Historians rank Barack Obama 12th best President: survey

New York Daily News ^ | 02/28/2017 | BY JESSICA SCHLADEBECK

[SeekAndFind]

It’s only been a few weeks since former President Barack Obama left the White House, but presidential historians have already placed him on the right side of history.

AC-SPAN survey of 91 historians and presidential experts ranked the Democrat the 12th best leader in United States presidential history — just ahead of James Monroe and right behind Woodrow Wilson.

Another Illinois politician, former President Abraham Lincoln, claimed the survey’s top spot. He’s followed closely by George Washington, with Franklin D. Roosevelt rounding out the top three.

Experts who participated in the survey were asked to grade the presidents on 10 different facets of their terms in office, like “Crisis Leadership” and “International Relations.”

Obama earned high marks for his pursuit of “Equal Justice for All,” ranking third in the category behind Lincoln and former President Lyndon B. Johnson. He also cracked the top 10 for his “Moral Authority” and “Economic Management,” ranking seventh and eighth, respectively.

The 44th president’s lowest mark is for his relationship with Congress. Historians ranked him 39th, ahead of only a few others including former presidents Franklin Pierce and Andrew Johnson, who was ranked last.

Experts said the passing of time will likely effect Obama’s rankings in the future and remained mixed on whether the former President’s marks were higher or lower than expected,

[DoodleDawg]

Apparently the good people of the state of South Carolina in the 1860's disagreed with your interpretation.

I can't be responsible for their misconceptions.

Baloney. If any party violates the terms of a compact, the compact is void.

Baloney back at you. As Madison put it, "The characteristic distinction between free Governments and Governments not free is, that the former are founded on compact, not between the Government and those for whom it acts, but between the parties creating the Government. Each of those being equal, neither can have more rights to say that the compact has been violated and dissolved, than every other has to deny the fact, and to insist on the execution of the bargains."

Apparently not; but few in the days of Lincoln (maybe no one) believed he was abiding by the constitution.

I would say far more believed he was abiding by the Constitution that believed he was violating it. Same as today.

Have you ever read the 1792 Editorial in the National Gazette titled "Rules for changing a limited republican government into an unlimited hereditary one"?

I have not. But hey, when has an editorial writer ever injected their opinions in their work?

[Right-wing Librarian]

DoodleDawg, you wrote, "Well, well, well. It turns out you are a little old lady. Never in my wildest dreams have I imagined a little old lady "spitting" (let alone, on Lincoln and his memory). I'm reminded that Abe once blamed the war on a "little old lady". Pardon my mysoginistic mistake (I thought it odd that a guy would be a librarian.)

I come from a family of patriots. We don't suffer tyrants lightly.

DoodleDawg, you wrote, "The one and only, great aggregator of never before heard, yet so excoriating facts about Abe Lincoln; the one man show Thomas DiLorenzo! So sad. So sad. You show very poor discrimination in what you will read. Just because you can read DiLorenzo doesn't mean you should. To me, now, you are just another fake history sucker.

Perhaps you will bless us with portions of your vast library of Dilorenzo's historical errors.

No? You have no library? Not even a single error? Okay, I will make it easier. Demonstrate to us that Lincoln did not supress the freedom of speech, and of the press, and the right to keep and bear arms, of the Northern States, during his "great struggle" to save the constitution. Certainly the Northern States had his back, right?

Never mind. Forget that. We know that Lincoln was a terror to any opposition, Northern or Southern. Lincoln's "great struggle" was not to save the constitution, but to "save" the Union from the constitution.

DoodleDawg, you wrote, "Time for you to re-read Alexander Stephens "Cornerstone Speech". Try to focus more on what people like Fredrick Douglas and General Robert E. Lee had to say about Lincoln."

How about you reading, for the first time, some of those authors and publications not suppressed by our progressive government?

DoodleDawg, you wrote, "Ya know, other great men who were his contemporaries. If the gypsys show up at your door trying to sell you a repaving job, call the police.

And if the government shows up at your door saying, "We are here to help you", hide under your mattress if you do not have time to run for the hills.

DoodleDawg, you wrote, "It seems Lincoln's "economic guru", Henry Carey, felt that the economic division in the USA was caused by the British:

Is he the one who is on record declaring that nothing less than a dictator is required to make a really good tariff? Wasn't he also promoter of big-government mercantilism, in the mold of Hamilton?

[HandyDandy]

Not reading you anymore. Btw, I am HandyDandy. Not DoodleDawg. You owe me an apology.

[Right-wing Librarian]

DoodleDawg, you wrote, "Every Memorial Day, for as long as I have been aware, the following is spoken by a local high school student, who has memorized it, at the local cemetery commemoration. Let me know what words of Obama you would like to replace them with (quoted the Gettysburg Address)."

No doubt Lincoln was a great orator and politician. Too bad he he had such a cruel heart and used his skills to trick people out of their rights and property, rather than to promote freedom. It appears from your groveling, he is at it even today.

Not to rain on your parade (please spare us any mention of the "Emancipation" Proclamation), are you familiar with Lincoln's executive order-style asset forfeiture laws? I have read that any Northern opposition to Lincoln's dictatorship would result in forfeiture of all property. And get this! Those who turned in their neighbors would get half of the seized assets. If you had rich neighbors, you could get rich quick! (I wonder Lincoln is related to the Clinton's?)

[HandyDandy]

See post #143. You still owe me an apology.

[Right-wing Librarian]

DoodleDawg, you wrote, "Now you cast the aspersions on Lincoln of abusing women.

Come on, now, DoodleDeeDoo, I never said he abused women. I simply implied I wouldn't put it past him. Ever hear of "Slash and Burn" Sherman? Never mind. I feel certain no Southern women were abused during those times. And if they were, they probably deserved it, right? /s

Are you sure you aren't really DiLorenzo pretending to be a little old lady?

LOL! No. But he is found all over the internet. There must be 50 Youtube videos of his speeches. Check them out. There are 35 on this single playlist:

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL7B50108920BB5CBA

Ya know, your buddy Jeff Davis (the one who died pro-Union) tried to escape Justice at the end of the War disguised as a little old lady, wearing his wife's dress.

I really don't know much about Jeff Davis. I have heard the Southern people adore him --- those born prior to the modern day NEA brainwashing. But I am curious: what "justice" do you think Jeff Davis was attempting to avoid?

Just the other day, the President of The United Sates (who was recently sworn into office with his hand on The Lincoln Bible) alluded favorably to Lincoln in his very well reveived speech on national television. Obviously you hold Trump in the same contemptuous category as you do me.

If you have read my past posts, you will know that I have been a strong supporter of President Trump since the beginning of his campaign, and still am. But no doubt he has been brainwashed about Lincoln. Could happen to anyone, even you.

[DoodleDawg]

Have you taken complete leave of your senses?

[Right-wing Librarian]

HandyDandy, you wrote, "Not reading you anymore. Btw, I am HandyDandy. Not DoodleDawg. You owe me an apology."

Okay. I apologize for calling you DoodleDawg.

[Right-wing Librarian]

I will say then that I am not, nor ever have been in favor of bringing about in any way the social and political equality of the white and black races, that I am not nor ever have been in favor of making voters or jurors of negroes, nor of qualifying them to hold office, nor to intermarry with white people; and I will say in addition to this that there is a physical difference between the white and black races which I believe will for ever forbid the two races living together on terms of social and political equality. My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or to destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that. DoodleDawg, you wrote, "I can't be responsible for their misconceptions."

But you are responsible for yours.

DoodleDawg, you quoted a portion of an 1832 letter of James Madison. But you left out these sentences from the same letter:

"A rightful secession requires the consent of the others, or an abuse of the compact absolving the seceding party from the obligations imposed by it."

And,

"The case of a claim in a State to secede from its union with the others, is a question among the States themselves as parties to a compact."

Therefore, according to Madison, if a state feels any other party of the compact has abused the compact, it has a right to secede. In either case, whether due to abuse, or the parties voluntarily agreeing to dissolve the compact, the federal government has no authorized power over the matter. Such power would have to be usurped.

DoodleDawg, you wrote, "I would say far more believed he was abiding by the Constitution that believed he was violating it. Same as today."

You are clueless about the history of those days. Lincoln suspended habeas corpus without consent of the congress, and used that usurped power to terrorize (and shut down) newspapers, the judiciary, and countless others. His administration even put out an arrest warrant on the Chief Justice, who objected to Lincoln's usurpations. On the lower side, estimates of 15,000 were thrown into prison for criticizing his government. The authorized powers in the constitution for the suspension of habeas corpus is found in Article I, Section 9.

DoodleDawg, you wrote regarding the National Gazette editorial, "I have not. But hey, when has an editorial writer ever injected their opinions in their work?"

I thought you might be interested. The editorial was printed in a newspaper owned by James Madison and Thomas Jefferson, and it was written in 1792, not 1860.

[Right-wing Librarian]

DoodleDawg, you asked, "Have you taken complete leave of your senses?"

Could be. I am replying to your senseless posts.

[Right-wing Librarian]

DoodleDawg,

What “justice” do you think Jeff Davis was attempting to avoid?

[DoodleDawg]

I will say then that I am not, nor ever have been in favor of bringing about in any way the social and political equality of the white and black races, that I am not nor ever have been in favor of making voters or jurors of negroes, nor of qualifying them to hold office, nor to intermarry with white people; and I will say in addition to this that there is a physical difference between the white and black races which I believe will for ever forbid the two races living together on terms of social and political equality. My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or to destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that.

Your point being?

But you are responsible for yours.

As are you. And you insist on displaying it.

"A rightful secession requires the consent of the others, or an abuse of the compact absolving the seceding party from the obligations imposed by it."

And as Madison pointed out later in the letter, just because the South claimed the compact was abused doesn't mean that it was.

Therefore, according to Madison, if a state feels any other party of the compact has abused the compact, it has a right to secede.

Not so much, no. As Madison said in that letter, "An inference from the doctrine that a single state has a right to secede at will from the rest, is that the rest would have an equal right to secede from it; in other words, to turn it, against its will, out of its union with them. Such a doctrine would not, till of late, have been palatable anywhere, on nowhere less so than where it is not most contended for."

You are clueless about the history of those days.

Having read your posts I'm not sure I'm the clueless one.

Lincoln suspended habeas corpus without consent of the congress...

The Constitution is not clear on who may suspend habeas corpus, just the conditions under which it may be suspended. The Supreme Court has never ruled one way or the other.

...and used that usurped power to terrorize (and shut down) newspapers, the judiciary, and countless others.

Nonsense.

His administration even put out an arrest warrant on the Chief Justice, who objected to Lincoln's usurpations.

A claim that none of Chief Justice Taney's biographers have seen fit to include in any of their works on the man. Why do you think that is if the claim was true?

On the lower side, estimates of 15,000 were thrown into prison for criticizing his government.

Again, nonsense. Mark Neely, Jr. has written several books on the subject: "The Fate of Liberty: Abraham Lincoln and Civil Liberties", "Southern Rights: Political Prisoners and the Myth of Confederate Constitutionalism", "Lincoln and the Triumph of the Nation: Constitutional Conflict in the American Civil War", and other books as well. Neely looked at Constitutional abuses in the U.S. and the Confederacy, and needless to say came to much different conclusions than you and your confederate websites have.

The authorized powers in the constitution for the suspension of habeas corpus is found in Article I, Section 9.

And as I said it is silent on who may suspend it, only the circumstances under which it can be suspended.

[DoodleDawg]

Could be. I am replying to your senseless posts.

And other posts as well, confusing other people with me. Bad day?

[rockrr]

When I discovered that she was a disciple of DiLorenzo I knew that there was no point in continuing. Hidebound.

[BroJoeK]

Right-wing Librarian: "I believe that is revisionist history.
The Union troops that occupied Fort Sumter, rather than vacate Southern territory, provoked the war."

No, no more than:

1. British troops in British forts in several US states (New York, Ohio, Michigan, Pennsylvania) which the resupplied and reinforced at will after 1783, some for over 30 years.
   Neither Presidents Washington, nor Adams, Jefferson & Madison used those forts as excuses to start war against the Brits.

2. US troops in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba which have been resupplied and reinforced at will for over 50 years despite the Commie Cubans claiming they are illegal.

3. British troops in Gibraltar which have been resupplied and reinforced at will for centuries despite Spanish claims they are illegal.

I could go on, but the point is clear: troops in legally authorized forts do not suddenly become illegal when their "host" country changes governments.
If the new government then decides to use those troops as their excuse to start war, then the results are on them.
Many new governments, including our Founding Fathers, decided to rely on patient, peaceful negotiations to resolve such issues.

The Confederacy instead chose war.

Right-wing Librarian on Confederate raids into Union states: "When did those 'raids' take place?
Did they occur before or after Lincoln’s invasion of the South?"

The first actual Confederate soldier killed in battle against the Union Army was Private Henry L. Wyatt of the 1st North Carolina Volunteers, at Big Bethel on June 10, 1861.
By that time the Confederacy had already started (April 12) and formally declared war (May 6), with Confederates operating in Union states, territories or regions of Missouri, Maryland, western Virginia, Oklahoma & Tennessee, along with other Union states which later voted to secede -- Arkansas & North Carolina.

Later in 1861 Confederate troops invaded Union New Mexico, Kentucky, Maryland, Kansas, Oklahoma and even used Californian guerillas.
All this despite the October 1861 conference of Confederate leaders Davis & Generals Johnston, Beauregard & Smith which decided not to invade the North and instead wait for a Northern invasion in 1862.

Throughout the Civil War there were major Confederate raids into Union states & territories including Maryland, Pennsylvania, western Virginia, Ohio, Indiana, Kentucky, Missouri, Kansas, Oklahoma New Mexico / Arizona.
In all such raids Confederates seized "contraband of war", especially horses & livestock, but also anything else of military value they could transport including former slaves.

We are not told who was the first Northern freedman seized by Confederates & returned for sale as a slave, but we are told it was common practice, especially during invasions of Pennsylvania.

Right-wing Librarian: "Everyone deserves to hear the truth.
The truth is, Lincoln destroyed, or at least severely weakened, the republic by setting in motion the consolidation of all power in Washington.
He was greedy tyrant, and a thug, who destroyed the lives and livelihood of hundreds of thousands of Americans."

Total lies & nonsense.
In fact, the Federal Government Lincoln left on his death in 1865 was pretty much the same he had inherited in 1861, with exceptions in the 13th, 14th & 15th Amendments.
Within just a few years former Confederate states were returned to full white-male suffrage & representation in Congress, electing Democrat President Cleveland in 1884.
By 1890 the US Civil War debt was all but paid off, with total US debt to GDP falling from 31% in 1866 to 10% in 1890 (today's US debt is over 100% of GDP).

The great changes you refer to began in the Progressive era, especially under Southern Democrat President Woodrow Wilson from 1912 to 1920.
They were multiplied by orders of magnitude under Democrat Presidents Franklin Roosevelt and Texas Lyndon Johnson culminating in the insanity we saw recently under Obama.

Those are not Lincoln Republicans' faults, they were done by Democrats, including Southern Democrats like Wilson & Johnson.

[Right-wing Librarian]

DoodleDawg, you wrote, "Your point being?"

That was a mistake. I apologize for the confusion. I was in a hurry, grabbed too much text, and didn't preview. I didn't realize it was there until I read your post. The lack of HTML caused it to be jammed it up against my first line (I hate using HTML).

DoodleDawg, you wrote, "And as Madison pointed out later in the letter, just because the South claimed the compact was abused doesn't mean that it was."

What's with the ankle-biting? Lincoln destroyed the lives of about a million citizens, while consolidating all power into the federal government, thus permanently destroying any real power the states had, even over the politically-motivated rulings of nine unelected, politically appointed lawyers with fancy titles (Justice?); and you are quibling over something Madison may or may not have intended to say 45 years after the convention?

Show us in the documents where the federal government was given any power over secession. In fact, show us anything said or written in the convention, or in any of the ratification documents, that forbade secession.

You will find the right of secession permanently inscribed in the ratification documents of at least three states, and one of them was James Madison's state:

"DO in the name and in behalf of the people of Virginia, declare and make known that the powers granted under the Constitution, being derived from the people of the United States may be resumed by them whensoever the same shall be perverted to their injury or oppression, and that every power not granted thereby remains with them and at their will: that therefore no right of any denomination, can be cancelled, abridged, restrained or modified, by the Congress, by the Senate or House of Representatives acting in any capacity, by the President or any department or officer of the United States, except in those instances in which power is given by the Constitution for those purposes: and that among other essential rights, the liberty of conscience and of the press cannot be cancelled, abridged, restrained or modified by any authority of the United States."

Virginia's ratification document was accepted without a whisper of objection because none of the states had the slightest suspicion that a state did not have the right to secede. Those that felt there may be some danger of losing that right, brought it up in their respective conventions.

When the amendments were added, the resulting tenth resolved all conflicting opinions:

"The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people." - 10th Amendment to the Constitution

Not unsurprisingly, the 10th Amendment appears to have been derived from the Virginia declaration (in bold, above). Since there is not a whisper of a federal power over secession in the constitution, nor a prohibition of secession by the states, secession was considered an implied power belonging to the states, that is, until a blood-thirsty tyrant named Lincoln usurped that power.

DoodleDawg, you wrote, "The Constitution is not clear on who may suspend habeas corpus, just the conditions under which it may be suspended. The Supreme Court has never ruled one way or the other."

You are desperate, DoodleDawg. The power over habeas corpus is specifically mentioned in Article I, The Legislative Branch, which includes the power to declare war, which Lincoln also usurped. The powers and duties given the executive branch are found in Article II, The Executive Branch.

DoodleDawg, when I wrote, "[Lincoln] used that usurped power to terrorize (and shut down) newspapers, the judiciary, and countless others", you replied, "Nonsense".

You are not responding from any historical narrative, but from your feelings. All of those are true, and much more.

DoodleDawg, when I wrote regarding the arrest warrant for the Chief Justice, "A claim that none of Chief Justice Taney's biographers have seen fit to include in any of their works on the man. Why do you think that is if the claim was true?"

There are several from that period that mentioned the arrest warrant. A former Supreme Court colleague of Taney, Benjamin Curtis, called the arrest warrant a near commission of a great crime:

"The reputation of Chief Justice Taney can afford to have any thing known that he ever did, and still leave a great fund of honor and praise to illustrate his name. If he had never done any thing else that was high, heroic, and important; his noble vindication of the writ of habeas corpus, and of the dignity and authority of his office, against a rash minister of state, who, in the pride of a fancied executive power, came near to the commission of a great crime [the arrest of the Chief Justice], will command the admiration and gratitude of every lover of constitutional liberty, so long as our institutions shall endure." [Curtis, Benjamin, Dred Scott Case, "A Memoir of Benjamin Robbins Curtis Vol I." 1879, p.240]

Other sources are from Ward Hill Laman, who worked in the Lincoln administration; and from George W. Brown, the mayor of Baltimore, who wrote of a conversation with Tamey during which the arrest warrant was mentioned. It seems the warrant was never delivered because no one in the U. S. Marshall Service would deliver it.

That was not Lincoln's only attempt to intimidate the judiciary. A district court judge was quaranteed in his home at gunpoint to prevent him for voting against Lincoln on a habeas corpus violation. The entire purpose was intimidation. Intimidate a few judges (or newspaper editors, or politicians), and the rest fall in line.

DoodleDawg, regarding the number of political prisoners, you wrote, "Neely looked at Constitutional abuses in the U.S. and the Confederacy, and needless to say came to much different conclusions than you and your confederate websites have."

You can always find someone who will cover up or ignore historical events for the cause of socialism. But Neely is not one of them. According to him, there were, on the low side, 14, 401 arrests:

"As most students of the Lincoln administration's racial policies agree, a historian must pay careful attention not only to what Lincoln said but also to what he actually did. The administration's statistical record on arbitrary arrests is persuasive testimony that Lincoln was not particularly embarrassed by the policy. No careful work on the numbers of civilians arrested by military authorities or for reasons of state has ever been done by a historian, and those historians who have attempted an estimate previously have been writing with the goal of defending Lincoln in mind. Even so, the lowest estimate is 13,535 arrests from February 15, 1862, to the end of the war. At least 866 others occurred from the beginning of the war until February 15, 1862. Therefore, at least 14,401 civilians were arrested by the Lincoln administration. If one takes the population of the North during the Civil War as 22.5 million (using the 1860 census and counting West Virginia but not Nevada), then one person out of every 1,563 in the North was arrested during the Civil War."

http://hdl.handle.net/2027/spo.2629860.0005.103

You may have been confused by his analysis that covered only the 866 arrests that occurred prior to Feb 16, 1862. Again, 15,000 political prisoners is likely on the low side.

[BroJoeK]

Right-wing Librarian: "How do you interpret this from the Georgia declaration?"

Context, context, context is everything, so let's look at the context here.

Georgia's "Reasons for Secession" was the third published, after South Carolina and Mississippi, and by far the longest, running on for 3,344 words, 53% more than South Carolina's 2,186 words.
And unlike South Carolina & Mississippi, Georgia mentions briefly a complaint other than slavery -- Northern benefits from Federal government.
Georgia's sentences you quoted run to 383 words, plus another 110 = about 15% of the total, the other 85% being focused on slavery.

More important, with Congress and politicians, you can be 100% certain that any benefits Northerners received from Federal Government were matched by benefits judged equivalent provided to the South.
And suggestions otherwise are pure nonsense.
Which means Georgia's only serious complaints involve slavery.

So, speaking of Georgia's Reasons for Secession, it's been awhile since these were last posted, so time for a reminder.
Note the blue highlighted words, those are the few you quoted, 11% of the total:

"Confederate States of America - Georgia Secession

The people of Georgia having dissolved their political connection with the Government of the United States of America, present to their confederates and the world the causes which have led to the separation.
For the last ten years we have had numerous and serious causes of complaint against our non-slave-holding confederate States with reference to the subject of African slavery.
They have endeavored to weaken our security, to disturb our domestic peace and tranquility, and persistently refused to comply with their express constitutional obligations to us in reference to that property, and by the use of their power in the Federal Government have striven to deprive us of an equal enjoyment of the common Territories of the Republic.
This hostile policy of our confederates has been pursued with every circumstance of aggravation which could arouse the passions and excite the hatred of our people, and has placed the two sections of the Union for many years past in the condition of virtual civil war.
Our people, still attached to the Union from habit and national traditions, and averse to change, hoped that time, reason, and argument would bring, if not redress, at least exemption from further insults, injuries, and dangers.
Recent events have fully dissipated all such hopes and demonstrated the necessity of separation.
Our Northern confederates, after a full and calm hearing of all the facts, after a fair warning of our purpose not to submit to the rule of the authors of all these wrongs and injuries, have by a large majority committed the Government of the United States into their hands.
The people of Georgia, after an equally full and fair and deliberate hearing of the case, have declared with equal firmness that they shall not rule over them.
A brief history of the rise, progress, and policy of anti-slavery and the political organization into whose hands the administration of the Federal Government has been committed will fully justify the pronounced verdict of the people of Georgia.
The party of Lincoln, called the Republican party, under its present name and organization, is of recent origin.
It is admitted to be an anti-slavery party.
While it attracts to itself by its creed the scattered advocates of exploded political heresies, of condemned theories in political economy, the advocates of commercial restrictions, of protection, of special privileges, of waste and corruption in the administration of Government, anti-slavery is its mission and its purpose.
By anti-slavery it is made a power in the state.
The question of slavery was the great difficulty in the way of the formation of the Constitution.
While the subordination and the political and social inequality of the African race was fully conceded by all, it was plainly apparent that slavery would soon disappear from what are now the non-slave-holding States of the original thirteen.
The opposition to slavery was then, as now, general in those States and the Constitution was made with direct reference to that fact.
But a distinct abolition party was not formed in the United States for more than half a century after the Government went into operation. The main reason was that the North, even if united, could not control both branches of the Legislature during any portion of that time.
Therefore such an organization must have resulted either in utter failure or in the total overthrow of the Government.

The material prosperity of the North was greatly dependent on the Federal Government; that of the the South not at all.
In the first years of the Republic the navigating, commercial, and manufacturing interests of the North began to seek profit and aggrandizement at the expense of the agricultural interests.
Even the owners of fishing smacks sought and obtained bounties for pursuing their own business (which yet continue), and $500,000 is now paid them annually out of the Treasury.
The navigating interests begged for protection against foreign shipbuilders and against competition in the coasting trade.
Congress granted both requests, and by prohibitory acts gave an absolute monopoly of this business to each of their interests, which they enjoy without diminution to this day.
Not content with these great and unjust advantages, they have sought to throw the legitimate burden of their business as much as possible upon the public; they have succeeded in throwing the cost of light-houses, buoys, and the maintenance of their seamen upon the Treasury, and the Government now pays above $2,000,000 annually for the support of these objects.
Theses interests, in connection with the commercial and manufacturing classes, have also succeeded, by means of subventions to mail steamers and the reduction in postage, in relieving their business from the payment of about $7,000,000 annually, throwing it upon the public Treasury under the name of postal deficiency.
The manufacturing interests entered into the same struggle early, and has clamored steadily for Government bounties and special favors.
This interest was confined mainly to the Eastern and Middle non-slave-holding States.
Wielding these great States it held great power and influence, and its demands were in full proportion to its power.
The manufacturers and miners wisely based their demands upon special facts and reasons rather than upon general principles, and thereby mollified much of the opposition of the opposing interest.
They pleaded in their favor the infancy of their business in this country, the scarcity of labor and capital, the hostile legislation of other countries toward them, the great necessity of their fabrics in the time of war, and the necessity of high duties to pay the debt incurred in our war for independence.
These reasons prevailed, and they received for many years enormous bounties by the general acquiescence of the whole country.

But when these reasons ceased they were no less clamorous for Government protection, but their clamors were less heeded-- the country had put the principle of protection upon trial and condemned it.
After having enjoyed protection to the extent of from 15 to 200 per cent. upon their entire business for above thirty years, the act of 1846 was passed.
It avoided sudden change, but the principle was settled, and free trade, low duties, and economy in public expenditures was the verdict of the American people.
The South and the Northwestern States sustained this policy.
There was but small hope of its reversal; upon the direct issue, none at all.

All these classes saw this and felt it and cast about for new allies.
The anti-slavery sentiment of the North offered the best chance for success.
An anti-slavery party must necessarily look to the North alone for support, but a united North was now strong enough to control the Government in all of its departments, and a sectional party was therefore determined upon.
Time and issues upon slavery were necessary to its completion and final triumph.
The feeling of anti-slavery, which it was well known was very general among the people of the North, had been long dormant or passive; it needed only a question to arouse it into aggressive activity. This question was before us.
We had acquired a large territory by successful war with Mexico; Congress had to govern it; how, in relation to slavery, was the question then demanding solution.
This state of facts gave form and shape to the anti-slavery sentiment throughout the North and the conflict began.
Northern anti-slavery men of all parties asserted the right to exclude slavery from the territory by Congressional legislation and demanded the prompt and efficient exercise of this power to that end.
This insulting and unconstitutional demand was met with great moderation and firmness by the South.
We had shed our blood and paid our money for its acquisition; we demanded a division of it on the line of the Missouri restriction or an equal participation in the whole of it.
These propositions were refused, the agitation became general, and the public danger was great.
The case of the South was impregnable.
The price of the acquisition was the blood and treasure of both sections-- of all, and, therefore, it belonged to all upon the principles of equity and justice.

The Constitution delegated no power to Congress to excluded either party from its free enjoyment; therefore our right was good under the Constitution.
Our rights were further fortified by the practice of the Government from the beginning.
Slavery was forbidden in the country northwest of the Ohio River by what is called the ordinance of 1787.
That ordinance was adopted under the old confederation and by the assent of Virginia, who owned and ceded the country, and therefore this case must stand on its own special circumstances.
The Government of the United States claimed territory by virtue of the treaty of 1783 with Great Britain, acquired territory by cession from Georgia and North Carolina, by treaty from France, and by treaty from Spain.
These acquisitions largely exceeded the original limits of the Republic.
In all of these acquisitions the policy of the Government was uniform.
It opened them to the settlement of all the citizens of all the States of the Union.
They emigrated thither with their property of every kind (including slaves).
All were equally protected by public authority in their persons and property until the inhabitants became sufficiently numerous and otherwise capable of bearing the burdens and performing the duties of self-government, when they were admitted into the Union upon equal terms with the other States, with whatever republican constitution they might adopt for themselves.

Under this equally just and beneficent policy law and order, stability and progress, peace and prosperity marked every step of the progress of these new communities until they entered as great and prosperous commonwealths into the sisterhood of American States.
In 1820 the North endeavored to overturn this wise and successful policy and demanded that the State of Missouri should not be admitted into the Union unless she first prohibited slavery within her limits by her constitution.
After a bitter and protracted struggle the North was defeated in her special object, but her policy and position led to the adoption of a section in the law for the admission of Missouri, prohibiting slavery in all that portion of the territory acquired from France lying North of 36 [degrees] 30 [minutes] north latitude and outside of Missouri.
The venerable Madison at the time of its adoption declared it unconstitutional.
Mr. Jefferson condemned the restriction and foresaw its consequences and predicted that it would result in the dissolution of the Union.
His prediction is now history.
The North demanded the application of the principle of prohibition of slavery to all of the territory acquired from Mexico and all other parts of the public domain then and in all future time.
It was the announcement of her purpose to appropriate to herself all the public domain then owned and thereafter to be acquired by the United States.
The claim itself was less arrogant and insulting than the reason with which she supported it.
That reason was her fixed purpose to limit, restrain, and finally abolish slavery in the States where it exists.
The South with great unanimity declared her purpose to resist the principle of prohibition to the last extremity.
This particular question, in connection with a series of questions affecting the same subject, was finally disposed of by the defeat of prohibitory legislation.

The Presidential election of 1852 resulted in the total overthrow of the advocates of restriction and their party friends.
Immediately after this result the anti-slavery portion of the defeated party resolved to unite all the elements in the North opposed to slavery an to stake their future political fortunes upon their hostility to slavery everywhere.
This is the party two whom the people of the North have committed the Government.
They raised their standard in 1856 and were barely defeated.
They entered the Presidential contest again in 1860 and succeeded.

The prohibition of slavery in the Territories, hostility to it everywhere, the equality of the black and white races, disregard of all constitutional guarantees it its favor, were boldly proclaimed by its leaders and applauded by its followers.

With these principles on their banners and these utterances on their lips the majority of the people of the North demand that we shall receive them as our rulers.

The prohibition of slavery in the Territories is the cardinal principle of this organization.

For forty years this question has been considered and debated in the halls of Congress, before the people, by the press, and before the tribunals of justice.
The majority of the people of the North in 1860 decided it in their own favor.
We refuse to submit to that judgment, and in vindication of our refusal we offer the Constitution of our country and point to the total absence of any express power to exclude us.
We offer the practice of our Government for the first thirty years of its existence in complete refutation of the position that any such power is either necessary or proper to the execution of any other power in relation to the Territories.
We offer the judgment of a large minority of the people of the North, amounting to more than one-third, who united with the unanimous voice of the South against this usurpation; and, finally, we offer the judgment of the Supreme Court of the United States, the highest judicial tribunal of our country, in our favor.
This evidence ought to be conclusive that we have never surrendered this right.
The conduct of our adversaries admonishes us that if we had surrendered it, it is time to resume it.

The faithless conduct of our adversaries is not confined to such acts as might aggrandize themselves or their section of the Union.
They are content if they can only injure us.
The Constitution declares that persons charged with crimes in one State and fleeing to another shall be delivered up on the demand of the executive authority of the State from which they may flee, to be tried in the jurisdiction where the crime was committed. It would appear difficult to employ language freer from ambiguity, yet for above twenty years the non-slave-holding States generally have wholly refused to deliver up to us persons charged with crimes affecting slave property.
Our confederates, with punic faith, shield and give sanctuary to all criminals who seek to deprive us of this property or who use it to destroy us.
This clause of the Constitution has no other sanction than their good faith; that is withheld from us; we are remediless in the Union; out of it we are remitted to the laws of nations.

A similar provision of the Constitution requires them to surrender fugitives from labor.
This provision and the one last referred to were our main inducements for confederating with the Northern States.
Without them it is historically true that we would have rejected the Constitution.
In the fourth year of the Republic Congress passed a law to give full vigor and efficiency to this important provision.
This act depended to a considerable degree upon the local magistrates in the several States for its efficiency.
The non-slave-holding States generally repealed all laws intended to aid the execution of that act, and imposed penalties upon those citizens whose loyalty to the Constitution and their oaths might induce them to discharge their duty.
Congress then passed the act of 1850, providing for the complete execution of this duty by Federal officers.
This law, which their own bad faith rendered absolutely indispensible for the protection of constitutional rights, was instantly met with ferocious revilings and all conceivable modes of hostility.
The Supreme Court unanimously, and their own local courts with equal unanimity (with the single and temporary exception of the supreme court of Wisconsin), sustained its constitutionality in all of its provisions.
Yet it stands to-day a dead letter for all practicable purposes in every non-slave-holding State in the Union.
We have their convenants, we have their oaths to keep and observe it, but the unfortunate claimant, even accompanied by a Federal officer with the mandate of the highest judicial authority in his hands, is everywhere met with fraud, with force, and with legislative enactments to elude, to resist, and defeat him.
Claimants are murdered with impunity; officers of the law are beaten by frantic mobs instigated by inflammatory appeals from persons holding the highest public employment in these States, and supported by legislation in conflict with the clearest provisions of the Constitution, and even the ordinary principles of humanity.
In several of our confederate States a citizen cannot travel the highway with his servant who may voluntarily accompany him, without being declared by law a felon and being subjected to infamous punishments.
It is difficult to perceive how we could suffer more by the hostility than by the fraternity of such brethren.

The public law of civilized nations requires every State to restrain its citizens or subjects from committing acts injurious to the peace and security of any other State and from attempting to excite insurrection, or to lessen the security, or to disturb the tranquillity of their neighbors, and our Constitution wisely gives Congress the power to punish all offenses against the laws of nations.

These are sound and just principles which have received the approbation of just men in all countries and all centuries; but they are wholly disregarded by the people of the Northern States, and the Federal Government is impotent to maintain them.
For twenty years past the abolitionists and their allies in the Northern States have been engaged in constant efforts to subvert our institutions and to excite insurrection and servile war among us.
They have sent emissaries among us for the accomplishment of these purposes.
Some of these efforts have received the public sanction of a majority of the leading men of the Republican party in the national councils, the same men who are now proposed as our rulers.
These efforts have in one instance led to the actual invasion of one of the slave-holding States, and those of the murderers and incendiaries who escaped public justice by flight have found fraternal protection among our Northern confederates.

These are the same men who say the Union shall be preserved.

Such are the opinions and such are the practices of the Republican party, who have been called by their own votes to administer the Federal Government under the Constitution of the United States.
We know their treachery; we know the shallow pretenses under which they daily disregard its plainest obligations.
If we submit to them it will be our fault and not theirs.
The people of Georgia have ever been willing to stand by this bargain, this contract; they have never sought to evade any of its obligations; they have never hitherto sought to establish any new government; they have struggled to maintain the ancient right of themselves and the human race through and by that Constitution.
But they know the value of parchment rights in treacherous hands, and therefore they refuse to commit their own to the rulers whom the North offers us.
Why? Because by their declared principles and policy they have outlawed $3,000,000,000 of our property in the common territories of the Union; put it under the ban of the Republic in the States where it exists and out of the protection of Federal law everywhere; because they give sanctuary to thieves and incendiaries who assail it to the whole extent of their power, in spite of their most solemn obligations and covenants; because their avowed purpose is to subvert our society and subject us not only to the loss of our property but the destruction of ourselves, our wives, and our children, and the desolation of our homes, our altars, and our firesides.
To avoid these evils we resume the powers which our fathers delegated to the Government of the United States, and henceforth will seek new safeguards for our liberty, equality, security, and tranquillity.

[Approved, Tuesday, January 29, 1861] "

[Right-wing Librarian]

No doubt slavery was the best argument for secession. The north’s weak enforcement of the fugitive slave law was reason enough to void the compact; and the states were, after all, seceding. But tariffs were a huge issue for the export-dependent south, whether they mentioned it, or not; and had been for decades. Georgia’s document merely summed up the one-sidedness of the tariff issue.

[BroJoeK]

Right-wing Librarian: "But tariffs were a huge issue for the export-dependent south, whether they mentioned it, or not; and had been for decades.
Georgia’s document merely summed up the one-sidedness of the tariff issue."

In fact, neither the words "tariff" nor "taxes" nor "revenues" appear in Georgia's Reasons for Secession document.
Instead, their complaint concerns "bounties" provided to Northerners for such things as light houses and postal ships.
The "bounty" numbers listed are miniscule, even by 1860 standards, and you can be certain that Southern politicians would insist on quid pro quos for any Federal "bounties" provided Northerners.

Which means, this complaint mentioned very briefly is not even serious.
The real issue was slavery and the future threat against it represented by "Ape" Lincoln and his Black Republicans.

[DoodleDawg]

You are desperate, DoodleDawg. The power over habeas corpus is specifically mentioned in Article I, The Legislative Branch, which includes the power to declare war, which Lincoln also usurped. The powers and duties given the executive branch are found in Article II, The Executive Branch.

Article I, Section 10 places restrictions on states so the claim that Article I refers to the legislature and the legislature alone is not true.

You are not responding from any historical narrative, but from your feelings. All of those are true, and much more.

Same with you.

There are several from that period that mentioned the arrest warrant. A former Supreme Court colleague of Taney.

And yet James F. Simon, Bernard Steiner, Walker Lewis, Carl Swisher, Charles Smith, and all of the rest of Roger Taney's biographers managed to miss that important fact in their books about the Chief Justice? Why do you suppose that is?

You may have been confused by his analysis that covered only the 866 arrests that occurred prior to Feb 16, 1862. Again, 15,000 political prisoners is likely on the low side.

Did you actually read the article? Bearing in mind your claim that "15,000 were thrown into prison for criticizing his government" nothing in the Neely article supports that.