floor. At SOME of those times it was tabled while at others it was debated at length.

Was Judah Benjamin not an ally of Davis? (GOPcap)

As a cabinet member Benjamin could be granted a seat in the senate for the purpose of discussing any measure relating to his department. The supreme court fell outside his authority so he couldn't very well participate in the debates on that.

So in other words, you cannot even bring yourself to answer my question. You previously implied that Davis' allies didn't fight for the court. Judah Benjamin fought for the court, as I documented in the Charleston Mercury. So once again: Was or was not Judah Benjamin an ally of Davis?

Didn't Davis have any allies in the senate?

Yes he did, though they were a minority.

There weren't any that seemed willing to fight against the continuous stonewalling done by those you claim were Davis opponents.

Sure there were. Who else do you think kept trying to bring the bill up on the floor? Abe Lincoln? Santa Claus?

The journal of the confederate congress disagrees

Oh really? Let's take a look then at one of those debates. This one is from Jan. 27, 1863...

...in other words, a lengthy floor debate in which the bill's language was debated thoroughly and amended. Seeing as this did occur in a legislative body, there were doubtless many speeches in between each and every one of those motions as well.

Let's take another date, March 18, 1863. Another amendment to the bill came up and, as the journal specifically notes, it was subject to a floor debate.

The Confederate Congress authorized suspension of the writ of habeas corpus for only about one-third of the war's duration, and President Davis actually suspended the writ of habeas corpus or imposed martial law over only a fraction of the territory within those seventeen months.

Not only that but several in the CSA Congress, including those who supported a federal suspension of habeas corpus, argued that it did not apply to the state courts at all and took measures to restrain its use there!

"Resolved, That the Congress of the Confederate States has the undoubted right, during invasion or rebellion, and when the public safety requires it, to suspend the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus, and that while so suspended it is not competent for any Confederate judge to discharge from custody any person held under or by virtue of the authority of the Confederate States.

Resolved, That the State courts, being established by State authority, can in no manner be affected by Confederate legislation, and that therefore an act of the Confederate Congress suspending the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus does not apply to them, and in nowise prevents their exercising such jurisdiction, or issuing such writs, as by the laws of their States they are allowed to exercise or issue."

-- Statement of Sen. Wigfall on the suspension of Habeas Corpus in the states, May 6, 1864

Bad things happened to POWs on both sides. At the risk of rehashing old posts, much of the agony at Andersonville could have been prevented if the North had taken up the South's offer in January 1864 to let Union surgeons come through the lines to treat and feed Federal prisoners. But the North didn't; they basically sacrificed their captured troops.

See the letter from Confederate Agent of Exchange Judge Robert Ould that starts at the bottom of the following page in the Official Records: (Ould letter). This short letter from Ould continues onto the next Official Record page and is immediately followed by a letter from a Federal general declining the offer.

I have also posted in the past a letter from Walt Whitman that blames the death of the Union prisoners on the Federal government.

I'm very late to this thread, but I'm sure it's been very much like the others on the topic.

I did run across one factual error I'm sure you will want to correct.

created three new states (Kansas, Nevada, and West Virginia) without the formal consent of the citizens of those states, an act that Lincoln’s own attorney general thought was unconstitutional

According to the KS state website, it was admitted to the Union on January 29, 1861. Since Abe was at the time a private citizen, although President-elect, I fail to see how you can blame him personally for any possible irregularities in this admission. Since KS was for decades perhaps the most Republican state in the nation, they didn't seem to object too much.

Nothing has been presented to indicate that the Davis regime actively tried to get a supreme court seated.

Yes it has. Two things, actually. First is the fact that Davis in the plainest of English asked Congress to do so. Second is the fact that Secretary of State Judah Benjamin, who was undoubtedly part of what you call the "Davis regime," was publicly reported to have been lobbying congress for the establishment of a court.

He made one comment in one speech.

And that speech was his STATE OF THE UNION ADDRESS where he put forth his top legislative priorities for the year. He only gave one other state of the union address after the 1862 one, so its lack of mention of a court does not prove your allegation.

He never addressed the matter again in any correspondence to the congress

Evidence?

never fought for it

Evidence?

never actively lobbied for it.

He apparently sent Judah Benjamin to lobby for it. Just the same, George W. Bush recently gave a public speech calling for $87 billion in Iraq but I don't recall him ever going over to capitol hill to lobby for that bill. Instead he sent Rumsfeld and the other DoD people to do that. Does that mean Bush was unsupportive of his own Iraq appropriations bill?

It's OK with me if you sothron types want to blame the whole thing on the confederate congress.

It is no matter of blame, Non-Seq. It is a matter of historical accuracy. The Congress, and specifically the senate, blocked Davis' court bill in order to restrain his power. As the Wigfall resolution I just posted to you indicates, a certain faction of the Senate strongly believed that the STATE supreme court systems were of equal standing to any federal branch and they were perfectly content to prevent a stronger Davis-appointed competitor from arising. You may not like that fact and it certainly complicates your simpletonian and conspiracy-minded portrayal of the court issue as a nefarious behind-closed-doors nighttime plot between Jefferson Davis and a scheming secretive majority in Congress who nevertheless put on a facade of opposition during the day. But it is history and history doesn't alter itself to accomodate tu quoque boy every time he concocts a new twist or turn to the same old fraudulent and kooky conspiracy theory he's been pushing for years.

Apparently at least one version of the bill to organize the Supreme Court passed the Senate. From: Senate passes S.3

The Senate have passed a bill (S. 3) to organize the Supreme Court of the Confederate States;
In which I am directed to ask the concurrence of this House.

Further efforts apparently hung up in the House. As I posted before (#674) May 26, 1864: Mr. Russell, from the same committee [Judiciary, House], to whom had been referred a bill (H. R. 35) "to organize the Supreme Court of the Confederate States," reported back the same with the recommendation that it do not pass.

..the war that was fought would be comparable to losing almost 6 million military today, another 4 million innocent civilians, and subjecting 91 million to poverty, the theft and plunder of their every possession, and years of rule by military despots

The total war tactics adopted by the North are (imo) akin to our use of atomic weapons on the Japanese. Would you suggest the US was not correct in delivering to its enemy such devastation as would require its immediate surrender? And didn't that action save American lives?

If you don't see the parallel between the two sets of actions, then explain the difference.

A brief journey into the mind of Non-Sequitur
by GOPcapitalist

As you well know, last week the Senate failed to get enough votes to pass the Energy Bill, which would codify the nation's energy policy into a new law. Even worse, for months the Senate has been using constant delay tactics every time it comes up!

Sure, President Bush may have asked Congress to pass the energy bill in a State of the Union address a year or two ago, but can we truly know that he wasn't simply paying lip service to it? After all, it hasn't passed, has it? And his statement on energy was buried deep in the speech, taking up only a few lines at most. Also, President Bush hasn't been over there on the Senate floor personally lobbying for votes, has he?

Bush sure hasn't dispatched any of his allies to lobby for it either. True, he may have sent Spencer Abraham over to capitol hill to push for it from time to time, but that was simply because Abraham doesn't have anything else to do, what with ANWAR being protected by a law that stops him and his big oil company cohorts from disrupting the pristine permafrost. So he doesn't count, meaning Bush hasn't sent anybody important and must not care if the bill dies.

You may also claim that in addition to his speech Bush has written about the energy bill in a bunch of letters and other documents. That he probably has, but we haven't seen those letters, have we? After all, weren't they all drafted in secret meetings with the CEOs of Enron and Halliburton? Weren't they? So since we don't know what those documents say we may just as safely assume that they are all opposed to the energy bill, right? After all, Bush sure doesn't want any new energy law governing what he can do during backroom meetings with oil execs. So can't we conclude that he probably opposed it in all those secret documents?

We do, of course, know that the Senate refuses to pass the energy bill. Heck, they aren't even giving it a real debate. What with all these "table" and "cloture" and "amend" motions being filed, it all looks more like delaying tactics than a debate to me! And since President Bush's support was simply lip service buried deep within a speech, we may conclude that he actually doesn't mind the senate's delay tactics, can't we?

Since we also know that Bush is an inherently evil and nefarious guy in general, all of this leads to only one possible conclusion: George Bush is conspiring with Tom Daschle and the Senate Democrats to suppress the Energy Bill so he can continue to run the nation's energy policies with dictatorial power from small, closed smokey backroom meetings with energy executives from the big oil companies!

"In addition to the thoroughly documented formal diplomatic relations conducted between the [C]onfederacy and the [V]atican ..."

Judah Benjamin diagrees with your charaterization of "formal" relations:

Excerpt from a letter from CSA Secretary of State Judah Benjamin to Dudley Mann, CSA envoy to the Vatican, Richmond, February 1, 1864:

"The President [Jefferson Davis] has been much gratified at learning the cordial reception which you received from the Pope, and the publication of the correspondence here (of which I send you a newspaper slip) has had a good effect. Its best influences, as we hope, will be felt elsewhere in producing a check on the foreign enlistments made by the United States. As a recognition of the Confederate States we can not attach to it the same value that you do, a mere inferential recognition, unconnected with political action or the regular establishment of diplomatic relations, possessing none of the moral weight required for awakening the people of the United States from their delusion that these States still remain members of the old Union. Nothing will end this war but the utter exhaustion of the belligerents, unless, by the action of some of the leading powers of Europe in entering into formal relations with us, the United States are made to perceive that we are in the eyes of the world a separate nation and that the war now waged by them is a foreign, not an intestine or civil war, as it is termed by the Pope. This phrase of his letter shows that his address to the President as "President of the Confederate States" is a formula of politeness to his correspondent, not a political recognition of a fact. None of our public journals treat the letter as a recognition in the sense you attach to it, and Mr. Slidell writes that the Nuncio at Paris on whom he called had received no instructions to put his official visa on our passports, as he had been led to hope from his correspondence with you.

Yes it has. Two things, actually. First is the fact that Davis in the plainest of English asked Congress to do so.

Mentioned once in passing in one speech. And never mentioned again in any future message to congress. Some fight.

Second is the fact that Secretary of State Judah Benjamin, who was undoubtedly part of what you call the "Davis regime," was publicly reported to have been lobbying congress for the establishment of a court.

And yet the journals of the confederate congress makes no mention of any message from Mr. Benjamin or any tirade from Mr. Foote on or around the date in question. You are, once again, expecting us to accept on faith that something means what it means because you say it does.

And that speech was his STATE OF THE UNION ADDRESS where he put forth his top legislative priorities for the year.

And in his STATE OF THE UNION ADDRESS in 1863 and 1864 and 1865, and in every message to the congress in between, the supreme court went unmentioned. Why was it no longer a legislative priority if he really wanted one? How could it be a legislative priority if he never once mentioned it in any message to congress ever again?

Yes I have. Five pieces of strong complimentary evidence, actually. See post 752.

Nonsense. Let's review the evidence:

1. Davis explicitly called for a court in his 1862 State of the Union Address and said so in the plainest of English.

And never once mentioned it ever again to any message to congress. This per the Journal of the (c)onfederate (c)ongress. So why didn't he continue to make it his priority?

2. Davis' Secretary of State Judah Benjamin pushed Congress to pass the court bill. This is reported in the Charleston Mercury on Dec. 24, 1863.

Actually, according to the Charleston Mercury, as quoted in your reply 741, Mr. Benjamin was accused by Mr. Foote of trying to organize a court "to suit himself". That would seem to imply that Mr. Foote thought that Mr. Benjamin was up to something, not that he was acting on behalf of the Davis regime. Unless, of course, the Davis regime was trying to organize a court that would please the secretary of state. Hardly evidence in support of Davis.

Congress repeatedly took up the court bill from its introduction through 1864, blocking or voting it down each time for the explicit purpose of restraining Davis' power to appoint judges. This is documented in the congressional record, the newspapers, and virtually every good historical account of the CSA congress.

And in the senate the legislation was constantly opposed, postponed, put off, and deferred by a variety of senators. What you haven't presented is any actions by allies of Davis to override these delays or, indeed, any indication that all the senators involved were foes of the Davis regime. They could very well be allies of Davis in the senate.

Davis enthusiastically filled the Confederate District Court benches with appointments almost immediately after their creation by Congress. His first appointment was Alexander Clayton on May 11, 1861 and they continued throughout the war, filling 16 benches total. If Davis was opposed to creating a judicial system, it stands to reason that he would have hesitated in filling these benches or even left them vacant but he did not.

Why would Davis 'enthusiastically' fill lower courts but not fight for the one court required by the constituion? The one which, coincidentally, might be in a position to oppose his actions?

Davis' collected works contain at least 8 other documents with explicit references to the issue of creating a confederate supreme court. In light of the other evidence it is more likely than not that they are supportive of creating a court rather than opposed to doing so.

So how did we get from 8 instances of Davis papers referring to a supreme court, as you claimed in reply 631, to 8 explicit references to creating a supreme court? Are you guessing or do you have something more you would like to share with the class?

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