Posted on 08/19/2013 9:27:39 AM PDT by don-o
The Obama administration announced last month via blog post that the president was unilaterally suspending ObamaCare's employer mandate—notwithstanding the clear command of the law. President Obama's comments about it on Aug. 9—claiming that "the normal thing [he] would prefer to do" is seek a "change to the law"—then added insult to constitutional injury. It also offers a sharp contrast with a different president who also suspended the law.
On April 27, 1861, President Lincoln unilaterally authorized his commanding general to suspend the writ of habeas corpus so that he could detain dangerous rebels in the early days of the Civil War. Lincoln's order was constitutionally questionable. The Constitution provides that "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."
A rebellion was in progress, so suspension was permissible. But the Constitution doesn't specify who can suspend the writ in such circumstances. Since the Suspension Clause appears in Article I of the Constitution, which is predominantly about the powers of Congress, there is a strong argument that only Congress can suspend the habeas writ.
Lincoln's order was legally dubious, but what he did next showed remarkable constitutional rectitude. On July 4, 1861, he delivered a solemn message to Congress, in which he did everything possible to square his action with the Constitution. In this message, he set forth the best possible constitutional arguments that he had unilateral power to suspend the writ. These arguments may have been wrong, but they were serious, and they were presented seriously, in good faith.
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
Hey, Lincoln suspended writ of habeus corpus . . . he probably has no problem with Obama
Obama, on the other hand, is turning the country into a socialist totalitarian state.
I think this was intended to be a Presidential power. Invasions and Rebellions happen quickly. To expect a voting body, which may not be in session, to act is ridiculous. Only an executive body can act quickly enough fr these two causes.
“Clause 2. 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.”
as for Supreme Court Judge Taney, it was his wrongful act in the Dred Scott case that helped lead to the Civil War.
“1782 Including a finding by Chief Justice Taney on circuit that the President’s action was invalid. Ex parte Merryman, 17 Fed. Cas. 144 (No. 9487) (C.C.D. Md. 1861).”
Lincoln had neither a rebellion nor a civil war; there was no battle to overtake D.C.. It was a war of secession/self-governance and autonomy.
IMHO, the article too is correct about the delegation of power. It belongs with Congress, along with the other Legislative powers in the Article.
Lincoln should have been slapped hard for the power grab, let alone Sherman’s march to the sea/Atlanta. But, to the victor goes the writing of history.
So who fired the first shot, chief?
It was a war of secession/self-governance and autonomy.
Got news for you, but the Confederacy was hardly a bastion of democracy and freedom. By 1863, it was an obnoxious military dictatorship that few in the South continued to support.
Civil War 150th: Richmond bread riots were biggest civil uprising in the Confederacy
And to the losers the mythologies...
Emancipation was an illegal proclamation
It was an unconstitutional taking
Can you point me to a ruling to support that?
Sore loser.
Yay another bash Lincoln thread.
Darn Breckenridgebots!
UHHHhhh...
...to make an omelet you have to break a few eggs?
What, the shot in the head wasn't enough?
Give Barky a break. He's doing his best to start a war, okay? Give him some credit.
Do I really need the </s>?
Oh, please. Lincoln was supposed, in an emergency, to call Congress back into session. He did the opposite. He waited until the spring session ended, at the end of March 1861, and then he made his moves on Jeff Davis by sending men to reinforce Sumter while loudly declaiming that he was doing no such thing, that men would only be put into the fort if this and that happened (yeah, right, Abe!), and so on. He did not call the Congress back for months and months, while the opening battles of the Civil War were fought and Lincoln transacted coups d'etat against Maryland and Missouri.
He did it again in 1865, when the war was ending. He waited until Congress was out of town to unveil "presidential Reconstruction" because he wanted Congress to have no part in it -- in peacetime. (So much for "these were emergency war measures!" and all that.)
It was a consistent pattern with Lincoln. His first inclination was to act through and by his own office only, and leave the Congress and the People trailing in the dust.
"The Public Safety" did not require the suppression of civil rights and habeas corpus in 1861; there were plenty of ways to deliver troops from New York and Boston to D.C. -- the Anacostia Naval Yard was near the Capitol and in full operation. The "emergency" in Maryland was fake, and the Marylanders knew it; it was a political confrontation and excuse to act tyrannically using the Army to suppress a State. It's as if Obama were suddenly to roll U.S. Army tanks onto the grounds of the State Capitol in Austin and send Army officers to take over the State government, Obama having unilaterally having proclaimed Texas to be in rebellion.
Think about that one for a while.
Wrong, it was God's fault. He forgot to include slavery in the prohibitions enumerated in the Ten Commandments and the Noahide Laws.
If God screws up, what are we supposed to do about it?
When talking worst you gotta fit Wilson and FDR in there...
Your equivocation of the fact that the Democrat slavers began shooting at Federal troops on January 9th, 1961 - months before Lincoln took office - makes your attempt at making President Lincoln the cause of the war dubious at best.
The Democrats were slavers then, and they are still.
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