It Is A. P. Hill FROM HARPERS FERRY

September 17, 1862, the last hour of the bloodiest day in American military history, Lee knew that his beleaguered line must at last give way to overwhelming odds and the Army of Northern Virginia verged on destruction and, with it, destruction of the Confederacy itself.

Through one of history's oddist twists Lee's orders dividing his army had been discovered by common soldier in an open field days before wrapped around three cigars. The normally slothful McClellan was for once animated by the knowledge that Lee's army could be destroyed piecemeal. Lee drew up his army along Antietam Creek near the village of Sharpsburg Maryland to defend itself while he awaited the remnants of his army to come to his aid and rebalance, at least in part, the overwhelming material and numerical advantage of the Yankees.

Shelby Foote in his first volume of Civil War narrative describes the forced march of AP Hill from Harpers Ferry to Sharpsburg:

Jacket off because of the heat, [AP Hill] rode in his bright red battle shirt alongside the panting troops, prodding laggards with the point of his saber. Beyond this, he had no dealings with stragglers, but left them winded by the roadside, depending on them to catch up in time if they could. Not many could, apparently; for he began the march with about 5000 men and ended with barely 3000.

Here was the decisive moment and Lee knew that all would soon be lost. Shelby Foote describes one of the most dramatic scenes of the war:

Observing a column moving up from the south west along the ridge line, Lee called to an artillery lieutenant on the way to the front with a section of guns: "what troops are those?" The lieutenant offered him his telescope. "Can't use it," Lee said, holding up a bandaged hand. The lieutenant trained and focus the telescope. "They are flying the United States flag," he reported. Lee pointed to the right, where another distant column was approaching from the southwest nearly perpendicular to the first and repeated the question. The lieutenant swung the glass in that direction, peered intently, and announced: "they are flying the Virginia and Confederate flags." Lee suppressed his elation, although the words refilled his one hope for deliverance from defeat. "It is AP Hill from Harpers Ferry," he said calmly.

As Shelby Foote wrote about AP Hill, "as was his custom, he struck hard." And so the Army of Northern Virginia was spared, but the North kept the field enabling Lincoln to claim victory and to issue his Emancipation Proclamation thus recasting the whole character of the war.

wgmalabama: "I wish the 160 years of history didn’t make you hate the South.
I really do.
There are key issues tht make it the way it is both good and bad. "

Obviously, you have no real clue who you're posting to, but your claims here are typical of Democrats' arguments.
Like any Democrat, instead of addressing the issues, you quickly fall back on personal accusations -- in your case not "racism", or "sexism" or "homophobia", etc., but rather... what's an equivalent term? -- "Southophobe"??!, maybe "Northism"??

It's nonsense -- my mother & her half of my larger family was or is Southern, they live everywhere from Texas to Florida to NC, VA & MD.
I've lived and/or worked in Missouri, Oklahoma, New Mexico, Texas, North Carolina, Virginia & Maryland.
Nobody here "hates the South" or Southerners.
We do hate the lies some of y'all tell each other about the Civil War, and keep trying to get us to buy.

We're here to correct those lie.
If that feels like "hatred" to you, then why do you so hate the truth?

wgmalabama: "I do hope you come to love us as brothers. "

Some of my actual siblings, nieces, nephews, aunts, uncles, and many cousins are Southerners.
So I love you at least to the degree you love them, brother.

wgmalabama: "I will not condemn my family back then for doing what they saw as best.
They were poor and not slave holders.
Both sides (GA and AL) were dirt farmers and for their reasons fought for southern causes.
I will honor my family."

Of course you will -- everyone admires the courage, endurance & military skills of Confederate soldiers.
Nobody blames them or their direct leaders for doing their duties.
Any debates here involve the historical accuracies of Lost Cause accounts of what really happened & why.
Remember, the purpose of the Lost Cause "history" is to blame Republicans and excuse Democrats, and we're here to dispute that version of history.

wgmalabama: " I will try to be better at discussing why I’m prideful of the new south and will also be the first to point out where we fail( Doug Jones) "

I'd argue that no one region of the country has exclusive claim to conservative or Leftist values, that all have mixtures of both, with some slightly more of one than the other.
Typically big cities are Leftists, while suburbs, small towns & rural counties are more conservative, with the overall balance determined by how many big cities a state has.

wgmalabama: "I separate the politicians from the men serving.
Hope you can or attempt to do the same."

Agreed.

wgmalabama: "Blessed be the men who gave their lives so we can post back and forth.
They are better men than me Without a doubt.
To those who paid the sacrifice from 1776 - today, I am humbled, prayerful and to be honest a bit ashamed for the state of our Republic."

Agreed.
Are you familiar with Fort Blakely near Mobile?
It was the site of one of the war's final battles, a week after Lee's surrender.
One of my Great Grandfathers had been fresh off the boat from Europe, spoke very little English but served since 1862 in an Illinois voluntary infantry regiment.
He was wounded & crippled in his hand at Fort Blakely, though survived & lived to marry & raise a big family.
He lived a good life.

Now, for all I know, your great grandfather fired the bullet which crippled his hand.
If so, then I'd thank him for being a poor shot! ;-)

All my best to you & yours.

Well... first consider, the fact is that radical Democrats are waging war against the United States today, in every way they can, with as much violence as they can muster, and with the intentions of destroying the constitutional republic inherited from our Founders.

You mean like the "war on drugs" and the "war on poverty". Those do not count as wars in the real world. Please return to the real world. Except in some fantasy world of your own making, where are the contending military forces of radical Democrats and non-radical others (The Forces of All that is Good and Holy) battling out some military war?

So far, the US military has not been called on "to suppress said combinations", but other Federal forces are engaged, though often restricted by local Democrat politicians.

It would be unconstitutional now, just as it was unconstitutional then. Because then it was Lincoln, he gets a pass.

The Constitution, Art. 4, Sec. 4, was clear then as it is clear now:

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.

Missing is the state application calling for the intervention of Federal troops to combat domestic violence.

A contemporaneous view from inside Lincoln's Inner Sanctum.

After President Lincoln re-announced his purpose to re-supply Fort Sumter, an attack was precipitated on it by the rebel forces around it. It was bombarded for 30 hours. When the American flag for the first time in its history was lowered under the fire of insurgent citizens, the fort surrendered on the 14th of April, 1861. The force at Fort Sumter had held General Beauregard in check with his command at Charleston. When it fell, General Beauregard marched to Virginia and precipitated its secession. If we could have held Fort Sumter there would have been no bloodshed and no war. It was the coercing process of Virginia into the Confederacy by General Beauregard’s army that caused the war.
In 1833, President Jackson held nullification in check and compelled the repeal of the South Carolina ordinances in the first attempt of obtaining a virtual secession by sending General Scott with one thousand men and orders to hold Fort Moultrie.
Major Anderson’s position in Fort Sumter was infinitely stronger now than General Scott’s was then, and the North was then infinitely as much greater or stronger than the South in 1860 and 1861 as Fort Sumter was stronger than Fort Moultrie in 1833. But President Jackson’s administration was not chided as the administrations of Presidents Buchanan and Lincoln were with disunion representatives—mugwumps from the North as well as from the South who were willing and ready to invite and encourage secession by agreeing to yield with impunity to the exactions of South Carolina and to allow the forces sent for purpose of the protecting the national honor to be driven back, the old flag unprotected and groveling in the dust.
As a speculative question it is to be submitted; when President Buchanan’s hands were tied by the embarrassments of having no judges and no marshals to enforce the laws in the southern states and no posse comitatus to command which rendered him helpless and Congress persistently refusing to comply with his earnest appeals to pass laws empowering and authorizing him to meet the emergency by military enforcement of the laws in subjugating conformity to obedience to the law and order of the states in rebellion and President Buchanan under the short tenure of his office and the circumstances surrounding him had patriotically done what President Lincoln in his wisdom did, unauthorized which was sanctioned by the inherent and indestructible power of the incoming rules of the nations—declared war without the sanction of Congress—the only war making power under the Constitution; how long would it have been with a Democratic majority in Congress—with secession tendencies, until he would have been impeached, dethroned, and disgraced? This may be considered a delicate subject to consider. Therefore we will not discuss it.
We are, however, authorized in saying that President Buchanan was at least tardy in the reinforcement at Fort Sumter, which ought to have been speedily reinforced. As much might be said of President Lincoln. He neglected doing this, which, if done, may have averted war. The destinies of the government were thrown into extremes, and the policy of the new government seemed to be, that in as much as the South had forced the existing state of things, that the Confederacy should commit the overt act of war, which resulting in the firing on Fort Sumter, placing it in the aggressive attitude of submitting to a trial by battle—and the inevitable issue of declaring of war followed. (On the anniversary of this day four years afterwards, the flag was again to be lowered, but only at half mast, announcing the assassination of Mr. Lincoln.)
The news of the firing on and the surrender of Fort Sumter to the Confederates aroused the North from a long continued sleep or trance. The majority of both the Democrats and Republicans of the North were furious. The North almost as a unit clamored for arms. The war was now fully inaugurated and begun. The war Democrats soon became absorbed into the Republican organization and a fusion of sentiments, object and purposed followed, all combining to reestablish the supremacy of the law and maintain the old flag all over the territory of the united government.
The firing of Fort Sumter by the Confederate forces sounded the tocsin of alarm throughout the whole North. There was a considerable minority of the people in that section who looked upon this misguided act of southern fanaticism with a glow of heartfelt pleasure. They had earnestly prayed for the justification for war and the speedy settlement of the troubles and the total extinction of the institution of slavery as a disturbing element in the country. Part of the federal army had already surrendered to the Confederacy and most of the rest were scattered in isolated forts which were besieged by the enemy.
General Scott had reported to Mr. Lincoln that he had but 16,000 regulars available for immediate service. Most all of the federal ships had been sent to distant seas, and many of the most experienced officers of the army and navy had already taken service under the rebel flag. The United States Treasury was almost in a bankrupt condition and many of the government employees were only too anxious to secure all the plunder possible and decamp to the South. This course was perhaps natural enough. They only emulated the conduct of servants of dying dynasties all over the world. The indisposition of northern politicians to arm the president with power for war purposes prevailed up to this time and now the combined northern people clamored for legal authorization to bring back the South to law, order and obedience at the point of the bayonet. In the history of the government for the first time it was now under control of what might be termed loose constructionists. The war Democrats became absorbed with the Republicans and in joint cooperation sacrificed all other consideration to the common cause of suppressing the rebellion. This was a hazardous experiment and deviation from that policy which had characterized the Democrats from the foundation of the government to that time. At no time had they ever advocated or tamely submitted to a strain on the Constitution, even to conform to the necessities of the hour. In this case the life of the nation was in jeopardy and if the Constitution interfered in the struggle and got worsted, it was considered of subordinate important to the lives of the people and the life of the nation. Self-protection, the first law of nature, inspired the people of the North and unified them as one man, subordinating the principles of the Constitution to the impending people, alike to it and to the people, and in the four years of dreadful struggle the Constitution was fortunately not damaged beyond repairing nor did it suffer as much as might have been anticipated from its surroundings. It withstood all innovations and remains today the same pliant old instrument of our original guidance, direction and protection.

As noted, Lincoln's action was unauthorized. And surely, if it were possible for Lincoln to have averted war, a war did not yet exist at the time considered. The principles of the Constitution were subordinated by "loose constructionists."

It is a war waged with "fire & fury" by radical Democrats, and often with timid responses by their Democrat politicians.

10 U.S.C. § 251

§251. Federal aid for State governments
Whenever there is an insurrection in any State against its government, the President may, upon the request of its legislature or of its governor if the legislature cannot be convened, call into Federal service such of the militia of the other States, in the number requested by that State, and use such of the armed forces, as he considers necessary to suppress the insurrection.

10 U.S.C. § 252

§252. Use of militia and armed forces to enforce Federal authority
Whenever the President considers that unlawful obstructions, combinations, or assemblages, or rebellion against the authority of the United States, make it impracticable to enforce the laws of the United States in any State by the ordinary course of judicial proceedings, he may call into Federal service such of the militia of any State, and use such of the armed forces, as he considers necessary to enforce those laws or to suppress the rebellion.

10 U.S.C. § 253

§253. Interference with State and Federal law
The President, by using the militia or the armed forces, or both, or by any other means, shall take such measures as he considers necessary to suppress, in a State, any insurrection, domestic violence, unlawful combination, or conspiracy, if it—

(1) so hinders the execution of the laws of that State, and of the United States within the State, that any part or class of its people is deprived of a right, privilege, immunity, or protection named in the Constitution and secured by law, and the constituted authorities of that State are unable, fail, or refuse to protect that right, privilege, or immunity, or to give that protection; or
(2) opposes or obstructs the execution of the laws of the United States or impedes the course of justice under those laws.

In any situation covered by clause (1), the State shall be considered to have denied the equal protection of the laws secured by the Constitution.

10 U.S.C. § 254

§254. Proclamation to disperse
Whenever the President considers it necessary to use the militia or the armed forces under this chapter, he shall, by proclamation, immediately order the insurgents to disperse and retire peaceably to their abodes within a limited time.

While §253 may be tempting for President Trump, it is derived from the 14th Amendment and was not available for President Lincoln.

It should be noted that a rebellion against the authority of the Federal government could only apply regarding resistance to the application of some actual lawful authority. The Constitution is somewhat restrictive regarding the lawful authority of the Federal government to use armed forces to coerce a State.

Lincoln did not rely upon any constitutional or statutory authority, but rather he relied upon the sophistry of defending against the supposed threat of losing all the laws but one. Such sophistry sounds good, but is really just complete bullshit.

Likewise, the fact is that in 1860 war by Democrats against the United States began as soon as they started declaring secession -- illegally threatening US officials, seizing Federal properties, firing on Union ships, culminating in their assault on Fort Sumter.

The law and the Supreme Court rejects this sort of sophistry. Holding a convention and recommending acts of secession to the people is not making war. The United States is not at war unless the government makes that fact known by some public act. The United States is not placed in a state of war by blogger's fantasies.

regardless of SCOTUS & woodpusher legalisms, Democrats were waging war against the United States weeks & months before the President ordered any warlike responses.

It is always amusing to see a party to a Civil War discussion try to dismiss the law and the U.S. Supreme Court. After all, these very same people will argue Texas v. White as if Saint Salmon came down off a mountain with stone tablets inscribed with, "When, therefore, Texas became one of the United States, she entered into an indissoluble relation. All the obligations of perpetual union, and all the guaranties of republican government in the Union, attached at once to the State. The act which consummated her admission into the Union was something more than a compact; it was the incorporation of a new member into the political body. And it was final." That utterance of the U.S. Supreme Court has risen to the status of holy scripture.

But, indeed, legal opinions handed down by the U.S. Supreme Court are not mere legalisms, to be dismissed by bloggers. These very same bloggers have no difficulty identifying the importance of appointing justices to the Supreme Court. Everyone is fully cognizant that Roe v. Wade is the law of the land because the U.S. Supreme Court said so. I have never located the precisely phrased abortion provision of the Constitution, but I am assured that "[t]his right of privacy, whether it be founded in the Fourteenth Amendment's concept of personal liberty and restrictions upon state action, as we feel it is, or, as the District Court determined, in the Ninth Amendment's reservation of rights to the people, is broad enough to encompass a woman's decision whether or not to terminate her pregnancy." Where exactly is not quite known, but there is this:

The Constitution does not explicitly mention any right of privacy. In a line of decisions, however, going back perhaps as far as Union Pacific R. Co. v. Botsford, 141 U. S. 250, 251 (1891), the Court has recognized that a right of personal privacy, or a guarantee of certain areas or zones of privacy, does exist under the Constitution. In varying contexts, the Court or individual Justices have, indeed, found at least the roots of that right in the First Amendment, Stanley v. Georgia, 394 U. S. 557, 564 (1969); in the Fourth and Fifth Amendments, Terry v. Ohio, 392 U. S. 1, 8-9 (1968), Katz v. United States, 389 U. S. 347, 350 (1967), Boyd v. United States, 116 U. S. 616 (1886), see Olmstead v. United States, 277 U. S. 438, 478 (1928) (Brandeis, J., dissenting); in the penumbras of the Bill of Rights, Griswold v. Connecticut, 381 U. S., at 484-485; in the Ninth Amendment, id., at 486 (Goldberg, J., concurring); or in the concept of liberty guaranteed by the first section of the Fourteenth Amendment, see Meyer v. Nebraska, 262 U. S. 390, 399 (1923).

I highly suspect that it is found in the penumbras. But what does it matter? The published Opinions of the U.S. Supreme Court are only legalisms, right? Just as it really does not matter whether President Trump nominates Amy Coney Barrett or Michelle Robinson Obama to the Court /s.

By the way, we should notice here that some Lost Causers tell us Civil War actually began when Lincoln first ordered the Fox resupply mission to Fort Sumter, in early April -- that's what forced Jefferson Davis to order his assault on Maj. Anderson's Union force there, so they claim.
But all of that kind of "logic" ignores the fact that Democrats were furiously waging war long before the United States sent military force in response.

That reads like Ilhan Omar logic. Some people said something. Therefore, all law and all opinions of the U.S. Supreme Court should be dismissed in favor of the unsupported and unsupportable opinion of an internet blogger who simply likes his own interpretation of the law better. That is the sort of logic which translates a war between Union and Confederate States into a war between the Defenders of All that is Good and Holy, and the Democratic Party. And that despite the fact that, in the 1860 presidential election, the Democratic Party collected 29.5% of the vote, the Southern Democratic Party collected 18.1% of the vote, the Constitutional Union Party collected 12.1% of the vote, and the Republican Party collected 39.8% of the vote. Those Democrats who garnered 29.5% of the vote were the northern Union group. They must have been making war on themselves.

The War of the Rebellion (official name) began on April 19, 1861 because that is when the United States government said so by a public act, and because the U.S. Supreme Court multiple times affirmed that it started on that date, pursuant to the aforesaid public act of the U.S. government, to wit, the Proclamation of President Abraham Lincoln proclaiming a blockade, and thereby proclaiming to the world the existence of the Confederate States of America as a belligerent power, and the existence of a state of war between the United States of America and the Confederate States of America.

woodpusher: "You mean like the "war on drugs" and the "war on poverty".
Those do not count as wars in the real world.
Please return to the real world."

"War on poverty" is just typical Democrat new-speak, since in fact LBJ's "war" produced much more poverty than it "cured".
He lost that "war", just as he lost in Vietnam.

But a "war on crime" or "war on drugs" do include uses of force, injuries & deaths.
US 1800s Indian Wars are examples of real wars never officially declared.
The "war on terror" also illustrates my point about the Civil War: Islamic terrorists were at war against the United States for many years before the US did anything serious in response.
So 9/11/01 was only the largest incident, the Fort Sumter of our time, the one which finally ignited Americans' righteous anger.

Today, like Islamic terrorist of 20 years ago, Democrats wage war against the United States everywhere they have the power to wage it -- not just in big cities' war on cops, but also in the media, cultural centers, academia and the judiciary's war on the Constitution.
Are those metaphorical wars?
Maybe, but the outcomes can be as destructive of lives, values & families as any physical war.

woodpusher: "It would be unconstitutional now, just as it was unconstitutional then.

You yourself have mentioned President Washington's 1792/1795 Militia Acts which authorizes the President to call out militias of the several states:

"...whenever the laws of the United States shall be opposed or the execution thereof obstructed, in any state, by combinations too powerful to be suppressed by the ordinary course of judicial proceedings, or by the powers vested in the marshals by this act". (art. I, ss. 2) "

President Jefferson's 1807 Insurrection Act adds to that:

"...in all cases of insurrection, or obstruction to the laws, either of the United States, or of any individual state or territory, where it is lawful for the President of the United States to call forth the militia for the purpose of suppressing such insurrection, or of causing the laws to be duly executed, it shall be lawful for him to employ, for the same purposes, such part of the land or naval force of the United States, as shall be judged necessary, having first observed all the pre-requisites of the law in that respect.[7][8]"

woodpusher: "As noted, Lincoln's action was unauthorized.
And surely, if it were possible for Lincoln to have averted war, a war did not yet exist at the time considered."

As noted, Lincoln's actions were authorized by both the 1792/5 Militia Act and the 1807 Insurrection Act.
And by analogy: the US War on Terror may have begun in September 2001, but Islamic terrorists had been waging war against us for many years before that.
So also Confederates before & after Fort Sumter.

woodpusher: "It should be noted that a rebellion against the authority of the Federal government could only apply regarding resistance to the application of some actual lawful authority.
The Constitution is somewhat restrictive regarding the lawful authority of the Federal government to use armed forces to coerce a State."

But Federal powers do include collecting Federal revenues, and doubtless that's why Lincoln cited it.
Now I've long argued revenues were not Lincoln's major reason, but revenues fall within the scope of the 1792/5 Militia Act.

woodpusher: "Lincoln did not rely upon any constitutional or statutory authority, but rather he relied upon the sophistry of defending against the supposed threat of losing all the laws but one.
Such sophistry sounds good, but is really just complete bullshit. "

Now that's some real BS.
Lincoln there referred only to revocation of Habeas Corpus, which the Constitution specifically authorizes.
Lincoln's legal question then was whether a President needed Congressional authority; so Congress debated it at length, and then, as the Confederate Congress had for Davis, granted Lincoln authority to revoke Habeas Corpus.
No judgment was then made regarding Lincoln's prior use.

woodpusher: "The law and the Supreme Court rejects this sort of sophistry.
Holding a convention and recommending acts of secession to the people is not making war.
The United States is not at war unless the government makes that fact known by some public act.
The United States is not placed in a state of war by blogger's fantasies. "

Complete nonsense.
Wars can be & have been waged against the United States without a warlike US response, for example: War on Terror before 9/11/01.
Likewise, war was waged by secessionists & Confederates with increasing violence beginning in December 1860 -- threats against US officials, seizures of Federal properties, firings on Union ships, demands for US Army surrenders and finally, at Fort Sumter, a military assault on Union troops there.

The Union response was less than war-like, but did include formal notifications (i.e., Pres. Buchanan in Feb.) that a Confederate assault on Fort Sumter would be met with military force.
Some Lost Causers here claim the Civil War actually began when President Lincoln ordered a "war fleet" of navy ships to Charleston Harbor, around April 4.
I say, regardless of legalities, there is a direct line connecting Confederate seizures of Fort Moultrie & others in December 1860 and the Confederate declaration of war on May 6, 1861.

Confederates were at war against the United States from Day One.

woodpusher: "I highly suspect that it is found in the penumbras.
But what does it matter?
The published Opinions of the U.S. Supreme Court are only legalisms, right? "

The legality of abortions is one thing, the existence of war for purposes of commercial contracts is something else.
I'm saying wars existences do not depend on what SCOTUS rules regarding commercial contracts.

woodpusher: "Those Democrats who garnered 29.5% of the vote were the northern Union group.
They must have been making war on themselves. "

Northern Democrats in 1860 were highly conflicted regarding secession -- some like New York City's Mayor Wood wanted to join in seceding!
Other Democrats remained so sympathetic to Confederates they became known as "copperheads".
Democrats in the US Army (i.e., McClellan) were hoping to overawe RE Lee's forces with the splendor of their uniforms & guns, without having to do actual battle.

But in the end, many Northern Democrats did serve & fight honorably against their erstwhile Southern Democrat political allies, though quickly reunited politically once Civil War was over.

woodpusher: "The War of the Rebellion (official name) began on April 19, 1861 because that is when the United States government said so by a public act, and because the U.S. Supreme Court multiple times affirmed that it started on that date, pursuant to the aforesaid public act of the U.S. government..."

Sure, for purposes of commercial contracts.
But in reality Democrats had been waging war against the United States since Day One in December 1860.
It is only the Union response to Democrats' war that SCOTUS referred to, for purposes of commercial contracts.

The "war on terror" also illustrates my point about the Civil War: Islamic terrorists were at war against the United States for many years before the US did anything serious in response.

- - - - - - - - - -

woodpusher: "The law and the Supreme Court rejects this sort of sophistry. Holding a convention and recommending acts of secession to the people is not making war. The United States is not at war unless the government makes that fact known by some public act. The United States is not placed in a state of war by blogger's fantasies."

Complete nonsense.
Wars can be & have been waged against the United States without a warlike US response, for example: War on Terror before 9/11/01.

The "war on terror" only illustrates you lack a certain knowledge of the law of war, the law of armed conflict (LOAC), and international humanitarian law (IHL).

The "war on terror" consists of CONFLICTS with parties LEGALLY INCAPABLE waging actual WAR.

Without legal technicalities, this should be obvious from the RUMSFELD MEMO to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff of January 19, 2002:

The United States has determined that Al Qaida and Taliban individuals under the control of the Department of Defense are not entitled to prisoner of war status for purposes of the Geneva Conventions of 1949.

It is notorious that the DETAINEES are NOT prisoners of war.

See also Jay S. BYBEE Memorandum for Alberto Gonzales, Counsel to the President, and William J. Haynes II, General Counsel of the Department of Defense, Re: Application of Treaties and laws to al Qaeda and Taliban Detainees.

You have asked for our Office's views concerning the effect of international treaties and federal laws on the treatment of individuals detained by the U.S. Armed Forces during the conflict in Afghanistan. In particular, you have asked whether certain treaties forming part of the laws of armed conflict apply to the conditions of detention and the procedures for trial of members of al Qaida and the Taliban militia. We conclude that these treaties do not protect members of the al Qaeda organization, which as a non-State actor cannot be a party to the international agreements governing war. We further conclude that that President has suflicient grounds to find that these treaties do not protect members of the Taliban militia. This memorandum expresses no view as to whether the President should decide, as a matter of policy, that the U.S. Armed Forces should adhere to the standards of conduct in those treaties with respect to the treatment of prisoners.

Non-state actors are not parties to a war. It is legally impossible. Thus, the laws of war have been held inapplicable to them. They never qualify to become prisoners of war.

In Prosecutor v. Tadic, Decision of the Defense Motion for Interlocutory Appeal on Jurisdiction, No. It-94-1, para 70 (Oct 2, 1995):

70. On the basis of the foregoing, we find that an armed conflict exists whenever there is a resort to armed force between States or protracted armed violence between governmental authorities and organized armed groups or between such groups within a State. International humanitarian law applies from the initiation of such armed conflicts and extends beyond the cessation of hostilities until a general conclusion of peace is reached; or, in the case of internal conflicts, a peaceful settlement is achieved. Until that moment, international humanitarian law continues to apply in the whole territory of the warring States, or in the case of internal conflicts, the whole territory under the control of a party, whether or not actual commbat takes place there.

See Gary D. Solis, The Law of Armed Conflict,, at 21. Gary D. Solis is "a retired professor of law of the United States Military Academy where he directed West Point's Law of War program for six years. He was a 2007 Library of Congress scholar in residence."

What is "war"? Wars on drugs, ohn poverty, and on iliteracy are laudable political constructs but are not literally wars, of course. A state of war has wide-ranging repercussions in contracts, insurance, constitutional issues, neutrality, and governmental wartime emergency powers, not to mention the life and death issues played out on the battlefield. The "War on Terrorism" is not a war in the sense of the Geneva Convention common article 2, although that view would not be shared by the widow or husband of a soldier killed in Iraq or Afghanistan. Still, the ICRD and LOAC publicists point out its non-war character. . . . So, not all armed conflicts are wars, but all wars are armed conflicts.

Solis at 153:

Riot, disorder, and banditry do not rise to common Article 3 conflict status. For example, in the 1970s, in California's San Francisco Bay area, a group of disaffected individuals formed the Symbionese Liberation Army (SLA), a radical leftist group. The SLA declared themselves revolutionaries and financed their violent operation through kidnapping, bank robbery, and murder. One of their number, Sara Jane Moore, attempted to assassinate President Gerald Ford. Another was captured only in 2001. Patricia Hearst, heiress to the Hearst newspaper fortune, was kidnapped and briefly converted to the SLA's cause, famously posing before the SLA flag while brandishing an automatic weapon. Revolution? Armed conflict? Within U.S. borders? Was this a common Article 3 armed conflict, then? No, it was not. Despite their rhetoric of "revolution," the SLA was no more than a criminal conspiracy to be dealt with by local police and domestic law. (In May 1974, most of the SLA membership were killed in a police shootout in Oakland, California.)

Solis at 157:

5.2. Nonstate Actors and Armed Opposition Groups Are Bound by LOAC/IHL
What LOAC applies when nonstate actors like al Qaeda, not controlled by any state, are the opposing "armed force” in an armed conflict? "[T]he application of the laws of war in counter-terrorist operations has always been particularly problematical.”
Terrorist groups are most often criminal organizations, a variety of armed opposition group. (Until they defeat the government forces and become the government.) They are not states and therefore may not be parties to the Geneva Conventions, the Additional Protocols, or any multinational treaty. Terrorist attacks, if the terrorists have a sufficient organization and if the attacks are sufficiently violent and protracted, may be instances of non-international common Article 3 conflicts. If not sufficiently organized, and if the attacks are not lengthy in nature, they are simply criminal events. Terrorist attacks, no matter how organized the group, violent or protracted the fighting, cannot be considered an international armed conflict for the same reason that terrorist groups cannot be parties to the Conventions: Terrorist attacks are conducted by nonstates. More than a half century ago, Professor Oppenheim expressed the traditional law of war view: "To be war, the contention must be between States”. When engaged in armed combat, terrorists and other armed opposition group members in a common Article 3 conflict enjoy no combatant’s privilege (Chapter 2, section 2.3.1) and upon capture they may be prosecuted for their illegal combatant-like acts prior to capture. (Chapter 6, section 6.5) provides a discussion of the status of Taliban and al Qaeda fighters and their individual status in LOAC.) Rebels, terrorists, and insurgents, including nonstate actors such as al Qaeda and the Taliban, may be held accountable not only for their violations of the domestic law of the state in which they act but, if their attacks rise to a common Article 3 non-international armed conflict, for their violations of common Article 3 and Additional Protocol II.
"While the practice concerning criminalization of individual members of rebel groups under international law is now well-established (with regards to inter alia war crimes and crimes against humanity), the question of whether the groups as such can be said to have violated international criminal law remains, however, under explored.” Underexplored perhaps, but not undetermined. "The obligations created by international humanitarian law apply not just to states but to individuals and non-state actors such as a rebel faction or secessionist movement in a civil war.”

Solis at 151:

5.1.2. Armed Conflicts Short of War
Confusing the issue, there sometimes are armed conflicts involving two or more states that fall short of what might be called "war." There is a long history of such events. From 1798 to 1801, American naval operations against France were violent and protracted. America and France seized each other's vessels as prize, others were sunk, and U.S. citizens were captured and imprisoned. Yet, although an 1801 convention ended the dispute, “[t]he French and United States governments did not consider that a war existed between them and the American legislation [ratifying the convention] referred only to 'the existing differences'..."
The British officially called their 1827 naval battle at Navarino with the Turkish fleet, in which sixty Turkish ships were sunk and 4,000 men perished, an "accident." The 1900-1901 Boxer Rebellion involved armed forces from a host of states fighting Chinese militias. U.S. forces involved in the Boxer Rebellion received combat pay, and the level of fighting is indicated by the fifty-nine Medals of Honor awarded U.S. combatants. Except France, no government involved chose to describe the conflict as a war, however. And a U.S. federal court held that the Boxer Rebellion was not a war. The early twentieth century saw a flurry of American armed forays in Mexico and Central America, none of which were denominated wars. The United States saw brief but heavy fighting in Vera Cruz, Mexico, in 1914. A short time later, in 1916, the United States launched an abortive expedition into Mexico led by Brigadier General John Pershing to capture Villa. (“Explanations of an agreement between the United States and Mexico concerning mutual border crossings for hot pursuit' swayed [resisting Mexican military officers] not at all... ") Between 1917 and 1941, U.S. Marines landed and fought nonwars in Siberia, Cuba, Haiti, Santo Domingo, and Nicaragua (twice). None of these events were considered or were referred to as "wars."

Solis at 191:

What about common Article 3 non-international armed conflicts? The traditional view is that, just as there are no POWs in non-international armed conflicts, there are no "combatants,” lawful or otherwise, in common Article 3 conflicts. There may be combat in the literal sense, but in terms of LOAC there are fighters, rebels, insurgents, or guerrillas who engage in armed conflict, and there are government forces, and perhaps armed forces allied to the government forces. There are no combatants as that term is used in customary law of war, however. Upon capture such fighters are simply prisoners of the detaining government; they are criminals to be prosecuted for their unlawful acts, either by a military court or under the domestic law of the capturing state.

UNITED NATIONS, International Tribunal for the Prosecution of Persons Responsible for Serious Violations of International Humanitarian Law Committed in the Territory of the Former Yugoslavia since 1991, Case No.: IT-96-21-T, 16 November 1998

See Delalic et al. (I.T-96-21) (Celebici) 16 November 1998, Part III B, Applicable law, pp 97-111, para 236-277, quoted below para 271-272, footnotes omitted.

271. It is important, however, to note that this finding is predicated on the view that there is no gap between the Third and the Fourth Geneva Conventions. If an individual is not entitled to the protections of the Third Convention as a prisoner of war (or of the First or Second Conventions) he or she necessarily falls within the ambit of Convention IV, provided that its article 4 requirements are satisfied. The Commentary to the Fourth Geneva Convention asserts that;
[e]very person in enemy hands must have some status under international law: he is either a prisoner of war and, as such, covered by the Third Convention, a civilian covered by the Fourth Convention, or again, a member of the medical personnel of the armed forces who is covered by the First Convention. There is no intermediate status; nobody in enemy hands can be outside the law. We feel that this is a satisfactory solution – not only satisfying to the mind, but also, and above all, satisfactory from the humanitarian point of view.
272. This position is confirmed by article 50 of Additional Protocol I which regards as civilians all persons who are not combatants as defined in article 4(A) (1), (2), (3) and (6) of the Third Geneva Convention, and article 43 of the Protocol itself.

woodpusher: "It would be unconstitutional now, just as it was unconstitutional then.

You yourself have mentioned President Washington's 1792/1795 Militia Acts which authorizes the President to call out militias of the several states:

"...whenever the laws of the United States shall be opposed or the execution thereof obstructed, in any state, by combinations too powerful to be suppressed by the ordinary course of judicial proceedings, or by the powers vested in the marshals by this act". (art. I, ss. 2) "

President Jefferson's 1807 Insurrection Act adds to that:

"...in all cases of insurrection, or obstruction to the laws, either of the United States, or of any individual state or territory, where it is lawful for the President of the United States to call forth the militia for the purpose of suppressing such insurrection, or of causing the laws to be duly executed, it shall be lawful for him to employ, for the same purposes, such part of the land or naval force of the United States, as shall be judged necessary, having first observed all the pre-requisites of the law in that respect.[7][8]"

Unfortunately for your argument, it requires that your cited statutes repeal Article IV of the Constitution. They fail to do so. You are simply misread the law and when it does, and does not, apply. Moreover, you selectively quote from the statute leaving out content you choose not to acknowledge.

INSURRECTION, US Constitution, Art 4, Sec 4

U.S. Constitution, Art. 4, Sec. 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.

The Militia Act of 1792 was repealed in its entirety by the Militia Act of 1795 and needs no further comment. It has been dead for 225 years. Where did I supposedly mention this defunct Act? I quoted the current statute law applicable to President Trump.

The Militia Act of 1795, Section 2, reads in its entirety:

Sec. 2. And be it further enacted, That whenever the laws of the United States shall be opposed, or the execution thereof obstructed in any State, by combinations too powerful to be suppressed by the ordinary course of judicial proceedings, or by the powers vested in the Marshals by this act, it shall be lawful for the President of the United States to call forth the militia of such State, or of any other State or States, as may be necessary to suppress such combinations, and to cause the laws to be duly executed; and the use of militia so to be called forth, may be continued, if necessary, until the expiration of thirty days after the commencement of the then next session of Congress.

Where do you perceive the laws of the United States, Federal laws, are being opposed by combinations too powerful to be suppressed by the ordinary course of judicial proceedings or by the powers vested in the marshals?

The Militia Act of 1807 states,

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That in all cases of insurrection, or obstruction to the laws, either of the United States, or of any individual state, or territory, where it is lawful for the President of the United States to call forth the militia for the purpose of suppressing such insurrection, or of causing the laws to be duly executed, it shall be lawful for him to employ, for the same purposes, such part of the land or naval force of the United States, as shall be judged necessary, having first observed all the pre-requisites of the law in that respect.

The Act of 1807 grants no authority to call forth the militia. It states that where it is lawful to call forth the militia, the land and naval forces may also be employed.

U.S. Constitution, Art. 1, Sec. 8., Cl. 15.

[Congress shall have the Power:] To provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union, supress Insurrections and repel Invasions.

insurrection. (15c) A violent revolt against an oppressive authority, usu. a government. ...
“Insurrection is distinguished from rout, riot, and offense connected with mob violence by the fact that in insurrection there is an organized and armed uprising against authority or operations of government, while crimes growing out of mob violence, however serious they may be and however numerous the participants, are simply unlawful acts in disturbance of the peace which do not threaten the stability of the government or the existence of political society.” 77 C.J.S. Riot; Insurrection § 29, at 579 (1994).

Black's Law Dictionary, 11th Ed., 2019. CJS stands for Corpus Juris Secundum, a legal encyclopedia.

There is nothing approaching the definition of an insurrection against the government of any State.

The response to a civil disturbances, riots, is controlled by Article IV, Section 4 of the Constitution. Calling up the militia in response to a civil disturbance or riot is only lawful as prescribed by the Constitution. Civil disturbances and riots do not form a predicate for a Federal invasion of a State without a State request.

There is no insurrection against a state government. There is plentiful mob violence. No Antifa or BLM or other mob shows an inkling of ability to overcome the forces of any State government. Getting certain State governments off their ass to do their job in an election year is another matter, but it does not transform riots into insurrection. There is no insurrection predicate for a Federal invasion of a State.

It may be difficult to find an armed uprising where the Federal laws are being opposed by combinations too powerful to be suppressed by the ordinary course of judicial proceedings, or by the powers vested in the Marshals. Indeed, it is difficult to find any instance where the ordinary course of judicial proceedings has been opposed by any armed uprising. The legal predicate for a Federal invasion of a State does not arise here either.

woodpusher: "As noted, Lincoln's action was unauthorized. And surely, if it were possible for Lincoln to have averted war, a war did not yet exist at the time considered."

As noted, Lincoln's actions were authorized by both the 1792/5 Militia Act and the 1807 Insurrection Act.
And by analogy: the US War on Terror may have begun in September 2001, but Islamic terrorists had been waging war against us for many years before that.
So also Confederates before & after Fort Sumter.

As noted, the Militia Act of 1792 was repealed in its entirety 225 years ago and has not authorized anybody to do anything since February 28, 1795.

The Militia Act of 1807 only authorizes employment of the land and naval forces where it is elsewhere authorized that the militia be called forth "having first observed all the pre-requisites of the law in that respect."

The "war of terror" is not a war, it is a conflict involving non-state actors who are legally incapable of engaging in war.

I have addressed the Militia Act of 1795 thoroughly above.

Your legal opinion about the Confederates is in direct conflict with about a half-dozen U.S. Supreme Court opinions that I have cited and/or quoted. Your proclamation, repeated endlessly, has the same affect as if you were to proclaim that abortion were murder, or same-sex marriage did not exist. Your denial of reality does not change reality.

The quote attributed to woodpusher is not by woodpusher. I was quoting a source I attributed only to Lincoln's Inner Sanctum. Lincoln died slightly before my time. However, the author who acknowledged "Lincoln's action was unauthorized" most certainly was in Lincoln's Inner Sanctum. The source is Ward Hill Lamon, from The Life of Abraham Lincoln As President. The snippet quote you repeated was from page 113. I shall repeat the paragraph to give the proper context:

As a speculative question it is to be submitted; when President Buchanan’s hands were tied by the embarrassments of having no judges and no marshals to enforce the laws in the southern states and no posse comitatus to command which rendered him helpless and Congress persistently refusing to comply with his earnest appeals to pass laws empowering and authorizing him to meet the emergency by military enforcement of the laws in subjugating conformity to obedience to the law and order of the states in rebellion and President Buchanan under the short tenure of his office and the circumstances surrounding him had patriotically done what President Lincoln in his wisdom did, unauthorized which was sanctioned by the inherent and indestructible power of the incoming rules of the nations—declared war without the sanction of Congress—the only war making power under the Constitution; how long would it have been with a Democratic majority in Congress—with secession tendencies, until he would have been impeached, dethroned, and disgraced? This may be considered a delicate subject to consider. Therefore we will not discuss it.

Ward Hill Lamon was Lincoln's personal bodyguard, the Marshall of the District of Columbia, and the emissary Lincoln sent to Fort Sumter to inform Col. Robert Anderson of the plans to send supplies and reinforcements.

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woodpusher: "It should be noted that a rebellion against the authority of the Federal government could only apply regarding resistance to the application of some actual lawful authority. The Constitution is somewhat restrictive regarding the lawful authority of the Federal government to use armed forces to coerce a State."

But Federal powers do include collecting Federal revenues, and doubtless that's why Lincoln cited it.
Now I've long argued revenues were not Lincoln's major reason, but revenues fall within the scope of the 1792/5 Militia Act.

The problem that Lincoln had was the same one cited by Lamon regarding Buchanan. Nobody was obstructing the courts or the marshals of the courts, or any orders of the courts. In the Confederate states, all the Federal judges had resigned. There were no Federal judges. There were no Federal courts. There were no Federal marshals. And Lincoln made believe a 75,000 man army was the largest posse comitatus in history, called forth to aid the non-existent marshals in executing the non-existent orders of non-existent judges of non-existent courts. There was no actual legal predicate for sending an invading army.

woodpusher: "Lincoln did not rely upon any constitutional or statutory authority, but rather he relied upon the sophistry of defending against the supposed threat of losing all the laws but one. Such sophistry sounds good, but is really just complete bullshit."

Now that's some real BS.
Lincoln there referred only to revocation of Habeas Corpus, which the Constitution specifically authorizes.

This is factually and legally wrong.

There is no authority for "revocation of Habeas Corpus." Such authority does not appear in the Constitution.

Article I, Sec. 9, Cl. 2 reads:

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.

The writ is never revoked or suspended. Suspension of the privilege of the writ is listed as a power of the Legislature. At ALL times, the writ is required to issue, and a return of the writ (a reply) must be given to the court, either producing the body or providing justification for the failure to do so. When the privilege of the writ is properly suspended, evidence of that fact constitutes a satisfactory return of the writ without producing the body. Whether the writ has been properly suspended is for the court to decide. In all cases, the writ issues and a return is legally required.

Ex parte Milligan, 71 U.S. 2, 130-31 (1866) (9-0)

The suspension of the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus does not suspend the writ itself. The writ issues as a matter of course, and, on the return made to it, the court decides whether the party applying is denied the right of proceeding any further with it.

Lincoln's suspension of the writ itself, and his delegation of said non-existent authority to military officers to use at their discretion, was emphatically rejected in Ex parte Merryman and in Ex parte Milligan. It has no basis in law whatsoever.

While the Constitution authorizes of the suspension of the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus, as explained in numerous Supreme Court opinions, it is an authority delegated to the Legislative branch, not the Executive.

From Merryman:

The clause of the constitution, which authorizes the suspension of the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus, is in the 9th section of the first article. This article is devoted to the legislative department of the United States, and has not the slightest reference to the executive department. It begins by providing 'that all legislative powers therein granted, shall be vested in a congress of the United States, which shall consist of a senate and house of representatives.' And after prescribing the manner in which these two branches of the legislative department shall be chosen, it proceeds to enumerate specifically the legislative powers which it thereby grants [and legislative powers which it expressly prohibits]; and at the conclusion of this specification, a clause is inserted giving congress 'the power to make all laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into execution the foregoing powers, and all other powers vested by this constitution in the government of the United States, or in any department or officer thereof.' [. . .] The only power, therefore, which the president possesses, where the 'life, liberty or property' of a private citizen is concerned, is the power and duty prescribed in the third section of the second article, which requires 'that he shall take care that the laws shall be faithfully executed.' He is not authorized to execute them himself, or through agents or officers, civil or military, appointed by himself, but he is to take care that they be faithfully carried into execution, as they are expounded and adjudged by the coordinate branch of the government to which that duty is assigned by the constitution. It is thus made his duty to come in aid of the judicial authority, if it shall be resisted by a force too strong to be overcome without the assistance of the executive arm; but in exercising this power he acts in subordination to judicial authority, assisting it to execute its process and enforce its judgments. With such provisions in the constitution, expressed in language too clear to be misunderstood by any one, I can see no ground whatever for supposing that the president, in any emergency, or in any state of things, can authorize the suspension of the privileges of the writ of habeas corpus, or the arrest of a citizen, except in aid of the judicial power. He certainly does not faithfully execute the laws, if he takes upon himself legislative power, by suspending the writ of habeas corpus, and the judicial power also, by arresting and imprisoning a person without due process of law. [. . .] Mr. Justice Story, speaking, in his Commentaries, of the habeas corpus clause in the constitution, says: 'It is obvious that cases of a peculiar emergency may arise, which may justify, nay, even require, the temporary suspension of any right to the writ. But as it has frequently happened in foreign countries, and even in England, that the writ has, upon various pretexts and occasions, been suspended, whereby persons apprehended upon suspicion have suffered a long imprisonment, sometimes from design, and sometimes because they were forgotten, the right to suspend it is expressly confined to cases of rebellion or invasion, where the public safety may require it. A very just and wholesome restraint, which cuts down at a blow a fruitful means of oppression, capable of being abused, in bad times, to the worst of purposes. Hitherto, no suspension of the writ has ever been authorized by congress, since the establishment of the constitution. It would seem, as the power is given to congress to suspend the writ of habeas corpus, in cases of rebellion or invasion, that the right to judge whether the exigency had arisen must exclusively belong to that body.' 3 Story, Comm. Const. s 1336.
And Chief Justice Marshall, in delivering the opinion of the supreme court in the case of Ex parte Bollman and Swartwout, uses this decisive language, in 4 Cranch [8 U. S.] 95: 'It may be worthy of remark, that this act (speaking of the one under which I am proceeding) was passed by the first congress of the United States, sitting under a constitution which had declared 'that the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus should not be suspended, unless when, in cases of rebellion or invasion, the public safety may require it.' Acting under the immediate influence of this injunction, they must have felt, with peculiar force, the obligation of providing efficient means, by which this great constitutional privilege should receive life and activity; for if the means be not in existence, the privilege itself would be lost, although no law for its suspension should be enacted. Under the impression of this obligation, they give to all the courts the power of awarding writs of habeas corpus.' And again on page 101: 'If at any time, the public safety should require the suspension of the powers vested by this act in the courts of the United States, it is for the legislature to say so. That question depends on political considerations, on which the legislature is to decide; until the legislative will be expressed, this court can only see its duty, and must obey the laws.' I can add nothing to these clear and emphatic words of my great predecessor.

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Lincoln's legal question then was whether a President needed Congressional authority; so Congress debated it at length, and then, as the Confederate Congress had for Davis, granted Lincoln authority to revoke Habeas Corpus.
No judgment was then made regarding Lincoln's prior use.

This is simply misleading and ridiculous.

The Legislature NEVER approved of Lincoln's acts of suspending the writ of habeas corpus that had already been taken. They debated it at length and vociferously refused to do so. The Legislature most definitely passed judgment on that. With the bill that Lincoln wanted being bombarded by the opposition calling for a vote, it was removed from consideration without a vote in order to save it from a crushing defeat. The debate record in the Congressional Globe leaves absolutely no doubt.

The bill that was eventually passed, which prospectively (but not retroactively) authorized a suspension of the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus, in absolutely no way signaled approval of the prior unconstitutional acts of Lincoln regarding the suspension of habeas corpus. The bill that passed placed certain requirements on suspending the writ, none of which Lincoln ever complied with.

SENATE JOINT RESOLUTION SR-1 OF 1861

In 1861, Senator Wilson brought a proposed Joint Resolution to the Senate, SR-1. It was batted around throughout the special session called by Lincoln.

It read as follows:

Be it resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That all of the extraordinary acts, proclamations, and orders hereinbefore mentioned, be, and the same are hereby, approved and declared to be in all respects legal and valid, to the same intent, and with the same effect, as if they had been issued and done under the previous express authority and direction of the Congress of the United States.

The items "hereinbefore mentioned" were:

First. He did, on the fifteenth day of April last, issue his proclamation calling upon the several States for seventy-five thousand men to suppress such insurrectionary combinations, and to cause the laws to be faithfully executed.
Secondly. He did, on the nineteenth day of April last, issue a proclamation setting on foot a blockade of the ports within the States of South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Florida, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Texas.
Thirdly. He did, on the twenty-seventh day of April last, issue a proclamation establishing a blockade of the ports within the States of Virginia and North Carolina.
Fourthly. He did, by an order of the twenty-seventh day of April last, addressed to the commanding general of the army of the United States, authorize that officer to suspend the writ of habeas corpus at any point on or in the vicinity of any military line between the city of Philadelphia and the city of Washington.
Fifthly. He did, on the third day of May last, issue a proclamation calling into the service of the United States forty-two thousand and thirty-four volunteers, increasing the regular army by the addition of twenty-two thousand seven hundred and fourteen men, and the navy by an addition of eighteen thousand seamen.
Sixthly. He did, on the tenth day of May last, issue a proclamation authorizing the commander of the forces of the United States on the coast of Florida to suspend the writ of habeas corpus, if necessary.

Section 4 pertained to Lincoln authorizing General Scott to suspend habeas corpus at the discretion of General Scott, and to further delegate authority to suspend the writ. This Joint Resolution was shot down in flames. Congress never even attempted to justify General Scott authorizing other military officers to suspend habeas corpus. When Congress passed a bill, it properly referenced suspending the privilege of the writ, not suspending or revoking the writ itself.

At the beginning of war, in the famous Merryman case, it was not Lincoln who suspended the writ, but General Keim in Pennsylvania (under delegation of suspension authority from General Scott,) who suspended the writ in Maryland.

The battle over the bill continued down to the final day of the special session called by Lincoln, August 5, 1861. During the session, which started in July, the tide turned against this attempted rape of the Constitution.

Right near the end of the session, Mr. Wilson rose and implored the body one more time, "Let us have a vote."

Illinois Senator Lyman Trumbull told Mr. Wilson for the last time, NO! You may not defile and rape our beloved Constitution.

OK, what he really said was more polite and went like this, "Now, my friend is clamorous. He cannot keep still. He says, 'let us have a vote.' I am not disposed to vote upon the resolution. I will tell the Senator from Kentucky I am not prepared to vote for the resolution, and it is not going to pass without consideration. It is not going to pass in the shape it is by my approbation."

Really, Trumbull knew the votes were not there and acted to prevent a vote which was going to embarrass the Lincoln administration. The resolution was dropped without a vote. Contrary to Lincoln mythology, Congress refused to ratify all the illegal, unconstitutional act of Lincoln.

Just the end of the debate:

My objection to taking up this resolution I will state in a word. I believe it is in order to state briefly the objection. This resolution which the Senator from Massachusetts seeks to take up is germane to the bill which is the unfinished business. The resolution proposed to declare legal the acts which have been done by the President in the recess of Congress. Will our declaration make them legal if they are not legal? Will it make them so if they were unconstitutional and void?
~ Mr. TRUMBULL, August 2, 1861, page 392 ~
The Senator from Maine evidently entertains a very sincere conviction that the action of the President has not been in violation of the constitution or the laws; because he has asserted it six or seven times in the course of the brief speech he has made to the Senate. His convictions are evidently deep and sincere. All I have to say in reply to that is, that it will be a very great comfort to the President to be assured of that fact; for he himself has been under the impression that he has been transcending both; and, indeed, he admits it in his message, and puts it expressly on the ground of a popular demand and what he deemed to be a public necessity. It has also been admitted by many Senators on the other side of the chamber. I have not believed, all along, that the resolution was going to be voted by the Senate. I do not believe it now. It may be; but I think not. My deliberate judgment is, that in some mode the Senate will avoid putting itself on record in favor of the principles contained in this resolution. It is indifferent to me whether it does or not. Of course, every Senator will vote his own convictions if brought to a vote; but I do not think there are many Senators who want their names to go upon history in favor of this resolution.
~ Mr. Breckinridge, August 2, 1861, page 392 ~
The President issued a proclamation calling into the service of the United States forty-two thousand and thirty-four volunteers. It was clearly illegal; I am not satisfied it was necessary. I am inclined to think it was not.
~ Mr. Howe, August 2, 1861, page 395 ~
I cannot consent to give my approval to the fourth and sixth acts enumerated in the resolution, by which the President authorized the commanding General to suspend the writ of habeas corpus. I do not rise to make a speech; but to give the reason why I cannot vote for the resolution.
~ Mr. Thomson, August 2, 1861, page 395 ~
MR. WILSON. Let us have a vote.

MR. TRUMBULL. Now, my friend is clamorous. he cannot keep still. He says "let us have a vote." I am not disposed to vote upon the resolution. I will tell the Senator from Kentucky I am not prepared to vote for the resolution, and it is not going to pass without consideration. It is not going to pass in the shape it is by my approbation.
~ Messrs. Wilson and Trumbull, August 5, 1861, page 453. ~

woodpusher: "I highly suspect that it is found in the penumbras. But what does it matter? The published Opinions of the U.S. Supreme Court are only legalisms, right?"

The legality of abortions is one thing, the existence of war for purposes of commercial contracts is something else.
I'm saying wars existences do not depend on what SCOTUS rules regarding commercial contracts.

And what I am saying is that regardless of what they opine about, the U.S. Supreme Court is empowered to interpret the Constitution and the statute laws and tell the rest of us the legal import of the words. That is true whether they write of abortion, same-sex marriage, or anything else, such as when a state of war officially started or ended.

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woodpusher: "The War of the Rebellion (official name) began on April 19, 1861 because that is when the United States government said so by a public act, and because the U.S. Supreme Court multiple times affirmed that it started on that date, pursuant to the aforesaid public act of the U.S. government..."

Sure, for purposes of commercial contracts.
But in reality Democrats had been waging war against the United States since Day One in December 1860.
It is only the Union response to Democrats' war that SCOTUS referred to, for purposes of commercial contracts.

Absolute nonsense, pulled straignt from your butt. When the court determines something as a legal fact, it is so for ALL legal purposes. Your absurdity would have the nation at war from late 1860 until April 1861 with the military not knowing they were at war. They could hardly have consulted with internet bloggers about it, but perhaps the New York Times could let them know to start shooting. Because, why not?

I gave you enough legal precedent to choke a horse. I can repeat it for you. Whether the country is, or is not, at war affects a great deal more than contracts.

"[I]n a civil war, only the government can know when the insurrection has assumed the character of war."

Matthews v. McStea, 91 U.S. 7, 9 (1875).

Your histrionic claim of a state of war in 1860 is factually and legally in error. The power to declare the United States to be in a state of war is controlled by the U.S. Constitution and decided only by an act of the government. It does not reside within the power of a foreign government, nor within a state in insurrection.

Only the government can know when an insurrection has assumed the character of war. You may not like it that you do not have the power to decide for the government, but that is the way it is. The government is so empowered, to the exclusion of all others.

An act of war does not create a war. Only the party acted upon may decide whether it chooses to recognize an act as creating a state of war. There was no war in 1860 and you can not manufacture one by your unilateral blather.

No declaration of war was ever made. The President recognized its existence by proclaiming a blockade on the 19th of April; and it then became his duty as well as his right to direct how it should be carried on. In the exercise of this right, he was at liberty to allow or license intercourse; and his proclamations, if they did not license it expressly, did, in our opinion, license it by very cogent implications. It is impossible to read them without a conviction that no interdiction of commercial intercourse, except through the ports of the designated States, was intended. The first was that of April 15, 1861. The forts and property of the United States had, prior to that day, been forcibly seized by armed forces. Hostilities had commenced; and, in the light of subsequent events, it must be considered that a state of war then existed. Yet the proclamation, while calling for the militia of the several States, and stating what would probably be the first service assigned to them, expressly declared, that, “in every event, the utmost care would be observed, consistently with the repossession of the forts, places, and property which had been seized from the Union, to avoid any devastation, destruction of or interference with property, or any disturbance of peaceful citizens in any part of the country.” Manifestly, this declaration was not a mere military order. It did not contemplate the treatment of the inhabitants of the States in which the unlawful combinations mentioned in the proclamation existed as public enemies. It announced a different mode of treatment, — the treatment due to friends. It is to be observed that the proclamation of April 15, 1861, was not a distinct recognition of an existing state of war. The President had power to recognize it, The Prize Cases, supra ; but he did not prior to his second proclamation, that of April 19, in which he announced the blockade.

Obviously, the Supreme Court explicitly and emphatically found that the proclamation of April 15, 1861 was not a distinct recognition of a state of war, rather it announced a different mode of treatment, the treatment due to friends. The court found that the President could have recognized such a state of war but chose not to, and did not do so, until April 19, 1861.

The precise dates, and the precise events, of the start and end of the civil war was addressed by the United States Supreme Court in the case of The Protector, 79 U.S. 700 (1870).

It is necessary, therefore, to refer to some public act of the political departments of the government to fix the dates, and, for obvious reasons, those of the executive department which may be and in fact was, at the commencement of hostilities, obliged to act during the recess of Congress, must be taken.
The proclamation of intended blockade by the President may therefore be assumed as marking the first of these dates, and the proclamation that the war had closed as marking the second. But the war did not begin or close at the same time in all the states. There were two proclamations of intended blockade: the first of the 19th of April, 1861, embracing the States of South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Florida, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Texas; the second of the 27th of April, 1861, embracing the States of Virginia and North Carolina; and there were two proclamations declaring that the war had closed, one issued on the 2d of April, 1866, embracing the States of Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Mississippi, Tennessee, Alabama, Louisiana, and Arkansas, and the other issued on the 20th of August, 1866, embracing the State of Texas.

Again, only a public act of the government may fix the date of the start of a war. Kibbitzers in the peanut gallery do not get to replace the government and make such decisions for it.

And in Brown v Hiatts, 82 U.S. 177 (1872) the U.S. Supreme Court addressed the matter again.

Opinion of the Court at 183-185:

It was held in the case of The Protector that the war began in that State at the date of the proclamation of intended blockade of her ports by the President. That was the first public act of the executive in which the existence of war in that State was officially recognized, and to its date the courts therefore look as the commencement of the war. And so far as the operation of the statute of limitations is concerned, it was held in the same case that the war continued until proclamation was in like manner officially made of its close. That occurred on the 2d of April, 1866. The period, therefore, between the 27th of April, 1861, and the 2d of April, 1866, must be excluded in the computation of the time during which the statute has run against the right of action of the complainant on the bond and mortgage in suit, and being excluded the present suit is not barred. It is unnecessary to go at length over the grounds upon which the court has repeatedly held that the statutes of limitation of the several States did not run against the right of action of parties during the continuance of the civil war. It is sufficient to state that the war was accompanied by the general incidents of a war between independent nations; that the inhabitants of the Confederate States on the one hand, and of the loyal States on the other, became thereby reciprocally enemies to each other, and were liable to be so treated without reference to their individual dispositions or opinions; that during its continuance all commercial intercourse and correspondence between them were interdicted by principles of public law as well as by express enactments of Congress; that all contracts previously made between them were suspended; and that the courts of each belligerent were closed to the citizens of the other.

Hanger v. Abbott, 73 U.S. 532 (1867)

Proclamation of blockade was made by the President on the nineteenth day of April, 1861, and, on the thirteenth day of July, in the same year, Congress passed a law authorizing the President to interdict all trade and intercourse between the inhabitants of the States in insurrection and the rest of the United States.[1]
War, when duly declared or recognized as such by the war making power, imports a prohibition to the subjects, or citizens, of all commercial intercourse and correspondence with citizens or persons domiciled in the enemy country.[2] Upon this principle of public law it is the established rule in all commercial nations, that trading with the enemy, except under a government license, subjects the property to confiscation, or to capture and condemnation.[3]
[1] 12 Stat. at Large, 1258-257.
[2] The William Bagaley, 5 Wallace (72 U.S.), 405; Jecker et al. v. Montgomery, 18 Howard (60 U.S.), 111; Wheaton on Maritime Captures; 209.
[3] The Rapid, 8 Cranch (12 U.S.), 155; The Hoop, 1 Robinson Admiralty, 196.

The Rapid, 8 Cranch (12 U.S.) 155, 160-161 (1814)

This is the first case, since its organization, in which this Court bas heen called upon to assert the rights of war against the property of a citizen. It is with extreme hesitation, and under a deep sense of the delicacy of the duty which we are called upon to discharge, that we proceed to adjudge the forfeiture of private right, upon principles of public law highly penal in their nature; and unfortunatcly too little understood.
But a new state of things has occurred—a new character has been assumed by this nation, which involves it in new relations, and confers on it new rights; which imposes a new class of obligations on our citizens, and .ubjects them to new penalties;
The nature and consequences of a state of war must direct us to the conclusions which we are to form on this case.
On this point there is really no difference of opinion among jurists: there can be none among those who will distinguish between what it is in itself, and what it ought to be under the influence of a benign morality and the modern practice of civilized nations. In the state of war, nation is known to nation only by their armed exterior; each threatening the other with conquest or annihilation. The individuals who compose the belligerent states, exist, as to each other, in a state of utter occlusion. If they meet, it is only in combat.
War strips man of his social nature; it demands of him the suppression of those sympathies which claim man for a brother; and accustoms the ear of humanity to hear with indifference, perhaps exultation, "that thousands have been slain."

These were only selected cases that were decided at the U.S. Supreme Court. As an official state of war affects whether there is lawful trade or trading with the enemy, and whether contractual obligations run or are tolled, the existence of a state of war is a legal matter for the government to decide, and it affects thousands or hundreds of thousands of cases. See also the cases cited in Hanger v. Abbott, and Brown v. Hiatt, 1 Dillon 372 (Kan., 1870).

I see you hope to bury the question of “war” under great stacks of legalisms, but the fact remains that informal terms like Barbary Wars, Indian Wars, Mormon War, Quasi War, Korean War (vs “police action”), gang wars, war on terror, etc., are perfectly legit in normal conversation.

Wars are wars. Conflicts with non-state actors cannot rise to meet the definition of war; neither International War, nor War of a Non-International Character. In real wars, those captured are prisoners of war. In non-wars, they cannot be prisoners of war, and are held as criminals. The war on terrorism is as real as the war on poverty.

Noam Lubell, Extraterritorial Use of Force Against Non-State Actors, Oxford Monographs in International Law, 2010, pbk 2011, p. 112-13:

1. The global war on terror’ as an armed conflict
The first question to be addressed, is the very use of the phrase ‘war on terror’. As a form of rhetoric, indicating the need to struggle with a grave phenomenon which plagues society, it might be a perfectly acceptable term, in the same way as ‘war on poverty’. However, when used in order to define a situation as an armed conflict to which the laws of war apply it is an entirely different matter. Just as declaring a ‘war on poverty’ is not enough to justify engaging in unilateral military operations against those considered responsible for the problem, simply announcing a global ‘war on terror’ is as nonsensically inadequate a foundation to determine the existence of an armed conflict. This is not to say that it is impossible for an armed conflict to be linked to the notion of a ‘war on terror’, but that use of the phrase alone is not a sufficient determinant. An armed conflict must involve at least two parties and ‘terror’ or ‘terrorism’ would not qualify as such, since these are descriptions of a method, rather than of a distinct entity capable of being a party to a conflict. Moreover, not only is ‘terror’/‘terrorism’ a method rather than an entity, it is also one which is notorious for lacking any agreed definition. Furthermore, terrorism was in the past seen as a phenomenon to which states reacted through criminal and law enforcement means rather than by war. Its mere invocation cannot, therefore, be grounds for automatic categorization as war.

In the case of the Civil War, the US government never did officially recognize Confederates as a legitimate government and so never declared “war”, only rebellion.

In the case of the civil war, the U.S. government officially recognized the Confederate government as the de facto government of the Confederate states, and the Confederacy as a belligerent power. Other nations recognized the officially declared state of public war between the United States and the Confederate States. They declared neutrality between the warring parties. Nobody does or can declare neutrality in the war on poverty or the war on terror.

In multiple opinions, the U.S. Supreme Court recognized Lincoln's proclamation of a blockade as the United States government's official act recognizing the existence of a public war. The declaration is explicitly an international act, and distinct from a domestic act. The equivalent domestic act is a declaration of a closing of the ports.

A blockade is a "belligerent's prevention of access to or egress from an enemy's ports...." Implicit is the existence of enemy ports.

The proclamation of a blockade is an international act with specific legal consequences involving all the nations of the world. It is not normal conversation.

But whatever you call it, Confederates began attacking the USA sometimes even before declaring secession.

As the Supreme Court and international law have recognized for centuries, attacks do not create a recognized state of war. Only a government can decide if it is at war, and it does so by a public act which informs the world of the existence of said state of war.

The only real question is when the Union response could be considered warlike. Must go now, no more time until Sunday...

"Warlike" and "the Union response" being so considered does not cut it. For there to be a state of war there must be governmental act recognizing the existence of a state of war. A state of war affects all nations of the world and the rest of the world must be informed when a government considers itself to be in a state of war. Col. Anderson's move from Fort Moultrie to Fort Sumter was considered warlike to some, but it was definitely was not the start of a war. The actions of the Star of the West were considered warlike to some. Firing across her bows by cadets on Morris Island at the South Carolina Military Academy, now The Citadel, was sort of warlike, but there was no war in 1860 as a result. What matters regarding the Civil War is when the United States government acknowledged and proclaimed it was at war.

If the civil war was not recognized as a public war, then other nations could not have legally treated with the Confederate States, or entered into commercial contracts with them. Once the Confederacy was recognized as a belligerent power at war with the United States, other nations, following their declaration of neutrality, could and did receive ministers from the Confederacy and enter into commerce with the de facto government of the Confederacy.

The only fact requisite to identify when the United States was at war is to determine the public act of the government which recognized a state of war existed, and when that public act determines the start date to have been.

For purposes of Pensions, Bonuses, and Veterans' Relief, Periods of War are defined in 38 C.F.R. § 3.2.

Civil War Veterans is defined at 38 U.S. Code § 1501.

(3) The term “Civil War veteran” includes a person who served in the military or naval forces of the Confederate States of America during the Civil War, and the term “active military or naval service” includes active service in those forces.

Monthly payments to the child of a Civil War veteran (who happened to have Confederate Army service) continued until the last remaining eligible beneficiary died May 31, 2020.

woodpusher: "Wars are wars.
Conflicts with non-state actors cannot rise to meet the definition of war; neither International War, nor War of a Non-International Character."

Again, I totally "get" that you wish to bury the word "war" under great stacks of legalisms which have no bearing on this discussion.
Just consider: Lincoln's blockade was announced in response to Jefferson Davis' Letters of Marque -- so announcing a blockade is an act of war, but issuing Letters of Marque and assaulting Fort Sumter are not??
It's ridiculous.

Your argument here reflects this site:

"Blockading the Confederate states contradicted Lincoln’s militia proclamation of April 15 because international law considered a blockade an act of war against a foreign nation.
Lincoln had refused to acknowledge the Confederates had formed a foreign nation when he called out the militia, even though blockading their ports could be considered recognition of Confederate independence.
Conversely, if this truly was a rebellion as Lincoln had asserted, then the Federal government would be violating states’ rights by unconstitutionally blockading a sovereign state.
Navy Secretary Gideon Welles, after conferring with Massachusetts Senator Charles Sumner (the powerful chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee), had urged Lincoln to issue an executive order simply closing the ports in rebellious states.
Influential Pennsylvania Congressman Thaddeus Stevens backed Welles.
They contended that not only would a blockade play into Confederate hands by indirectly acknowledging their nationhood, but it would make the Confederacy eligible for international rights to buy arms, receive loans, and operate against Federal shipping.
On the other hand, Secretary of State William H. Seward had been advised by Lord Richard Lyons, the British minister in Washington, that Great Britain had no obligation to honor an executive order because it had no foreign merit.
The British would only support the Federal war effort if the administration imposed a blockade.
Britain needed southern cotton, and international law would allow British vessels to run the blockade at their own risk to get it.
Lincoln knew his administration needed British support.
He also worried that simply closing the ports would invite foreign vessels to violate the closures, which could lead not only to foreign recognition of the Confederacy, but even to foreign navies protecting Confederate ports against the U.S.
Seward argued that a blockade would better enable Federal naval vessels under international law to stop neutral ships on the high seas and confiscate cargo going to Confederate ports.
With his cabinet divided, Lincoln sided with Seward....
Lincoln’s proclamation also stipulated that “if any person, who, under the pretended authority of said (Confederate) States, or under any other pretense, should molest a vessel of the United States, or the persons or cargo on board of her, such person shall be held amenable to the laws of the United States for the prevention and punishment of piracy,” and, if convicted by the courts, hanged for piracy.
This countered Confederate President Jefferson Davis’s proclamation of April 17 authorizing private shipowners to apply for letters of marque and reprisal to engage in privateering against Federal commercial shipping.
Lincoln reasoned that the Confederacy, not being a legitimate nation, had no right to license privateers.

The proclamation legally contradicted itself by recognizing Confederate legitimacy by imposing a naval blockade on one hand while refusing to acknowledge that legitimacy by treating their privateers as pirates on the other.
The notion of a blockade meant a state of war existed between two nations, but hanging those who harassed Federal shipping meant the conflict was merely a domestic uprising.
The Lincoln administration tried having it both ways..."

The key point here is that Lincoln wanted international benefits from declaring a blockade, but was still not willing to formally recognize Confederates as legitimate.
Nor did he, ever.

"After the war, Lost Cause proponent Raphael Semmes contended that the announcement of a blockade had carried de facto recognition of the Confederate States of America as an independent national entity since countries do not blockade their own ports but rather close them (See Boston Port Act).[38]
Under international law and maritime law, however, nations had the right to stop and search neutral ships in international waters if they were suspected of violating a blockade, something port closures would not allow.
In an effort to avoid conflict between the United States and Britain over the searching of British merchant vessels thought to be trading with the Confederacy, the Union needed the privileges of international law that came with the declaration of a blockade."

Clearly Lincoln was not happy with the legal choice of "blockade" vs. "port closures" and so picked a middle route attempting to gain the benefits of both.
Lincoln never admitted that a declaration of "blockade" somehow granted legitimacy to the pretended Confederacy.

Nonsensical legalisms aside, the fact remains that Confederate Democrats were, in effect, waging war on the United States from Day One in 1860, while Republican Unionists were very slow to respond with actions that might be deemed warlike.

[Woodpusher] Conflicts with non-state actors cannot rise to meet the definition of war; neither International War, nor War of a Non-International Character."

[BroJoeK] Again, I totally "get" that you wish to bury the word "war" under great stacks of legalisms which have no bearing on this discussion.

Just to be clear. I have cited and quoted a half dozen U.S. Supreme Court opinions, the State Department, the Code of Federal Regulations, the United States Code, and several expert legal texts.

You have responded with a a website which is neither linked nor identified in any way. However, is is:

https://civilwarmonths.com/2016/04/20/the-lincoln-blockade-proclamation/

The Lincoln Blockade Proclamation
April 20, 2016
Walter Coffey

It is a pathetic attempt to make believe you are responding to what I posted.

[BroJoeK] Just consider: Lincoln's blockade was announced in response to Jefferson Davis' Letters of Marque -- so announcing a blockade is an act of war, but issuing Letters of Marque and assaulting Fort Sumter are not??
It's ridiculous.

It is your nonsense that is ridiculous. Jefferson Davis did not have the power to place the United States in a state of war by writing on a piece of paper. THAT is the law, as affirmed by the U.S. Supreme Court. Only a public act of the U.S. Government can place the United States in a state of war.

[BroJoeK] Your argument here reflects this site:

You could not even link or identify YOUR chosen website which I never cited or even alluded to.

My argument reflected the cited and quoted sources, including the U.S. Supreme Court; the United States Code (federal statute law); the Code of Federal Regulations (codified federal regulations); The Law of Armed Conflict by Gary D. Solis, retired Professor of Law of the U.S. Military Academy who directed the West Point Law of War program for six years; Extraterritorial Use of Force Against Non-State Actors by Noam Lubbell, Lecturer, Irish Centre of Human Rigths, School of Law, National University of Ireland, Galway, and more.

You have cited as authority, snippets you saw of the Militia Acts of 1792 and 1795, and because you did not read them, you failed to recognize that the Act of 1795 repealed the Act of 1792 in its entirety. There is nothing that quite compares to citing as authority, an Act which has been dead and buried for 225 years.

You cited the War of Terror as a real war, like WW2. I cited and quoted a legal text explaining why that is impossible. As Noam Lubbell pointed out, terror and terrorism are descriptions and not even entities. That garbage does not even rise to the level of a non-state actor. And yet you claimed, "gang wars, war on terror, etc., are prefectly legit...."

As Lubbell pointed out, and as I quoted,

Just as declaring a ‘war on poverty’ is not enough to justify engaging in unilateral military operations against those considered responsible for the problem, simply announcing a global ‘war on terror’ is as nonsensically inadequate a foundation to determine the existence of an armed conflict.

The "war on terror" is as nonsensical to determine the existence of an armed conflict. Keep spewing nonsense if you must.

[Your Walter Coffey web article] "Blockading the Confederate states contradicted Lincoln’s militia proclamation of April 15...."

The proclamation of April 15 did not proclaim a blockade, cited combinations of persons and Lincoln did "command the persons composing the combinations aforesaid to disperse, and retire peaceably to their respective abodes within twenty days from this date."

In Matthews v. McStea, 91 U.S. 7, 9 (1875), the U.S. Supreme Court explained precisely why the proclamation of April 15 did not signify the start of war and the proclamation of April 19 did.

No declaration of war was ever made. The President recognized its existence by proclaiming a blockade on the 19th of April; and it then became his duty as well as his right to direct how it should be carried on. In the exercise of this right, he was at liberty to allow or license intercourse; and his proclamations, if they did not license it expressly, did, in our opinion, license it by very cogent implications. It is impossible to read them without a conviction that no interdiction of commercial intercourse, except through the ports of the designated States, was intended. The first was that of April 15, 1861. The forts and property of the United States had, prior to that day, been forcibly seized by armed forces. Hostilities had commenced; and, in the light of subsequent events, it must be considered that a state of war then existed. Yet the proclamation, while calling for the militia of the several States, and stating what would probably be the first service assigned to them, expressly declared, that, “in every event, the utmost care would be observed, consistently with the repossession of the forts, places, and property which had been seized from the Union, to avoid any devastation, destruction of or interference with property, or any disturbance of peaceful citizens in any part of the country.” Manifestly, this declaration was not a mere military order. It did not contemplate the treatment of the inhabitants of the States in which the unlawful combinations mentioned in the proclamation existed as public enemies. It announced a different mode of treatment, — the treatment due to friends. It is to be observed that the proclamation of April 15, 1861, was not a distinct recognition of an existing state of war. The President had power to recognize it, The Prize Cases, supra ; but he did not prior to his second proclamation, that of April 19, in which he announced the blockade.

The proclamation does not contradict the proclamation of April 15; it proclaimed a change in the course of action just four days later.

Clearly Lincoln was not happy with the legal choice of "blockade" vs. "port closures" and so picked a middle route attempting to gain the benefits of both.
Lincoln never admitted that a declaration of "blockade" somehow granted legitimacy to the pretended Confederacy.

First, nobody gives a shit whether Lincoln "never admitted that a declaration of 'blockade' somehow granted legitimacy to the pretended Confederacy." His cabinet advised him before he did it, he made a fully informed choice, and he proclaimed it to the world. European nations quickly responded by declaring neutrality between the warring parties.

NO, Lincoln did NOT pick "a middle route attempting to gain the benefits of both." Aside from the fact that there is no "middle route," on April 19, 1861 Lincoln proclaimed to the world that "... an insurrection against the Government of the United States has broken out in the States of South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Florida, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Texas, and the laws of the United States for the collection of the revenue cannot be effective executed therein...."

And, Lincoln proclaimed he had "deemed it advisable to set on foot a blockade within the ports of the States aforesaid, in pursuance of the laws of the United States and the law of Nations...."

For those who continue to labor under the delusion that the "Law of Nations" was just a book by de Vattel, its three-word definition in Black's Law Dictionary is "See International Law." The Law of Nations is the old fashioned term for International Law. Lincoln even proclaimed that he took his blockade action pursuant to International Law. International Law does not apply to purely domestic actions. Lincoln proclaimed to the world that International Law DID apply to his act of blockade.

As for your false premise that "Just consider: Lincoln's blockade was announced in response to Jefferson Davis' Letters of Marque," notice that Lincoln's proclamation of April 19 stated that "persons engaged in such insurrection, have threatened to grant latters of marque...." You should at least read the documents you make believe you are taking information from. You would not only give to Jefferson Davis the power to put the United States in a state of war by writing on a piece of paper, you give to unidentified persons engaged in an insurrection, the power to place the United States in a state of war by threatening to write on a piece of paper. It is for the U.S. government, and the U.S. government only, to decide if the United States is in a state of war.

Lincoln did not issue his proclamation in ignorance of the law, or its effects. Lincoln was a lawyer, and the issue was debated in the cabinet. On April 11, 1865, when the war was almost over, the U.S. Government announced a closing of the ports. At the time of this proclamation, Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles said: "This was a step which I had earnestly pressed at the beginning of the rebellion, as a domestic measure, and more legitimate than a blockade, which was international, and an admission that we were two nations." Lincoln made a considered judgment that the benefits of a blockade outweighed the cost of it being an international act.

What Lincoln did on April 19, 1861 is explained quite well by Lincoln's proclamation concerning blockade of April 11, 1865 (Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln, Vol 8, p. 396)

Proclamation Concerning Blockade
April 11, 1865
By the President of the United States of America:
A Proclamation.
Whereas, by my Proclamations of the nineteenth and twenty seventh days of April, one thousand eight hundred and sixty-one, the ports of the United States in the States of Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana and Texas, were declared to be subject to blockade; but whereas the said blockade has, in consequence of actual military occupation by this Government, since been conditionally set aside or relaxed in respect to the ports of Norfolk and Alexandria, in the State of Virginia, Beaufort in the State of North Carolina, Port Royal in the State of South Carolina, Pensacola and Fernandina in the State of Florida, and New Orleans in the State of Louisiana:
And, whereas, by the fourth section of the Act of Congress approved on the thirteenth of July eighteen hundred and sixty one, entitled ``An act further to provide for the collection of duties on imports and for other purposes,'' the President, for the reasons therein set forth, is authorized to close certain ports of entry;
Now, therefore, be it known, that I, Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States, do hereby proclaim that the ports of Richmond, Tappahannock, Cherrystone, Yorktown and Petersburg in Virginia; of Camden, (Elizabeth City,) Edenton, Plymouth, Washington, Newbern, Ocracoke and Wilmington, in North Carolina; of Charleston, Georgetown and Beaufort in South Carolina; of Savannah, St. Mary's and Brunswick, (Darien) in Georgia; of Mobile in Alabama; of Pearl River, (Shieldsborough,) Natchez and Vicksburg in Mississippi; of St. Augustine, Key West, St. Marks, (Port Leon,) St. John's, (Jacksonville,) and Apalachicola, in Florida; of Teché, (Franklin) in Louisiana; of Galveston, La Salle, Brazos de Santiago, (Point Isabel,) and Brownsville, in Texas, are hereby closed, and all right of importation, warehousing, and other privileges shall, in respect to the ports aforesaid, cease until they shall have again been opened by order of the President; and if, while said ports are so closed, any ship or vessel from beyond the United States or having on board any articles subject to duties, shall attempt to enter any such port, the same, together with its tackle, apparel, furniture and cargo, shall be forfeited to the United States.

It was explicitly proclaimed as a blockade pursuant to International Law, and it was a blockade. It was not a middle path between an international act and a domestic act. There is no such thing.

It immediately caused various nations to declare neutrality, and was not changed to a closing of the ports for four years.

Bouvier's Law Dictionary, 1856 Edition

NEUTRALITY, The state of a nation which takes no part between two or more other nations at war.

And here is an up-to-date source on International Law and Neutrality

https://www.eda.admin.ch/eda/en/fdfa/foreign-policy/international-law/neutrality.html

The law of neutrality applies to international conflicts but not to internal conflicts, which the majority of conflicts currently represent.

That just about sums up what Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles said in 1861.

Lincoln declared a blockade pursuant to International Law. Get over it. The cost was to recognize the Confederacy as a belligerent power; to recognize the Confederate Government as a de facto government; and to recognize a public war existed between the United States and the Confederacy.

Irene Triplett's father, Mose, deserted the Confederate army and joined the Union army, thus his pension until his death in 1938 and his daughter's pension until her death in 2020.

https://www.aarp.org/home-family/voices/veterans/info-2020/last-civil-war-pensioner-dies.html

When her mother died, in 1967, Irene Triplett, who had a cognitive disability and thus was eligible for the pension for life, became the recipient.

You forgot the link.

In 1958 (after the last CW veterans had passed) Congress awarded pensions to Confederate veterans and their eligible heirs.

That did not happen in 1958. The 1958 law says not a mumbling word about children of Civil War veterans; and the widows and children of Civil War veterans were already eligible for said benefits prior to the 1858 law. The 1858 law increased the benefits already authorized by a prior law.

The 1858 Veterans' Benefits law sticks a plug in your verbal diarrhea that the United States government never recognized the existence of the Confederacy. You cannot have veterans of something whose existence is denied, much less such veterans entitled to a Federal pension by United States Federal law.

https://uscode.house.gov/statutes/pl/85/425.pdf

72 Stat. 133
Public Law 85-425
May 23, 1858
AN ACT
To increase the monthly rates of pension payable to widows and former widows of deceased veterans of the Spanish-American War, Civil War, Indian War, and Mexican War, and provide pensions to widows of veterans who served in the military or naval forces of the Confederate States of America duringt(he Civil War.
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That the Veterans' Benefits Act of 1957 (Public Law 85-56) is amended:
(1) In section 431, strike out the figure “$52.50” and insert, the figure “$65”.
(2) In subsection 432 (a), strike out the figure “$54.18" and insert the figure “$65”, and strike out the figure “$67.73” and insert the figure “$75”.
(3) Section 432 is amended by adding at the end thereof the following new subsection:
“(e) For the purpose of this section, and section 433, the term ‘veteran’ includes a person who served in the military or naval forces of the Confederate States of America during the Civil War, and the term ‘active, military or naval service’ includes active service in such forces.”
(4) In section 433, strike out the figure “$48.77” and insert the figure “$73.13”.
(5) In subsection 434 (a), strike out the figure “$54.18” and insert the figure “$65”, and strike out the figure “$67.73” and insert the figure “$75”.
(6) In section 435, strike out the figure “$48.77” and insert the figure “$73.13”.
(7) In subsection 436 (a), strike out the figure “$54.18” and insert the figure “$65”, and strike out the figure “$67.73” and insert the : figure “$75”.
(8) In section 437, strike out the figure “$62.31” and insert the figure “$73.13”.
(9) Immediately above section 411, insert the following:
“confederate forces veterans
“Sec. 410. The Administrator shall pay to each person who served in the military or naval forces of the Confederate States of America during the Civil War a monthly pension in the same amounts and subject to the same conditions as would have been applicable to such person under the laws in effect on December 31, 1957, if his service in such forces had been service in the military or naval service of the United States.”
Sec. 2. This Act shall be effective from the first day of the second calendar month following its enactment.
Approved May 23, 1958.

You missed that Public Law 85-425 said not a mumbling word about pensions for children of Civil War veterans. That eligibility came from Public Law 85-56.

CHILDREN OF CIVIL WAR VETERANS
Sec. 433. Whenever there is no widow entitled to pension under section 432, the Administrator shall pay to the children of each Civil War veteran who met the service requirements of section 432 a pension at the monthly rate of $48.77 for one child, plus $8.13 for each additional child, with the total amount equally divided.

Public Law 85-425 increased the pension amount from $48.77 to $73.13.

In 1967, when her mother died, Irene Triplett was equally eligible for said pension as the daughter of a Union or Confederate veteran of the Civil War. The term "civil war veteran" subsumed both Union and Confederate soldiers and sailors equally, for purposes of Federal pensions.

So there is no undisputed record of actual Confederates receiving Federal pensions for their service.

Nobody cares about your opinion that "there is no undisputed record of actual Confederates receiving Federal pensions for their service."

It is indisputable that Federal law established that Confederate veterans of the Civil War, who served in the Confederate Army or Navy, and their widows, and their children, (and Union folks similarly situated), were entitled to a U.S. Government-paid Federal pension on an equal basis, "a monthy pension in the same amounts and subject to the same conditions" as "if his service in such forces had been service in the military or naval service of the United States."

The Confederate States of America existed, as did the Confederate Army and Navy, despite your desperate denials. The Federal government recognized their existence and authorized payments of Federal pensions to said Confederate veterans and their widows and children on an equal basis with veterans of the U.S. military services.

Your nonsensical opinion disputing actual payments made remains irrelevant, as does much of your verbal diarrhea. The Federal Government did not authorize pension payments to veterans of something whose existence they did not recognize. By your silly nonsense, you would have the Federal Government authorizing pension payments to people for the time they were engaged in criminal acts of treason. It is only your logic that leads to such absurd results. Of course, they fought lawfully for a recognized belligerent power.

woodpusher: "As Lubbell pointed out, and as I quoted,
'Just as declaring a ‘war on poverty’ is not enough to justify engaging in unilateral military operations against those considered responsible for the problem, simply announcing a global ‘war on terror’ is as nonsensically inadequate a foundation to determine the existence of an armed conflict.' "

[BroJoeK #116] You are here declaring it illegitimate to use the word "war" outside of formal declarations, but in ordinary language allusions to war are found everywhere -- recall, for example, that "the Battle of the Bulge" is as often used to refer to middle-age waistlines as it is to events in December 1944.

In discussing the official start date of the Civil War, we are not discussing your battle with your diet. We are contrasting the opinions of an internet blogger with those of a renowned expert at international law. The renowned expert states that "Just as declaring a ‘war on poverty’ is not enough to justify engaging in unilateral military operations against those considered responsible for the problem, simply announcing a global ‘war on terror’ is as nonsensically inadequate a foundation to determine the existence of an armed conflict."

We are discussing an armed military conflict, a state of actual war, not your battle with your bulging waistline.

A half dozen U.S. Supreme Court opinions agree that Lincoln's proclamation of April 15, 1861 did not place the United States in a state of war, but his Proclamation of April 19, 1861 did.

Your blithering nonsense that the war began in 1860 is just the verbal diarrhea of someone who did not stay at a Holiday Inn Express. Only the United States Government can decide when the United States is at war. It did. On April 19, 1861 it proclaimed to the world that there was an insurrection against the United States government in several named States, and proclaimed a blockade against those States pursuant to The Law of Nations, i.e., INTERNATIONAL LAW.

Your concern about your waistline is noted, but not relevant.

We also commonly refer to gang wars and a war on drugs.

What are the the start and end dates of the gang wars or the war on drugs? Who makes the determination? What is the basis of determination? Who were the belligerent parties? Were they states or non-state actors? In your war on calories, did the calories shoot back? Were there any casualties?

Did Jerry Nadler's losing battle with sphincter control constitute an act of war?

When did your battle of your bulging waistline begin? How will we know when it is ended? Is it when the last roll of flab is gone, or on some other basis? Is it not over until you are sporting a six-pack? Will its start and end date not be decided until the U.S. Supreme Court issues an opinion which is uncontested by any internet wizard?

So all your legalisms are irrelevant to the common & informal uses of the word "war".

All of your nonsense is irrelevant to the start date of the American Civil War which was a real, shooting war. The Chief Executive proclaimed to the world a state of war, explicitly initiated pursuant to International Law, and the ultimate authority of the Judicial Branch found that proclamation to be the start of the war, your battle with your bulge notwithstanding. Unnamed combinations of persons cannot place the United States in a state of war by threatening to issue letters of marque. The Duchy of Grand Fenwick cannot do it by threatening to unleash the Q-bomb. Only the U.S. government can do it.

Your attempt to conflate the U.S. Civil War with the war on drugs or your battle with your waistline is nonsense.

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