Replies

Still upset that the South lost, huh?

Lincoln would round up the patriots and have them shot.

Some people say he was gay, too.

then we should tear down the Lincoln memorial

I'm in favor of that!
Aw, Shucks!

"REVOKE all visas (of any type) to people of middle-eastern descent and send them HOME!"

Allow me to be the first to agree with you 100%!

Tough noogies if anyones "Feelings" are hurt...

Lincoln also suffered from Marfan Syndrome, symptoms of which include a thin, elongated head, stooped shoulders, a "sunken breast" and "spider-like" legs, unusual height, a high, crowded palate, scoliosis, pigeon chest, myopia, retinal detachment, striae and valvular disorders. No wonder there's talk of discontinuing the penny.

You hit that nail on the head--I like your answer.

Wasn't he the president who took it upon himself to suspend the writ of habeas corpus for national security sake (even though the constitution says only Congress can do this)?

Just for the record, the Constitution --doesn't-- say that only Congress may suspend the Writ. It only speaks to what Congress may or may not do. It doesn't mention the president at all. The current Chief Justice:

"He [Merryman] was he confined in Fort McHenry, and immediately sued out a writ of habeas corpus. The day after Merryman sought the writ, Chief Justice Roger Taney, who was sitting as a circuit judge in Baltimore, ordered the government to show cause why Merryman should not be released. A representative of the commandant of Fort McHenry appeared in court for the government to advise Taney that the writ of habeas corpus had been suspended, and asked for time to consult with the government in Washington. Taney refused, and issued an arrest warrant for the commandant. The next day, the marshal reported that in his effort to serve the writ he had been denied admission to the fort. Taney then issued an opinion in the case declaring that the President alone did not have the authority to suspend the writ of habeas corpus -- only Congress could do that -- and holding that Merryman's confinement was illegal. The Chief Justice, knowing that he could not enforce his order, sent a copy of it to Lincoln. Lincoln ignored the order, but in his address to the special session of Congress which he had called to meet on July 4, 1861, he adverted to it in these words:

Must [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, 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 less that one be violated?

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

Walt