Hey, .06, now this is a classic strawman. Note how thatdewd has changed the whole thing to ex post facto laws and amending the Constitution from out of the blue, then argues their constitutionality? Even though that wasn't what was being discussed, nor a position espoused by me?
Hey, dewd, calm down. We can't have a reasonable discussion if you go off on a tirade about police states and tyrants. Were he the police-state ruling tyrant you feel, why did he stand for re-election at the end of his term, instead of merely establishing a dictatorship? (that question was rhetorical, btw. I haven't the time, energy, nor inclination to get into that can of grits.)
Many many many thousands of Northern citizens and members of the Press were arrested without charges and locked away in cells without due process as guaranteed by the Constitution. All in areas where the Courts never ceased to function and there was no "rebellion" or "insurrection".
And was not ruled on by the USSC until 1866, when it was held to be unconstitutional. A year after Lincoln was killed. Five years after habeus corpus was suspended. I posted a link some days ago, regarding the timeline, check it out. Riots and attacks on trains look a whole lot like insurrection to me.
Not true. His despotic action was found to be unconstitutional by a Federal Circuit Court almost immediately after he did it, and that ruling was never challenged. Lincoln simply ignored the Court, in true tyrant fashion.
That would have been the ruling by Taney, right? The same Taney who ruled in the Dred Scott case, right? Maybe there was a good reason Taney's rulings were ignored in a time of war, perhaps because he was a political stooge for the copperheads.
Tell you what, I'll even grant you that, in light of subsequent rulings, Lincoln was ill-advised in his assumption of powers. But, at the time he took them, there was reason for him to believe they could be legally assumed, and pressing emergency reasons for him to do so. Congress was not in session, and the events in Maryland were happening apace. Would you have had him allow Maryland to fall into civil disorder, isolating Washington DC?
Bottom line, it's a moot point: as far as when Lincoln took the action, it was legal for him to do so.
No, it wasn't and even Lincoln himself admitted that to be the case:
"I felt that measures, otherwise unconstitutional, might become lawful, by becoming indispensable to the preservation of the constitution, through the preservation of the nation. Right or wrong, I assumed this ground, and now avow it." - Letter to A.G. Hodges
Your out-of-context quotation from the above letter is in regards to his actions on slavery (the Emancipation Proclamation) written in 1864, not on habeus corpus in 1861. Let me quote a further section of this letter, since Lincoln summed up my view of the war better than I could:
I claim not to have controlled events, but confess plainly that events have controlled me. Now, at the end of three years struggle the nation’s condition is not what either party, or any man devised, or expected. God alone can claim it. Whither it is tending seems plain. If God now wills the removal of a great wrong, and wills also that we of the North as well as you of the South, shall pay fairly for our complicity in that wrong, impartial history will find therein new cause to attest and revere the justice and goodness of God.
The war was a thing that controlled the men of the times, not visa-versa. Not Lincoln, nor Davis, nor any general that commanded troops was in control of anything. Not a one was an unalloyed villain or saint. They all played their cards as their conciences dictated them to do, as their faith in God led them, and as their upbringings constrained them.
That the war happened was a great tragedy, but it served to purge a greater evil from our nation, and left us with a hard-forged character. Without that character, I fear that today, we would be a collection of balkanized petty republics and economic colonies.
That would have been Ex Parte Merryman. [LINK]
First, Lincoln had no authority of ignore the ruling of the court of competent jurisdiction. His two lawful options were to comply with the decision or to appeal the decision.
In the subsequent case of Ex Parte Milligan, 71 U.S. 2, (1866), [LINK] the Supreme Court unanimously, 9-zip, overturned the conviction of Milligan.
Either the actions of the Lincoln administration were unlawful, or the entire Supreme Court, including all of the Lincoln appointees, were stooges for the copperheads.
In the special session of Congress started in July 1861, the Lincoln administration sought passage of a special resolution (SR-1) which would have declared legal his authorizing the writ to be suspended. That was regurgitated. Congress refused to pass it.
At the time, the power was undelegated to either the Executive or the Legislative; it was simply a power of the Federal govt. during time of insurrection.
At the time, and now, the power to suspend habeas corpus is in Article I which sets forth the powers of the LEGISLATIVE Branch. Article II sets forth the powers of the Executive Branch.
Oh, I'm sorry, I thought Mr. Lincoln was being discussed. If so, then police states and tyrannical behavior would indeed be the topic.
And was not ruled on by the USSC until 1866, when it was held to be unconstitutional.
Mr. Lincoln was informed by a Federal Circuit Court, with the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court presiding, that his actions were unconstitutional in 1861.
Maybe there was a good reason Taney's rulings were ignored in a time of war, perhaps because he was a political stooge for the copperheads.
Is that the best you can do? Your defense is 'It's OK to ignore the courts if you don't like the judge'? I'll try that one out if I'm ever in court, LOL.
Your out-of-context quotation from the above letter is in regards to his actions on slavery (the Emancipation Proclamation) written in 1864, not on habeus corpus in 1861
It seems you are correct. Sorry about that. I accidentally pasted the wrong quote. Here is the quote I was thinking about:
"Must they [the 'laws'] be allowed to finally fail of execution, even had it been perfectly clear, that by the use of the means necessary to their execution, some single law [habeas corpus], made in such extreme tenderness of the citizen's liberty, that practically, it relieves more of the guilty, than of the innocent, should, to a very limited extent, be violated? To state the question more directly, are all the laws, but one, to go unexecuted, and the government itself go to pieces, lest that one be violated?"
In the same speech he also put forth that ridiculously false argument revisionists and justifiers like to quote about the power to suspend not being delegated in the Constitution. As already stated, it's in Article One (Legislative Branch), Section Nine (limits on Congress). He lied.