I Pledge allegiance to the Confederate Flag

I Pledge allegiance to the Confederate Flag, and to the Southern People and the Culture for which it stands

The Confederate flag is again under attack, as it has always been, and as it always will be. It is under attack because of what it symbolizes. The problem is that to many Southerners have forgotten just what it does symbolize.

The Confederate Nation of 1860 - 1865 was the intellectual, as well as the spiritual, continuation of the United States of America as founded, planned, and formed by Southerners. It was the stated, and often repeated, position of almost all Southerners in the 1860’s that they, and the South, were the heirs of the original political theory embodied in the U. S. Constitution of 1789. In 1860 their attempted to separate from the rest of the states and form their own nation since that was the only way the South could preserve the philosophy and the virtues that had made the United States the magnificent nation it had become.

In both of these contentions, that is, the South was the true repository of the original political theory that made the United States great, and the South was the true home of the people who took the necessary actions to found, make, and preserve the original United States, Southerners have been proven by the passage of time to be correct.

The Southern colonies of Virginia, North and South Carolina and Maryland were where the majority of the original American population resided until the 1700’s despite the fact Massachusetts was settled only 13 years after Virginia and New York was settled 18 years before South Carolina. As the population of the colonies grew, the New England States and the middle Atlantic states, gained population so that by the time of the American Revolutionary War the two general areas of the north and the South were generally equal in size with a small population advantage being shown by Virginia. This slight difference in population by a southern state was to have a profound effect on the development of the United States.

First of all, the New England states managed to start a war with England, which they verbalized as "taxation without representation." In truth the problem from their point of view was the taxes on their trade. Having started the war they then promptly managed to lose it. The British, after conquering the entire north from Maine (then part of Massachusetts) to Boston, to Providence, to New York, to the new nation’s capital, Philadelphia, shifted their military forces to move against the Southern colonies. They secured their foothold in the South by capturing Savannah and Charleston and then proceeded to move inland to subdue the Southern population. They planed to catch the Virginia forces under General Washington in a coordinated attack moving down from the north, which they held, and up from the South that they thought they would also conquer.

The British army that had mastered the north found they could not defeat the Southern people. Once in the backwoods of the South they found themselves to be the beaten Army. The British defeats at Kings Mountain and Cowpens were absolute. Their Pyrrhic victories at Camden and Guilford Courthouse were tantamount to defeat. In both North Carolina and South Carolina they were so weakened they had to retreat from the area of their few "victories" within days. Their defeats at those well-known sites among others, along with their defeat at Yorktown in Virginia, led directly to their surrender.

Having secured the political freedom from England for all the colonists, Southerners then mistakenly sat back and took a smaller role in forming the new American government that operated under an "Articles of Confederation." That first attempt at forming a government fell to the firebrands of New England who has started the war and who still asserted their moral position of leadership despite their poor showing on the field of battle. These Articles of Confederation, the product of the Yankee political mind, gave too much economic self determination to the separate colonies (as the Northern colonies had demanded in an attempt to protect their shipping, trade and manufacturing) and too little power of enforcement to a central government.

After a period of six difficult years, when the Articles of Confederation failed as a form of government, another convention was called and a new form of government was drawn up. This time the convention was under the leadership of Southerners and they brought forth the document we all refer to as the U.S. Constitution. Even northern historians do not try to pretend the Constitution and the ideas embodied therein are anything other than a product of the Southern political mind. (Yankee historians cannot deny it, but they do choose to ignore it so their students grow up ignorant of the fact that the Constitution is Southern.) So, as it turns out, when the new nation found itself in political trouble it was the South which, once again, came to the rescue just as it had when the nation found itself previously in military trouble.

With the slight population advantage it enjoyed over other states, Virginia was able to give to the new nation politicians who are nothing short of demigods. Their names are revered in all areas of the civilized world wherever political theorists converge. Washington, Jefferson, Madison, Randolph, Henry, Taylor and Monroe are just a few, there are many more. These men along with the leading political minds of South Carolina, Rutledge, Heyward, and, most importantly, Pinckney, saw their new nation through its birth and establishment.

The military leadership, as well as the political leadership, of the South saw the nation through its expansion. Under Southern leadership the British were defeated a second time in 1814. Under Southerners, most obviously John Tyler and Andrew Jackson, Florida was added as a state. The defeat of Mexico in 1846, under the Southern leadership of James Polk and numerous Southern military officers, established of the United States as a force to be feared. That was an astonishing accomplishment for so small and so young a nation

Thomas Jefferson, who added the Louisiana Purchase, barely escaped impeachment for his efforts. The north argued continuously against the war with Mexico that added the area from Texas to California just as they had argued against the Louisiana Purchase. One Congressman from Illinois, Abraham Lincoln, was particularly vehement against Texas being made a state. Northerners, having seen Mexico defeated and the United States enlarged all the way to the Pacific Ocean, then objected to the methods and motives of the acquisition of the Washington and Oregon territories in the northwest. Polk, who had added that vast area from Louisiana to California to Colorado to the pacific northwest, served only one term as President due to the constant attacks he sufferer in the Northern press. Left to the people of the north, the French would still control from Minnesota to Louisiana and Mexico would control from Texas to the Pacific while Canada would still include Washington, Oregon Idaho and Montana.

Every square inch of soil that now comprises the continental United States was added under a Southern president, and they did it over the strenuous political objections of the north. The provincial and mercenary Yankee people fought every effort to expand the United States. The expansion of the United States became a regional political disagreement that spread ill feeling north and South. Its accomplishment by Southerners was no small feat. It was accomplished under Southern military leadership and with much Southern blood. (Which is why Tennessee is called "The Volunteer State" and the names of Southerners are almost exclusively the only ones found on memorial tablets and monuments from Texas to California.). The expansion of the original colonies into the continental power it became was completely the results of the Southern mind and Southern leadership.

Having secured the freedom of the United States from England and then having formed and led the successful government into a new political age under a written constitution that is still the envy of the whole world, the South gave the entire military and political leadership that formed the United States into the boundaries it now enjoys. But these magnificent accomplishments were soon to be overshadowed by population shifts and the ensuing results that brings in a representative government. By the early 1820s the north had finally secured just enough additional population that it had achieved enough political clout to start protecting its first love, its money. The unfair and punitive tariffs that were passed in 1828 led to the South’s first half-hearted attempt to form its own separate government with the Nullification movement of 1832. The threat of war that South Carolina held out in 1832 then caused a negotiated modification of those laws to where the South could live with them. For the time being, the political question was settled by compromise.

While those changes pacified the political leaders of the South for the time being, some statesmen could see, even then, that if the North ever became totally dominant politically, the South would be destroyed, not just economically, but philosophically and spiritually as well. Those statesmen, with Calhoun in the lead, then started planting the intellectual seeds that led to the South’s second attempt at political freedom in 1860.

Unfortunately, in the 1840’s Yankee abolitionist introduced the new poison of the "voluntary end" of slavery as a political issue. There were attempts by many Southerners to defuse this situation by offering an economic solution. That is, Southerners offered to end slavery in the South just as England had ended it in the West Indies, by having the slave-holders paid for their losses when the slaves were freed. The abolitionist Yankees would have none of that. Their position was simple, the South could give up it slaves for free and each farmer could absorb the loss personally. There was to be no payment. To the Yankee abolitionists it was either their way or war.

The fact that the abolitionist movement became a dominant presence in the northern part of the United States from the 1840’s on is primarily because a liberal can politicize any subject and enrage any body of people regardless of the level of preexisting good will. (As current liberals have turned the simple good sense argument that one should not litter one’s own environment into the political upheaval of "the ecology movement." The effectiveness of liberal methods can currently be seen in the simple instance that most people believe such nonsense as the chemical cause of "ozone depletion" and "the greenhouse effect" despite any evidence of either. Liberals are absolutely capable, by their strident, activist natures of raising any question to harmful emotional heights.)

Unfortunately, the loss of the War for Southern Independence in 1865 caused the very thing that Southern statesmen had foreseen in the 1830’s; that is, the north became dominant and the cultural, spiritual, and economic base of the South was decimated. The loss of the war was most severely felt in the South, of course, but it has also had political repercussions in the north as well.

Without the South in a position of dominance, the leadership of the United States has gone from Washington, Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, Tyler and Polk to the inept, or leftist, Grant, Harding, Arthur, Harrison and Roosevelt, among others. Plus, the ascendancy of the leftist north to national prominence has also caused the rise of leaders in the South who had to be acceptable to the north. Such spectacularly immoral or totally incompetent Southern politicians as Lyndon Johnson, Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton are examples of the quality of the men that the South must now produce to garner northern votes. When these modern day jackals are contrasted with the demigods the South produced when unfettered by the northern voter, that in itself should be enough to make all people reject northern philosophy and northern politics and embrace all things Southern.

As the forces of the left have gained ascendancy in the United States, the pressure intensifies to completely obliterate anything that remains between them and complete leftist victory. That means that the traditional enemy of leftists, the South, must be erased in its every form. That is why leftists always demand that even symbols of the South be eradicated.

We, therefore, now have a coalition of people who want the Southern flag taken down and hidden from public view. This coalition is composed of three main groups. First of all are African-Americans, whose emotional position is totally unmitigated by any knowledge of history. Secondly, there are Yankees who have moved to the South and who, despite their remarkable political failures in their own states, have learned nothing and continue to vote leftist here too. Or either these northern imports have been transferred here to run the newspapers that are owned by the people who live outside the South. And, thirdly, there are leftist Southerners, or Southerners of "politically correct" leaning, who have apparently learned their history from the television and movies and who feel the South is a bad place because it is not egalitarian enough.

But the demands of this coalition of political thinkers need to be put in proper perspective. Before anyone starts to tell someone else how to act and how to think, it is incumbent on him to demonstrate the success of his own ideas and actions. So far the introduction and enforcement of leftist ideas in our world has led to nothing but sorrow and degeneration. The force necessary to make people live under a leftist government has been the direct cause of the murder of over one hundred million people in this century alone. Leftist political theory has enslaved and impoverished billions of people worldwide. Its introduction has weakened even such great nations as England and France and reduced them to the status of third rate nations. Socialism in Scandinavia has reduced it to an economic level even less than that of England. In the United States leftist ideas have turned our country into the increasingly sick society it has become.

So until this coalition of leftist can point to a single successful instance of where their leftist philosophy has improved a country, or a people, rather than to the spectacular political failures the left has precipitated in any place into which its poisonous philosophy has been introduced, they have no right to demand anything of anybody. Leftist, the most spectacular political failures in all of history, have no standing to demand that Southerners accept anything that flows from their false philosophy. And of all people, leftist have the least demand on Southerners, the people who formed, guided, expanded and gave them a great country.

The Confederate flag is a symbol. It stands for the people who had the spirit, the courage, and the intelligence to give the world its greatest governmental entity. As long as the Confederate flag flies there is hope that the terrible scourge leftists have placed on the world will pass. It represents the culture that produced the most wished for, the most just, and the finest political system on earth. And as long as the Confederate flies there is hope that the greatness that was once ours may someday be reestablished.

Good for you Llaney! You can use the ctrl-P function! Now was it that hard to answer a simple question posed to you a week ago as to what your source was? Surely the answer is no, yet as evidenced by your delayed and excessive response, my question did indeed cause some trouble for you.

What is needed having been said, I ask you now. What exactly is it that you think yourself to know about the Corwin amendment and how does it pertain to this discussion? I ask this for the simple reason that you came here ranting and raving on the vaguest of terms about persons not understanding it after you noticed it had been mentioned by others in this thread.

In other words, if you posess information and familiarity with your all to often absent and unnamed "sources," what are they and why do you cite them so infrequently? At minimum, you should be able to provide a few details once and a while, and where applicable, give their sources. It's a fundamental concept of debating you seem unable to even begin, much less master. Considering you are a person who all to often smugly tells others who you do not know how they should use or acquire a library, I for one think it is high time for you to move out of the children's section. Other than that, have a nice day.

Inconvenient? How so? The fact is that some presidents violate the Constitution.

That is not fact. It's fantasy--at least in this case.

You sound shrill and out of control

Here are the -facts- re Jackson. Got this off the 'net:

"Indeed, citing the case of Andrew Jackson after the Battle of New Orleans, Lincoln noted that when a newspaper article appeared denouncing him while martial law was in effect, the author was arrested. When a lawyer defended the writer and cited the writ of habeas corpus, Jackson had the lawyer and the judge who ruled in the defendant’s favor both arrested. Lincoln supported this action, and noted that both were freed only after a treaty of peace was ratified."

Not only that--but Congress refunded to Jackson the $1,000 fine imposed by the judge.

There was ample precedent to support Lincoln,and--you guessed it--your position is simply fantasy.

Walt

These great and fundamental laws, which congress itself could not suspend, have been disregarded and suspended, like the writ of habeas corpus, by a military order, supported by force of arms.

Both Merryman and Dred Scott both pretty much blast Taney's reputation completely out of the water.

But even with Taney in their back pocket, the slave holders didn't even consider (apparently) going before the court. Why do you think that was?

You've seen this before:

"Lincoln, with his usual incisiveness, put his finger on the debate that inevitably surrounds issues of civil liberties in wartime. If the country itself is in mortal danger, must we enforce every provision safeguarding individual liberties even though to do so will endanger the very government which is created by the Constitution? The question of whether only Congress may suspend it has never been authoritatively answered to this day, but the Lincoln administration proceeded to arrest and detain persons suspected of disloyal activities, including the mayor of Baltimore and the chief of police."

Remarks of Supreme Court Chief Justice William A. Rehnquist

Director's Forum, Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars

November 17, 1999

Your position is not supported by the record, and yet you continue to push it. Why is that?

Walt

You'll have to dream up another fiction to bind the States to the Union involuntarily.

The Articles of Confederation were a failure.

The states -voluntarily- transferred some of their soevereign rights to the federal government--because it was the onlt thing that would work.

They knew this, and they made no bones about it.

Of course, your opinion bucks that of the president of the Constitutional Convention, George Washington:

"In all our deliberations on this subject we kept steadily in our view, that which appears to us the greatest interest of every true American, the consolidation of our Union, in which is involved our prosperity, felicity, safety, perhaps our national existance. This important consideration, seriously and deeply impressed on our minds [at the constitutional convention] led each State in the convention to be less rigid on points of inferior magnitude...the constitution, which we now present, is the result of of a spirit of amity, and of that mutual deference and concession which the peculularity of our political situation rendered indispensible."

George Washington to the Continental Congress September 17, 1787

The states were not --involuntarily-- yoked into the Union. Your statement is false.

Note also that this date, 9/17/87 is generally considered the birthday of the Constitution.

You know, I'd much rather have George Washington on my side than you.

Walt

I am quoted:

"The Federal Government is supreme." - Walt

Actually, I can't take credit for this.

"That the United States form, for many, and for most important purposes, a single natiion, has not yet been denied. In war, we are one people. In making peace, we are one people. In all commercial regulations, we are one and the same people. In many other respects, the American people are one; and the government which is alone capable of controlling and managing their interests in all these respects, is the government of the Union. It is their government and in that character, they have no other.

America has chosen to be, in many respects, and in many purposes, a nation; and for all these purposes, her government is complete; to all these objects it is competent. The people have declared that in the exercise of all powers given for these objects, it is supreme. It can, then, in effecting these objects, legitimately control all individuals or governments within the American territory. The constitution and laws of a state, so far as they are repugnant to the constitution and laws of of the United States are absolutely void. These states are constituent parts of the United States; they are members of one great empiure--for some purposes sovereign, for some purposes subordinate."

--Chief Justice John Marshall, writing the majority opinion, Cohens v. Virginia 1821

Walt

"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." Chief Justice Marshall, Ex parte Bollman & Swartwout, 4 Cranch 75, (1807)

Congress could not delegate the courts (nor the President) a power that was delegated to them. Chief Justice Roger B. Taney cited that decision in his case on habeas corpus,

This is good stuff, and I wouldn't be at all surprised if it did not form the basis for Chief Justice Rhenquist using the term "authoritatively" in his 1999 remarks, so thanks for this.

The fact remains that the Supreme Court did not rule on Lincoln's actions, and that Congress passed a "Habeas Corpus" act in 1863.

Probably how one reacts to this dueling sources between Taney and Rhenquist comes down to how one feels about the United States. If you love the United States, you support Rhenquist's ideas, if you hate the United States, Taney's interpretation might be more to your liking.

Walt

I don't see how you can accuse Lincoln of conspiracy in West Virginia since, as president, he played no part in the matter.

In this, as in so much, the secessionists screwed themselves right in the ground. Lincoln:

"The consent of the legislatiure of Virginia is constitutionally neccesary to the bill for the admission of West-Virginia becoming a law. A body claiming to be such a legislature has given its consent. We can not deny that it is such, unless we do so on the outside knowledge that the body was chosen at elections, in which a majority of the qualified voters of Virginia did not participate. But it is a universal practice in the popular elections of all the states, to give no legal consideration whatever to those who do not choose to vote, as against the effect of those, who do choose to vote. Hence, it is not the qualifed voters, but the qualified voters--who --choose--to--vote, that constitute the political power of the state."

And the state of Virgina agreed to the formation of West Virginia under the laws established by the United States.

This "How can Virginia be chopped up if secession is not allowed" argument is but another of the confederate apologists arguments, made in ignorance, that will not stand the slightest exposure to the historical record.

Walt

You won't be offended if I defer to his personal opinion instead of yours.

Not in the least. You certainly have the right to believe what you want. Rehnquist is an adherent of "inter arma silent leges" (in time of war the laws are silent). Heartwarming isn't it. Even after ex parte Milligan - which held that the Constitution cannot be suspended even in time of war - we have a justice today that thinks the Constitution is suspendable. By the way, Milligan was not just the opinion of Justice Davis. Back to Rehnquist, who had this to say as well,

I would have agreed with his view as to suspending the writ of habeas corpus, I think, because that seemed to be a real threat to the union. When the upper South seceded, Washington became a capital right on the frontier, right across the Potomac was Virginia, and the union simply could not afford to lose the nation's capital. So there I think you have a real situation that calls for some executive determination. On the other hand, when his postmaster general, Montgomery Blair, decided just to deny mailing privileges to all the newspapers in New York that were opposed to the war, there really was no justification. You've got to continue to have free speech and freedom of the press during the war.
Chief Justice Rehnquist, Interview with David Gergen, 11 Nov 1998.

So much for Rehnquist basing his opinion on anything contained within the Constitution. And as an aside, its questionable that the right enshrined in the body of the Constitution is deemed dismissable, yet the rights within the Bill of Rights are set in concrete.

'Shrouded' is certainly the word for what Taney wrote. That was not a decision of the court either.

LOL! - Not a decision. I know it was ex parte decision (meaning "for the benefit of"), and issued from the Maryland District Circuit court by Taney. In that decision Taney remanded it back to Lincoln, so that would have to use Constitutional means to accomplish his goals. In Taney's own words,

I shall, therefore, order all the proceedings in this case, with my opinion, to be filed and recorded in the circuit court of the United States for the district of Maryland, and direct the clerk to transmit a copy, under seal, to the president of the United States. It will then remain for that high officer, in fulfilment of his constitutional obligation to 'take care that the laws be faithfully executed,' to determine what measures he will take to cause the civil process of the United States to be respected and enforced.

According to the laws of these united states, it was an official decision. Of course, referring to that same interview quoted above, here's Lincolns response to Taneys decision, "[t]he President then ignored it. Taney issued his opinion, I think, in May, and Lincoln paid no attention to it." A President above the law, now he's President and Supreme Court Justice too?

Now, we -know- that the Taney court ruled in the 1862 "Prize Cases" -unanimously- that putting down the rebellion of the "so-called seceded states" (to use -their- phrase) was a legitimate function of the government. Do you support what Taney did there--deny the legitimacy of secession?

Attempting to change the subject? Settle this arguement first.

Again, I don't write this for your benefit, but for the lurkers.

I'm glad you didn't write it for my benefit. I'm sure the lurkers are grateful as well. Taney states, rather plainly I might add, that the Presidents powers are limited:

So too, his powers in relation to the civil duties and authority necessarily conferred on him are carefully restricted, as well as those belonging to his military character. He cannot appoint the ordinary officers of government, nor make a treaty with a foreign nation or Indian tribe, without the advice and consent of the senate, and cannot appoint even inferior officers, unless he is authorized by an act of congress to do so. He is not empowered to arrest any one charged with an offence against the United States, and whom he may, from the evidence before him, believe to be guilty; nor can he authorize any officer, civil or military, to exercise this power, for the fifth article of the amendments to the constitution expressly provides that no person 'shall be deprived of life, liberty or property, without due process of law' that is, judicial process.

Besides illegally suspeding the writ of habeas corpus, Taney also held that Lincoln also violated Amendments IV, V, and VI of our Constitution.

[N]o one who fairly examines the record will adopt your position.

Please refute the three cases I cited, especially the opinion of Chief Justice Marshall. Unless you have the ability to wave a magic wand to make at least three cases disappear - and only until then - anyone that does examine the official record, must adopt my position. Not one, but several courts and numerous justices held that only Congress may excercise the suspension of the writ of habeas corpus.

So please provide the decisions by the Supreme Court holding that the cited decisions were illegal, erroneous and unconstitutional. If you don't mind, I won't hold my breath in anticipation.

I read it. Ex Parte Merryman was a decision issued from the Circuit Court bench in Baltimore, not the Supreme Court. All it is is an indication of how Taney would have voted had the matter come to the Supreme Court, but he was only one voice.

It's still a decision. Until overruled by the Supreme Court, it was and still is a binding decision. Where in the Constitution does it grant the self-appointed Chief Justice Lincoln the power to ignore the opnions and decisions of the judiciary?

Ex Parte Milligan said that habeas corpus could not be suspended in states like Indiana which were not in rebellion and where the courts operated freely. It did not address Lincoln's actions in 1861.

They cannot justify on the mandate of the President; because he is controlled by law, and has his appropriate sphere of duty, which is to execute, not to make, the laws; and there is "no unwritten criminal code to which resort can be had as a source of jurisdiction."
The Constitution of the United States is a law for rulers and people, equally in war and in peace, and covers with the shield of its protection all classes of men, at all times and under all circumstances.
The Constitution goes no further. It does not say after a writ of habeas corpus is denied a citizen, that he shall be tried otherwise than by the course of the common law; if it had intended this result, it was easy by the use of direct words to have accomplished it. The illustrious men who framed that instrument were guarding the foundations of civil liberty against the abuses of unlimited power; they were full of wisdom, and the lessons of history informed them that a trial by an established court, assisted by an impartial jury, was the only sure way of protecting the citizen against oppression and wrong.
Martial law, established on such a basis, destroys every guarantee of the Constitution, and effectually renders the "military independent of and superior to the civil power" -- the attempt to do which by the King of Great Britain was deemed by our fathers such an offence, that they assigned it to the world as one of the causes which impelled them to declare their independence.

Davis stated that the Constitution could not be suspended in war or peace, and reiterated that the suspension of the writ does not destroy the writ. The entire case is based on the suspension of habeas corpus, which was of course, found unconstitutional. The President is the Commander-in-Chief of the military, Davis makes it clear that he cannot suspend the laws and subvert the Constitution.

It appears that Chief Justice Rehnquist's opinions are correct, but then he knows more about the law and the Constitution than you.

I never stated that I knew more about the law than Chief Justice Rehnquist, I have the utmost respect for the man. But again, how can his non-judicial opinion overrule that of multiple decisions on the subject?

If Lincoln, congress, or any other body had disagreed with Taney's decision, they certainly were within their right to carry it higher on appeal. As it stands, it's evidence once Taney spanked Lincoln publicly, Lincoln got his feelings hurt and disregarded the decision - evidence again of his disdain for the Constitution. And with that disdain it destroys any claims of Lincoln being a man of principle and convictions.

Who died and made you God? All hail, Walt, mindreader extraordinaire! Anyone who agrees with Justice Marshall's opinion that congress cannot delegate authority to suspend the writ of habeas corpus is now anti-American. Can't argue with facts, so you resort to accusations? I flew the US flag long before 11 Sep 2001, and still do today. BTW, his name is spelled R-e-h-n-q-u-i-s-t, as in William H. Rehnquist.

But as a circuit court decision it does not decide the constitutionality of the issue. Only the Supreme Court can do that. Should Lincoln have either abided by or appealed the ruling? Yes. But did he act unconstiutionaly in suspending habeas corpus in the first place? We don't know.

Let's look at other parts of the decision, shall we?

"It will be borne in mind that this is not a question of the power to proclaim martial law, when war exists in a community and the courts and civil authorities are overthrown. Nor is it a question what rule a military commander, at the head of his army, can impose on states in rebellion to cripple their resources and quell the insurrection. The jurisdiction claimed is much more extensive. The necessities of the service, during the late Rebellion, required that the loyal states should be placed within the limits of certain military districts and commanders appointed in them; and, it is urged, that this, in a military sense, constituted them the theatre of military operations; and, as in this case, Indiana had been and was again threatened with invasion by the enemy, the occasion was furnished to establish martial law. The conclusion does not follow from the premises. If armies were collected in Indiana, they were to be employed in another locality, where the laws were obstructed and the national authority disputed. On her soil there was no hostile foot; if once invaded, that invasion was at an end, and with it all pretext for martial law. Martial law cannot arise from a threatened invasion. The necessity must be actual and present; the invasion real, such as effectually closes the courts and deposes the civil administration...It follows, from what has been said on this subject, that there are occasions when martial rule can be properly applied. If, in foreign invasion or civil war, the courts are actually closed, and it is impossible to administer criminal justice according to law, then, on the theatre of active military operations, where war really prevails, there is a necessity to furnish a substitute for the civil authority, thus overthrown, to preserve the safety of the army and society; and as no power is left but the military, it is allowed to govern by martial rule until the laws can have their free course. As necessity creates the rule, so it limits its duration; for, if this government is continued after the courts are reinstated, it is a gross usurpation of power. Martial rule can never exist where the courts are open, and in the proper and unobstructed exercise of their jurisdiction. It is also confined to the locality of actual war."

So it is not a question of who suspended habeas corpus but where and when.

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