No, they were not. Jefferson Davis’s foot prints can be found all over the Confederate Constitution just as Abraham Lincoln’s foot prints can be found all over the United States Constitution. On this matter Davis said “A strict observance of the written law is doubtless one of the high duties of a good citizen, but it is not the highest. The laws of necessity, of self-preservation, of saving our country when in danger, are of higher obligation. To lose our country by a scrupulous adherence to the written law, would be to lose the law itself, with life, liberty, property and all those who are enjoying them with us; thus, absurdly sacrificing the ends to the means.” The Confederate Congress authorized the suspension of the writ of habeas corpus from February 1862 until February 1863 and again from February 1864 until August 1864, and afterward authorized Confederate president Jefferson Davis to suspend the writ as he saw fit. But before the Confederate Congress authorized the suspension of habeas corpus, the Confederate Congress and Jefferson were not shy about Unconstitutional actions. In August 1861, the Confederate legislature passed the Alien Enemies Act This law allowed the government to arrest any person living in the Confederacy who did not acknowledge himself as a citizen of the Confederate States of America. Enforcement of those laws fell to the Habeas Corpus Commissioner, a position created by the president in August 1861 and approved by the Confederate Congress in 1862. The commissioner and his associates exercised the powers of a court and could also arrest any Confederate citizen and question his or her loyalty. However, the subject under arrest was not entitled to a lawyer, a jury, or any of the legal protections allowed to a defendant in court. The government designated its opponents as political prisoners and dispatched them to prisons in Richmond or Salisbury. None of the above is authorized by the Confederate Constitution. The Confederate government also prohibited the sale of liquor in 1862. Not a power granted by the Confederate Constitution. On April 16, 1862, the Confederacy enacted a national draft. In addition, the Confederate Government unilaterally extend the enlistments of every man in the Army to three years, regardless of what enlistment contract the soldiers had signed with their state governments. These acts are not authorized by the Confederate Constitution. In 1862 the Confederate Government placed an embargo on all cotton grown in the Confederacy. In addition, the Government burned 2 million bales of cotton, this authority to do this cannot be found in the Confederate Constitution. In August of 1861 The Confederate Congress imposed a “War Tax”. The law covered property of more than $500 (Confederate) in value and several luxury items. The tax was also levied on ownership of slaves. The Confederate Constitution does not grant that taxing authority. in the autumn of 1862, The Confederate Congress created a civilian pass system which forbade civilian travel without the approval of national authorities. This power is not granted the Confederate Constitution.
Yes they were.
"The man who stands by and says nothing when the peril of his Government is discussed cannot be misunderstood. If not hindered, he is sure to help the enemy; much more if he talks ambiguously — talks for his country with "buts" and "ifs" and "ands." (Collected Works of Lincoln, vol. 6, pp. 264—265.)
One of those imprisoned for fourteen months for simply questioning the unconstitutional suspension of habeas corpus was Francis Key Howard, the grandson of Francis Scott Key and editor of the Baltimore Exchange newspaper. In response to an editorial in his newspaper that was critical of the fact that the Lincoln administration had imprisoned without due process the mayor of Baltimore, Congressman Henry May, and some twenty members of the Maryland legislature, he was imprisoned near the very spot where his grandfather composed the Star Spangled Banner. After his release, he noted the deep irony of his grandfather's beloved flag flying over "the victims of as vulgar and brutal a despotism as modern times have witnessed" (John Marshall, American Bastile, pp. 645—646).
After his release, Francis Key Howard wrote a book about his experiences entitled Fourteen Months in American Bastilles in which he described daily life as "a constant agony, the jailers as modified monsters and the government as an unfeeling persecutor which took delight in abusing its political prisoners" (Sprague, p. 284). In his defense and whitewashing of Lincoln's civil liberties abuses even Lincoln apologist Mark Neely, Jr., author of The Fate of Liberty, noted that in Fort Lafayette (aka “the American Bastille”) and in other dungeons where political prisoners where held, "Handcuffs and hanging by the wrists were rare [but not nonexistent], but in the summer of 1863 the army had developed a water torture that came to be used routinely" (p. 110) Repeatedly, whenever Congress asked for information on the arrests, he replied that it was not in the public interest to furnish the information (p. 302).
In May 1861 the New York Journal of Commerce published a list of 100 Northern newspapers that opposed the Lincoln administration. Lincoln ordered the Postmaster General and the army to shut them all down.
May 18, 1864, Lincoln order that directly issued to General John Dix: "You will take possession by military force, of the printing establishments of the New York World and Journal of Commerce . . . and prohibit any further publication thereof . . . you are therefore commanded forthwith to arrest and imprison . . . the editors, proprietors and publishers of the aforesaid newspapers." For good measure, all telegraph communication in the North was censored as well.
"Davis . . . possessed the authority to suspend the writ of habeas corpus for a total of only sixteen months. During most of that time he exercised this power more sparingly than did his counterpart in Washington. The rhetoric of southern libertarians about executive tyranny thus seems overblown." (McPherson, The Battle Cry of Freedom, p. 435)
"With the suspension of habeas corpus [the right not to be arrested without reasonable charges being presented], Lincoln authorized General Scott to make arrests without specific charges to protect secessionist Marylanders from interfering with communications between Washington and the rest of the Union. In the next few months, Baltimore's Mayor William Brown, the police chief, and nine members of the Maryland legislature were arrested to prevent them from voting to secede from the Union. . . .
"Twice more during the war Lincoln suspended habeas corpus, including the suspension 'throughout the United States' on September 24, 1862. Although the records are somewhat unclear, more than thirteen thousand Americans, most of them opposition Democrats, were arrested during the war years, giving rise to the charge that Lincoln was a tyrant and a dictator." (Davis, Don't Know Much About the Civil War, pp. 182-183)
Lincoln won New York state by 7000 votes "with the help of federal bayonets," wrote Pulitzer Prize—winning Lincoln biographer David Donald in Lincoln Reconsidered.....ie vote rigging.
The border states were systematically disarmed, and two "confiscation acts" were written into law in which any U.S. citizen could have all of his private property confiscated by the government for such "crimes" as "falsely exalting the motives of the traitors"; "overstating the success of our adversaries"; and "inflaming party spirit among ourselves." Informers who turned in their neighbors could keep 50 percent of their neighbors' property; the other half when to the U.S. treasury. In Constitutional Problems Under Lincoln James G. Randall painstakingly details all of these attacks on constitutional liberty, and more.
We were talking about Jefferson Davis’s footprints over the Confederate Constitution. Lincoln’s footprints on the United States Constitution are already well known. You were the one that claimed Davis followed the Confederate Constitution scrupulously. He did not.