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To: GOPcapitalist
Let me offer corrections to some of your more glaring errors.

Indeed they did...4 years after the war, during which the union controlled the entire washington government, and 8 years after Lincoln had the justices that issued rulings in disagreement with his policies arrested.

It took until 1869 for the matter to come to the Supreme Court. What is your point? Supreme Court always rules on the legality of actions after the fact. It cannot, by law, issue advisory rulings on pending actions. Your second claim - that Lincoln arrested Supreme Court Justices who didn't agree with him - is clearly wrong and I would like to challenge you to name those that he did arrest.

The only person who tried that little scheme was Lincoln himself when he disingenuously sent warships under the guise that they were simply bringing food, of which Sumter had more than enough coming in regularly from charleston on which to survive.

The commander at Sumter had informed Washington in March that he would have to surrender within 6 weeks if his command was not reprovisioned. What little food was coming from shore ended on the orders of the confederate government on April 2nd. Your claim is false.

...what is it that Lincoln could have wanted more than all else? To provoke the other side into firing the first shot.

And as I pointed out earlier, war was even more important for Davis

298 posted on 12/20/2001 5:38:02 AM PST by Non-Sequitur
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To: Non-Sequitur
It took until 1869 for the matter to come to the Supreme Court. What is your point?

My point is that, even in 1869, the north clearly dominated and controlled the government of the united states whereas the defeated south was under the presence of "reconstruction" governments.

Supreme Court always rules on the legality of actions after the fact.

That it does. I'm simply noting that the impartiality of any aspect of the united states government in the period during the civil war and immediately after is highly questionable. I say this due to the clear northern dominance of that government and to the widespread political suppression of certain viewpoints that occurred during and after the civil war by those in power.

It cannot, by law, issue advisory rulings on pending actions.

Nor did I ever say that it could. So what's your point?

Your second claim

Second claim? Did I miss something, cause i'm not sure what you are attributing to me as my first claim.

that Lincoln arrested Supreme Court Justices who didn't agree with him - is clearly wrong and I would like to challenge you to name those that he did arrest.

You are incorrect. Lincoln issued an arrest warrant for Roger Taney, chief justice of the United States Supreme court, after Taney authored the opinion of ex Parte Merryman in 1861. Taney's opinion rebuked Lincoln's suspension of habeas corpus which, according to court precedent, was a power of the legislature and not the executive.

The commander at Sumter had informed Washington in March that he would have to surrender within 6 weeks if his command was not reprovisioned. What little food was coming from shore ended on the orders of the confederate government on April 2nd. Your claim is false.

Your information is false and, I suspect, originates largely from a common myth that was started by factually challenged muckraker writer Ida Tarbell a century ago, and has tended to stick ever since.

The March letter to Lincoln, which Tarbell incorrectly claimed to suggest that Sumter had only a week or two of food left, in fact noted the presence of "biscuit and pork" provisions which, alone, could sustain the garrison unaided for about a month. The misquoted figure results from a misreading of Anderson's letter where he notes simply that, if the confederates layed siege to the fort they would be able to "batter us to pieces" and if that did not succeed, they could take the option of starving the garrison out.

As for the garrison's specific provisions, Charleston provided them without any difficulties from December through April, up until only a few days before the battle. If we presuming that up until early April, since Charleston had provided the food for the garrison until then, the garrison's stores which were stated at about a month's worth of supplies only a few days earlier were still at about that level. As for your assertion of "what little food" came from Charleston, it is historically inaccurate as Anderson himself wrote of the Charleston provisions in a letter to Pickens in late March, "I am satisfied with the existing arrangement" and further specified that he "did not solicit any modification" of it.

And as I pointed out earlier, war was even more important for Davis

Was it? Cause that seems to be a matter of contested opinion, more than it is a statement of fact. In fact, Davis's comments from the time, especially in his departure speech from the senate, indicated a desire simply that the south be left alone:

"I am sure I feel no hostility toward you, Senators from the North. I am sure there is not one of you, whatever sharp discussion there may have been between us, to whom I cannot now say, in the presence of my God, I wish you well; and such, I feel, is the feeling of the people whom I represent toward those whom you represent. I, therefore, feel that I but express their desire when I say I hope, and they hope, for peaceable relations with you, though we must part. They may be mutually beneficial to us in the future, as they have been in the past, if you so will it. The reverse may bring disaster on every portion of the country, and, if you will have it thus, we will invoke the God of our fathers, who delivered them from the power of the lion, to protect us from the ravages of the bear" - Davis' farewell speech to the senate

371 posted on 12/20/2001 9:09:57 PM PST by GOPcapitalist
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