Setting the Record Straight: Lincoln's Wisdom on the Politics of Race

A minor scholar, an economist by the name of Thomas DiLorenzo, has been on an anti-Lincoln Jihad throughout the year 2002. His book, "The Real Lincoln," has led otherwise sound writers, like Paul Craig Roberts, to declare the Great Emancipator, "worse than [ the Cambodian mastermind of genocide] Pol Pot." Since Dr. Keyes and the Declaration Foundation take Lincoln to be a model of Declarationist Statesmanship, it behooves us to deal with the calumnies of Professor DiLorenzo, and we have done so throughout the year.

Today, I'd like to excerpt a section from our book, "America's Declaration Principles in Thought and Action," dealing with the charge made by DiLorenzo and many before him, mostly leftists, but also libertarians, that Lincoln showed himself a racist in the famous "Peoria Speech" of 1854. It is found in Chapter 8 of our book, which may be purchased online at www.declaration.net

As we read the Peoria speech today, one element jars our sensibilities: Lincoln does not take a stand for full political and social equality of the races. Some of the abolitionists of his day, especially the Quakers and other religious abolitionists, did. The 1854 laws of Maine set up in almost all respects what we would recognize today as equal civil rights, including jury duty and voting rights. But Maine was almost alone. Illinois' laws did not allow blacks to vote or serve on juries, and Illinois was typical of the free states.

In Peoria, Lincoln said this: "Let it not be said that I am contending for the establishment of political and social equality between the whites and blacks. I have already said the contrary." Was this statesmanlike too, or was it either weak or unwise, or even unjust?

We think Lincoln's position in the Peoria speech can be vindicated, and that it can be reconciled with his support for expanded civil rights towards the end of the Civil War, if two things are kept in mind. First, as Lincoln himself said in 1859, "In this country, public opinion is everything." Second, that the knowledge of the statesman is prudence, or practical wisdom, which consists in knowing how to move towards moral goals by practicable steps, not in "the immoderate pursuit of moral perfection" which, in political life, "will more often lead to misery and terror than to justice and happiness," as Thomas G. West puts it in his book on the founding.

To take the first point first, is it not self-evident that in a republic, where the citizens are governed by their consent, their opinion will be the court of last resort, the final arbiter of all disputes? That does not mean that those opinions will never change, or that it will not be the duty of a good man and especially of a statesman to mold them for the better. But a public man will ignore them at his peril. Lincoln turns this weapon back on Douglas in the Peoria speech, when he tells him that he will never be able to suppress the voice of the people crying out that slavery is unjust: "...the great mass of mankind...consider slavery a great moral wrong; and their feeling against it, is not evanescent, but eternal. It lies at the very foundation of their sense of justice; and it cannot be trifled with-It is a great and durable element of popular action, and I think, no statesman can safely disregard it."

Sir Francis Bacon wrote long ago that, "Nature, to be mastered, must be obeyed." The saying is equally true of the nature of the physical body and of the body politic. Public opinion, the soul of the political body, was ailing in the days after the Nebraska Bill, and Douglas was prescribing as medicine what Lincoln thought poison. That the patient should also take up a regimen of vigorous exercise after his recovery was not and should not have been the first thing on the doctor's list.

Lincoln never said that political equality between the races was wrong; the most complete expression of his early views on the matter came in the 1858 debates with Douglas, and he clothed them entirely in the language of feeling: "...[I said years ago[1] that] my own feelings would not admit a social and political equality between the black and white races, and that even if my own feelings would admit of it, I still knew that the public sentiment of the country would not, and that such a thing was an utter impossibility, or substantially that." And again, in the same debate, "I agree with Judge Douglas that he [the Negro] is not my equal in many respects, certainly not in color- perhaps not in intellectual and moral endowments; but in the right to eat the bread without the leave of any body else which his own hand earns, he is my equal and the equal of Judge Douglas, and the equal of every other man."

It must be remembered that the young Lincoln had said in 1838 that our passions, our feelings, were to be the enemy of our freedom in the future, and that reason, "cold sober reason," would be the friend of the principles of the Declaration. Only one feeling, an almost religious reverence for the founding ideals, would buttress that reason. It should also be pointed out that Lincoln said that he knew only that the feelings of his fellow citizens would not admit of equality. He was certain that there was an inequality of "color." He did not say that he was certain of the infinitely more important inequality of "intellectual and moral endowments." These he said, might be unequal... "perhaps."

Many causes, including prominently the religious conviction that all men are brothers, conspired to change public opinion in the United States towards the end of the Civil War. The Emancipation Proclamation, by altering the legal status of slaves and by encouraging them to flee their masters and seek refuge in the Union armies, had some effect. But the greatest source of the change was probably the testimony given in blood by the black soldiers who had served the Union. The number enlisted was reported by the President to Congress in January of 1864 to be over 100,000,[2] and Lincoln and many others thought that without their services, the war could not have been won. To a complaining Northern politician, James C. Conkling, who objected to fighting to "free negroes," Lincoln penned these memorable words: "...[when peace comes] it will then have been proved that, among free men, there can be no successful appeal from the ballot to the bullet; and that they who take such appeal are sure to lose their case, and pay the cost. And then, there will be some black men who can remember that, with silent tongue, and clenched teeth, and steady eye, and well poised bayonet, they have helped mankind on to this great consummation; while, I fear, there will be some white ones, unable to forget that, with malignant heart, and deceitful speech, they have strove to hinder it."

When a man will not fight to preserve his people and his principles, we call him a slave; when a slave does fight, we see in him a man. In antiquity, slaves who risked their lives to save their masters were often manumitted. They had proved their manhood. Lincoln wrote Conkling in the same letter, "If they stake their lives for us, they must be prompted by the strongest motive--even the promise of freedom. And the promise being made, must be kept."

It cannot, alas, be said that the promise was perfectly kept. It would take a century more after the abolition of slavery for a new exercise of Declaration statesmanship to establish political equality without regard to race in this country. But the start was made in the time of Lincoln's stewardship.

Let us be blunt; if Lincoln had taken the full position of equal social and political rights, he would not have been electable to any statewide office in Illinois, neither in 1854, when he was a candidate for U.S. Senate and nearly won the nomination, nor in 1858, when he and Douglas had their memorable debates. He would not have become president in 1860, nor would any member of his party who took such a stand. He accomplished the good that he could, always insisting on the fundamental principle that in the fullness of time would yield such results. To achieve this good, he had to rekindle a reverence for the Declaration. Let us look briefly at how he did that in the Peoria speech.

Word, words, words. "Mere words" men say, and yet it is by the power of words that we take common counsel and learn to govern ourselves. We are free because we are made in the image of the all-wise God, and we have a bit of His light in our minds, and by that bit we strive to live according to His laws, the "laws of nature, and of nature's God." Of Divine things, St. Paul writes, "But how are men to call upon him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear of him without a preacher?"

Lincoln preached in Peoria. He preached the political religion he had declared must be preached years ago in Springfield. Douglas and the doctrine of popular sovereignty were "giving up the OLD faith... " Human equality and popular sovereignty were "as opposite as God and mammon..." Three times he calls the proposition that all men are created equal, the "ancient faith." Of the Nebraska Bill he says, "It hath no relish of salvation in it." He calls the Founders, "our revolutionary fathers," and "the fathers of the republic," stirring memories of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. He compares slavery to the fateful disobedience of Adam. He says: "Our republican robe is soiled, and trailed in the dust. Let us re-purify it. Let us turn and wash it white, in the spirit, if not the blood, of the Revolution."

Lincoln was like a great preacher in more than his scriptural language and his vision that America was founded on the Declaration as a kind of covenant or original creed, the "ancient faith." He endeavored to emulate the charity of great preaching, too, as when he admitted that "the Southern people" were "just what we would be in their situation," and when he said that "I surely will not blame them..." He stressed that Thomas Jefferson, the 'father Abraham' of the American covenant was "a Virginian by birth...a slaveholder..." He opened his speech by announcing that he did not "propose to question the patriotism, or to assail the motives of any man, or class of men...He. added that he wished "to be no less than national in all the positions" he would take. When he had suggested that "...a gradual emancipation might be adopted..." He immediately added, "but for their tardiness in this I will not undertake to judge our brethren of the south." Thus, to political faith, he added political charity.

The climax of the speech actually occurs about three-fourths in; after that point Lincoln anticipates some of the points he expects Douglas to make in his final hour's response. The paragraph begins with "Our republican robe is soiled..." It ends with these words of salvation and hope, which we quote in full:

Let us re-adopt the Declaration of Independence, and with it, the practices, and policy, which harmonize with it. Let north and south--let all Americans--let all lovers of liberty everywhere--join in the great and good work. If we do this, we shall not only have saved the Union; but we shall have so saved it, as to make and keep it, forever worthy of the saving. We shall have so saved it, that the succeeding millions of free happy people, the world over, shall rise up, and call us blessed, to the latest generations.

In the Lyceum speech, Lincoln had concluded by urging the statesmen of his day to take the materials supplied by reason and mold them into intelligence, morality, and reverence for the law. "Upon these let the proud fabric of freedom rest, as the rock of its basis; and as truly as has been said of the only greater institution, 'the gates of hell shall not prevail against it." At Peoria, he took his own advice, and became such a statesman.

[1]In fact, it was in the Peoria speech. The text there runs, "whether this [feeling against equality] accords with justice and sound judgement, is not the sole question, if indeed, it is any part of it. A universal feeling, whether well or ill-founded, can not be safely disregarded. We can not, then, make them equals."

[2] By the end of the war, over 200,000 blacks had served in the Union armed forces, and 37,000 had died serving their country.

I have nothing more to say to you, because I don't think it's possible to have a constructive discussion with you.

Once again, the fealing is mutual.

You are very narowly focused on winning and losing and not on understanding history in context or understanding ideas for their own sake.

Yet again, you indicate your ability to develop comments better suited for a mirror than for FR. You truly are not one to talk on understanding ideas for their own sake, considering your recent attempt to obscure the conversation by weighing its matters through the lens of slavery.

Your frequent ad hominem attacks indicate this

Occasional acts of mockery toward the deserving and absurd has no harm to it, nor is it excessively ad hominem in nature. If I were responding to your argument by randomly calling you names, now that would constitute ad hominem. Seeing as I have not done so and seeing as my greatest "offense" against you is calling you to task on your use of a fraudulent argument tactic, I don't believe you have the grounds to complain.

as does your persistent use of the schoolyard "mirror" analogy.

I only use it when it is applicable to what you are saying, and it's certainly not my fault you say a large ammount of stuff that better describes yourself than any other person on this board. You seem to frequently engage in the art of fault projecting, as you just did above when you of all people accused me of refusing to understand ideas for their own sake. The fact that I note that you recently engaged in a lengthy attempt to deny examination of The Lincoln's economic policies for their own sake by irrationally insisting that they be judged through the lens of slavery is no fault of my own so long as it is a valid point of contention with you. I believe that it is so and have made my case why. If your only response is a blanket dismissal of my many calls against your equally many projections simply for making those calls, it becomes readily apparent that what you are offering is wholly inadequite.

Scoring ephemeral points against each other or chalking up hollow, rhetorical victories doesn't advance our understanding a whit.

Perhaps not, but absent the ability to dissect and refute an argument's merits, a similar situation emerges in which the conversation tends not to move beyond those arguments, however weak they may be.

I began by responding to the characterization of Lincoln as a "big government thug." I thought to deal directly with what I took to be the commonest arguments against Lincoln. I maintained that Lincoln's protectionist and developmental policies can't simply be characterized as "thuggery" and aren't very "big government" by 20th century standards and were in consonance with the policies of other, earlier and highly respected political leaders.

Yes. And you also maintained that they were in no way a "recipe" for big government. I disputed that assertion and made my case, to which you responded by throwing out the slavery card as your lens to judge everything else.

The size of government contracted after the war.

The decline in military need alone is often enough to do that in any war of a similar nature. I also do not think that those residing in the south at the time, who were under literal yankee occupation and virtual dictatorship, believed that government had contracted after the war.

Lincoln was trying to deal with a rebellion and the chaos it brought.

In that case, it all becomes a matter of handling. I believe that he handled it poorly and achieved a pyrrhic victory. You seem to believe otherwise.

And yes, slavery was the ultimate in thuggery and required a large governmental apparatus to maintain it. That isn't a red herring.

It is when we're discussing economic policy and you throw it out as the standard of judgment while implying that, because slavery was such a bad thing, other complaints of wrong are meaningless or to be neglected in its presence. Your comments indicate an attempt to do exactly that. Look at your post in #36. I had commented at length in response to your characterization of The Lincoln's economic policy. Your response, which I repost here, was not to address those issues of economic policy but to throw out that red herring of slavery, declare that it "dwarfs" any of those other wrongs of The Lincoln, and conclude that because of that the other issues are not relevant points of contention. From your post, which was made in response to my comments on a subject unrelated to slavery:

"What is slavery, but a way of "giving unfair advantages to a certain few at the expense of" others -- and a way a good deal more savage than any protective tariff could be. That "foot" was already in the "door," and Lincoln's generation did much to get it out. To extract the profits of uncompensated labor and to use the resources of others to protect that compelled labor source dwarfs anything the Republican party ever did."

And facing it is unavoidable in coming to a balanced assessment of the Civil War era.

Nobody ever disputed that. Again my contention is not with slavery being an issue, but with your use of it as a tool to obscure other issues in this discussion. Any reasonable reading of your statement above indicates that, rather than respond to my comments about The Lincoln's economic policies, your interests were in obscuring them by throwing out slavery as a relative measure and concluding that it outweighs and minimizes all those other things with the implication that therefore they are of little concern.

You seem to associate discussion of slavery with "relativism."

No, only your use of slavery as a tool of relative judgment to consider and dismiss other matters.

I have to wonder what you mean by "relativism."

It is not a difficult concept to understand in the use I have given it. Your argument, as is indicated in your statement that I reposted above, is to give consideration to other matters by way of their relative situation to your chosen standard lens of slavery. A proper consideration would seek to weigh other matters and ideas, as you recently put it, "for their own sake."

In truth, that discussion introduces absolute moral concerns into debate.

Not when the absolute wrongs within slavery are used as a lens to diminish, obscure, and dismiss other sins of another nature in other situations. Doing so reorients consideration of those other factors to their relative position as judged by slavery. Such a position is unsupportable.

There are of course other moral absolutes, but if slavery isn't wrong, then nothing is wrong.

Not so, though slavery itself is wrong. To suggest as you do sets up a relationship of contingency - to say "if slavery isn't wrong, then nothing is wrong" suggests that the condition of "wrongness" for all other things that are wrong is contingent upon slavery first being wrong. Aside from begging the questions of "why slavery?" and "why not murder, or rape, or drunkardly conduct, or using a cell phone in a movie theater?," your position of setting up a contingency carries the implication that "wrongness" is not inherent to the act but rather it is relative to some external force that, as you have shown by doing so, is itself arbitrarily chosen.

Things are not "wrong" because of their relationship of being weighed against something else that is the "top wrong." Other things are not wrong because slavery is wrong. They are wrong intrinsically, as is slavery. For want of avoiding further redundancy beyond this statement, I will simply note that this seems to be the point of contention between our arguments. Your system seeks to measure something else by its relative position viewed through a single arbitrarily chosen absolute. Mine seeks to measure each item through intrinsic absoluteness without the contingency upon other absolutes your standard places.

If you read Jaffa, rather than merely abuse him, you would understand the moral importance of the question of slavery and its expansion.

I've had the misfortune of reading him previously and have concluded that (1) he does not truly convey the moral importance of the slavery question and in fact heavily corrupts the importance of that question by a terribly misguided historical approach that is flawed right down to its philosophical core, and that (2) he is fully deserving of a reaction not unlike what one would give to a mohammedan fanatic propagating his false prophet's cultism directly in the face of obvious greater truths and reality itself.

While Jaffa may have his faults, he certainly does have a deeper, more comprehensive and more philosophical understanding than DiLorenzo or any other neo-confederate hack of the week.

Jaffa has his own philosophical understandings, but as I have noted, they are ones containing misguided direction and terribly flawed consequences. I also believe you underestimate the philosophical background of DiLorenzo's arguments. They too are rooted in an approach to truth and human interaction with that truth, but of a different lineage than the straussian redemptionist line pushed by the Abratollah. DiLorenzo comes out of a philosophical tradition that is prominent in conservative economic theory - man's pursuit of the self, which ultimately relates to the corrupted nature of man's existence.

Lincoln freed the slaves IN THE SOUTH ONLY and YEARS into the war as a political move. He was a consummate politician, not some great moral leader. If it's a great moral leader you want, look to Washington.

Lincoln was definitely a great moral leader. He carefully noted what people would accept, but he also tried to shape opinion.

Lincoln did take a strong moral stand, and if only for this, he is the greatest president. Lincoln was sure he would lose the 1864 election. It went so far that the head of the Republican National Committee actually asked him to step aside. He was urged to revoke the Emancipation Proclamation.

He said, according to [David] Donald, "But now, if he followed their advice, he would have to do without the help of nearly 200,000 black men in the service of the Union. In that case 'we would be compelled to abandon the war in 3 weeks.' Practical considerations aside, there was the moral issue. How could anybody propose 'to return to slavery the black warriors of Port Hudson and Olustee to their masters to conciliate the South?' "I should be damned in time and eternity for so doing,' he told his visitors (Gov. Randall, and Judge Mills, both from Wisconsin). "The world will know that I keep my faith to friends and enemies, come what will.'"

More from David Donald:

"But there were limits to what Lincoln would do to secure a second term.

He did not even consider canceling or postponing the election. Even had that been constitutionally possible, "the election was a necessity." "We can not have free government without elections," he explained; "and if the rebellion could force us to forego, or postpone a national election, it might fairly claim to have already conquered and ruined us." He did not postpone the September draft call, even though Republican politicians from all across the North entreated him to do so. Because Indiana failed to permit its soldiers to vote in the field, he was entirely willing to furlough Sherman's regiments so that they could go home and vote in the October state elections -but he made a point of telling Sherman, "They need not remain for the Presidential election, but may return to you at once."

Though it was clear that the election was going to be a very close one, Lincoln did not try to increase the Republican electoral vote by rushing the admission of new states like Colorado and Nebraska, both of which would surely have voted for his reelection. On October 31, in accordance with an act of Congress, he did proclaim Nevada a state, but he showed little interest in the legislation admitting the new state. Despite the suspicion of both Democrats and Radicals, he made no effort to force the readmission of Louisiana, Tennessee, and other Southern states, partially reconstructed but still under military control, so that they could cast their electoral votes for him. He reminded a delegation from Tennessee that it was the Congress, not the Chief Executive, that had the power to decide whether a state's electoral votes were to be counted and announced firmly, “Except it be to give protection against violence, I decline to interfere in any way with the presidential election.”

"Lincoln", pp. 539-40 by David H. Donald

Lincoln took strong moral positions on the issues of the day.

He opposed slavery in the 1850's at a time when perhaps 2/3's of whites were against his position.

You can say Lincoln was not a moral leader, but you'll not show that in the record.

Lincoln began preparing the way for black suffrage a year before his death.

The attempt to legitimize blacks as Americans can be seen in these letters he wrote :

Private

General Hunter

Executive Mansion

Washington D.C. April 1, 1863

My dear Sir:

I am glad to see the accounts of your colored force at Jacksonville, Florida. I see the enemy are driving at them fiercely, as is to be expected. It is mportant to the enemy that such a force shall not take shape, and grow, and thrive, in the south; and in precisely the same proportion, it is important to us that it shall. Hence the utmost caution and viglilance is necessary on our part. The enemy will make extra efforts to destroy them; and we should do the same to perserve and increase them.

Yours truly

A. Lincoln

_________________________________________________________

Hon. Andrew Johnson

Executive Mansion,

My dear Sir:

Washington, March 26. 1863.

I am told you have at least thought of raising a negro military force. In my opinion the country now needs no specific thing so much as some man of your ability, and position, to go to this work. When I speak of your position, I mean that of an eminent citizen of a slave-state, and himself a slave- holder. The colored population is the great available and yet unavailed of, force for restoring the Union. The bare sight of fifty thousand armed, and drilled black soldiers on the banks of the Mississippi, would end the rebellion at once. And who doubts that we can present that sight, if we but take hold in earnest? If you have been thinking of it please do not dismiss the thought. Yours truly

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Hon Soc of War

Executive Mansion

Washington

July 21, 1863

My Dear Sir:

I desire that a renewed and vigorous effort be made to raise colored forces along the shores of the Missippi [sic]. Please consult the General-in-chief; and if it is perceived that any acceleration of the matter can be effected, let it be done. I think the evidence is nearly conclusive that Gen. Thomas is one of the best, if not the very best, instruments for this service.

Yours truly

Lincoln also proposed --privately-- to the new governor of Louisiana that the new state constiution include voting rights for blacks. A year later, in April, 1865 he came out --publicly-- for the suffrage for black soldiers, because his great --political-- skill told him that the time was right.

It was a direct result of this speech, and this position, that Booth shot him.

President Lincoln, besides ordering the army (note that this is only a few months after the EP) to use black soldiers more vigorously, made many public speeches to prepare the people for the idea of black suffrage.

"But to be plain, you are dissatisfied with me about the negro. Quite likely there is a difference of opinion between you and myself upon that subject. I certainly wish that all men could be free, while I suppose that you do not. ....peace does not appear as distant as it did. I hope it will come soon, and come to stay; and so come as to worth the keeping in all future time. It will have then been proved that, among free men, there can be no successful appeal from the ballot to the bullet; and that they who take such appeal are sure to lose their case, and pay the cost. And then, there will be some black men, who can remember that, with silent tongue, and clenched teeth, and steady eye, and well-poised bayonet they have helped mankind on to this great consumation; while, I fear, there will be some white ones, unable to forget that, with malignant heart, and deceitful speech, have strove to hinder it. Still let us not be over-sanguine of a speedy final triumph. Let us be quite sober. Let us dilligently apply the means, never doubting that a just God, in his own good time, will give us the rightful result."

8/23/63

"When you give the Negro these rights," he [Lincoln] said, "when you put a gun in his hands, it prophesies something more: it foretells that he is to have the full enjoyment of his liberty and his manhood...By the close of the war, Lincoln was reccomending commissioning black officers in the regiments, and one actually rose to become a major before it was over. At the end of 1863, more than a hundred thousand had enlisted in the United States Colored Troops, and in his message to Congress the president reported, "So far as tested, it is difficult to say they are not as good soldiers as any." When some suggested in August 1864 that the Union ought to offer to help return runaway slaves to their masters as a condition for the South's laying down its arms, Lincoln refused even to consider the question.

"Why should they give their lives for us, with full notice of our purpose to betray them?" he retorted. "Drive back to the support of the rebellion the physical force which the colored people now give, and promise us, and neither the present, or any incoming administration can save the Union." To others he said it even more emphatically. "This is not a question of sentiment or taste, but one of physical force which may be measured and estimated. Keep it and you can save the Union. Throw it away, and the Union goes with it."

--"Lincoln's Men" pp 163-64 by William C. Davis

Lincoln's sense of fairness made him seek to extend the blessings of citizenship to everyone who served under the flag.

His great political skill made him realize that blacks --were--not-- leaving -- he played that card and no one was biting, black or white. That being the case, he knew he had to prepare for the future, and that future involved full rights for blacks.

Abraham Lincoln in 1860.

Shall I refresh your memory?

"This is precisely our present case— a case of rebellion, wherein the public safety does require the suspension. Indeed, arrests by process of courts, and arrests in cases of rebellion, do not proceed altogether upon the same basis. The former is erected at the small per centage of ordinary and continuous perpetration of crime; while the latter is directed at sudden and extensive uprisings against the Government, which at most, will succeed or fail in no great length of time. In the latter case, arrests are made, not so much for what has been done, as for what probably would be done. The latter is more for the preventive and less for the vindictive than the former.

In such cases, the purposes of men are much more easily understood than in cases of ordinary crime. 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 county with "buts" and "ifs" and "ands." Of how little value the constitutional provisions I have quoted will be rendered, if arrests shall never be made until defined crimes shall have been committed, may be illurtrated by a few notable examples. Gen. John C. Breckinridge, Gen. Robert E. Lee, Gen. Joseph E. Johnston, Gen. John B. Magruder, Gen. William B. Preston, Gen. Simon B. Buckner, and Commodore Franklin Buchanan, now occupying the very highest places in the Rebel war service, were all within the power of the Government since the Rebellion began, and were nearly as well known to be traitors the as now. Unquestionably if we had seized and held them, the insurgent cause would be much weaker. But no one of them had then committed any crime defined in the law. Every one of them, if arrested would have been discharged on habeas corpus were the writ allowed to operate. In view of these and similar cases, I think the time not unlikely to come when I shall be blamed for having made too few arrests rather than too many.

By the third resolution, the meeting indicate their opinion that military arrests may be constitutional in localities where rebellion actually exists, but that such arrests are unconstitutional in localities where rebellion or insurrection does not actually exist. They insist that such arrests shall not be made"outside the lines of necessary military occupation, and the scenes of insurrection."

Inasmuch, however, as the Constution itself makes no such distinction, I am unable to believe that there is any such constitutional distinction. I concede thar the class of arrests complained of can be constitutional only when, in cases of rebellion or invasion, the public safety rnav require them; and I insist that in such cases they are constitutional whereever the public safety does require them; as well in places to which they may prevent the Rebellion extending as in those where it may be already prevailing; as well where they may restrain mischievous interference with the raising and supplying of armies to suppress the Rebellion, as where the Rebellion may actually be; as well where they may restrain the enticing men out of the army, as where they would prevent mutiny in the army; equally constitutional at all places where they will conduce to the public safety, as against the dangers of rebellion or invasion. Take the particular case mentioned by the meeting. It is asserted, in substance, that Mr. Vallandigham was, by a military commander, seized and tried "for no other reason than words addressed to a public meeting, in criticism of the course of the Admimstrarion, and in condemnation of the Military orders of the General." Now, if there be no mistake about this; if this assertion is the truth and the whole truth; if there was no other reason for the arrest, then I concede that the arrest was wrong. But the arrest, as I understand, was made for a very different reason. Mr. Vallandigham avows his hostility' to the War on the part of the Union; and his arrest was made because he was laboring, with some effect, to prevent the raising of troops; to encourage desertions from the army; and to leave the Rebellion without an adequate military force to suppress it. He was not arrested because he was damaging the political prospects of the Administration, or the personal interests of the Commanding General, but because he was damaging the Army, upon the existence and vigor of which the life of the Nation depends.

He was warring upon the Military, and this gave the Military constitutional jurisdiction to lay hands upon him. If Mr. Vallandigham was not damaging the military power of the country, then his arrest was made on mistake of fact, which I would be glad to correct ion reasonably satisfactory evidence."

...One of the resolutions expresses the opinion of the meeting that arbitrary arrests will have the effect to divide and distract those who should be united in suppressing the Rebellion, and I am specifically called on to discharge Mr. Vanlandigham. I regard this as, at least, a fair appeal to me on the expediency of exercising a Constitutional power which I think exists. In response to such appeal, I have to say, it gave me pain when I learned that Mr. Vallandigham had been arrested—that is, I was pained that there should have seemed to be a necessity for arresting him—and that it will afford me great pleasure to discharge him so soon as I can, by any means, believe the public safety will not suffer by it. I further say that, as the war progresses, it appears to me, opinion, and action, which were in great confusion at first, take shape, and fall into more regular channels, so that the" necessity for strong dealing with them gradually decreases. I have every reason to desire that it should cease altogether, and far from the least is my regard for the opinions and wishes of those who, like the meeting at Albany, declare their purpose to sustain the Government in every constitutional and lawful measure to suppress the Rebellion. Still, I must continue to do so much as mav seem to be required by the public safety."

A. Lincoln, 6/12/63.

"The success of the Maryland policy became a political byword and was celebrated, beyond the borders of Maryland, throughout the war, Thus in 1863, a Loyal Publication Society pamphlet on the War Power of the President explained the necessity of military arrests rather than reliance on the courts by pointing to that familiar example:

When the traitors of the loyal state of Maryland were concocting their grand scheme to hurl the organized power of that state against the government, probably not a handful of them was known to be guilty of any act for which he could ever have been arrested by civil process. And whatever their offenses against the laws might have been, and whatever the fidelity of the courts in that jurisdictlon, the process of civil law would have been far too slow to prevent the consummation of the gigantic treason which would have added another state to the rebellion.... Courts could not have suppressed this unholy work, but the summary imprisonment of those few men saved the state of Maryland to the Union cause.

People in Lincoln's day could see the common sense of what he said. He saved the country that they loved, and that you detest.

Walt

First you tell us:

Nothing Lincoln did was shown to be unconstitutional.
The only place to show that was in the courts, and the rebels dared not go there.

And then you tell us:

The famous Mr. Merryman was burning bridges. He mustered a secessionist calvary unit. He was indicted for treason.
What ultimately happened to him?
The police chief of Baltimore --Kane. He was arrested by the military. What happened to him?
Here's a hint. He was later a serving officer in the rebel army.

Look's like you classify "Mr. Merryman" as a "rebel." Since you have raised the subjects of "courts" and "Mr. Merryman," allow me to quote the Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court in Ex parte Merryman:

"Held...That the president, under the constitution of the United States, cannot suspend the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus, nor authorize a military officer to do it."

Of course, you choose to ignore Ex parte Merryman, just as you choose to ignore every documented historical fact that contradicts your 'comic book' version of history. But your pseudo-historical 'tunnel vision' (or is it simply hypocrisy? ;>) is - as always - quite amusing!

The neo-rebs don't much care for quotes from people of the Civil War era. The record doesn't support their rant.

Really? Bite off a piece of this, friend Walt:

The Union, sir, is dissolved. That is an accomplished fact in the path of this discussion that men may as well heed. One of our confederates has already, wisely, bravely, boldly confronted public danger. and she is only ahead of many of her sisters because of her greater facility for speedy action. The greater majority of those sister States, under like circumstances, consider her cause as their cause; and I charge you in their name to-day: 'Touch not Saguntum.' It is not only their cause, but it is a cause which receives the sympathy and will receive the support of tens and hundreds of thousands of honest patriot men in the nonslaveholding States, who have hitherto maintained constitutional rights, and who respect their oaths, abide by compacts, and love justice...

Senators, my countrymen have demanded no new government; they have demanded no new Constitution. Look to their records at home and here from the beginning of this national strife until its consummation in the disruption of the empire, and they have not demanded a single thing except that you shall abide by the Constitution of the United States; that constitutional rights shall be respected, and that justice shall be done. Sirs, they have stood by your Constitution; they have stood by all its requirements, they have performed all its duties unselfishly, uncalculatingly, disinterestedly...I have stated that the discontented States of this Union have demanded nothing but clear, distinct, unequivocal, well-acknowledged constitutional rights - rights affirmed by the highest judicial tribunals of their country...We have demanded of them simply, solely - nothing else - to give us equality, security and tranquility. Give us these, and peace restores itself. Refuse them, and take what you can get.

Sirs, the Constitution is a compact. It contains all our obligations and the duties of the federal government. I am content and have ever been content to sustain it. While I doubt its perfection, while I do not believe it was a good compact, and while I never saw the day that I would have voted for it as a proposition 'de novo,' yet I am bound to it by oath and by that common prudence which would induce men to abide by established forms rather than to rush into unknown dangers. I have given to it, and intend to give it, unfaltering support and allegiance, but I choose to put that allegiance on the true ground, not on the false idea that anybody's blood was shed for it. I say that the Constitution is the whole compact. All the obligations, all the chains that fetter the limbs of my people, are nominated in the bond, and they wisely excluded any conclusion against them, by declaring that 'the powers not granted by the Constitution to the United States, or forbidden by it to the States, belonged to the States respectively or the people.'

Now I will try it by that standard; I will subject it to that test. The law of nature, the law of justice, would say - and it is so expounded by the publicists - that equal rights...shall be enjoyed. This right of equality being, then, according to justice and natural equity, a right belonging to all States, when did we give it up?

What, then, will you take? You will take nothing but your own judgement; that is, you will not only judge for yourselves, not only discard the court, discard our construction [of the Constitution], discard the practice of the government, but you will drive us out, simply because you will it...

Robert Augustus Toombs of Georgia (upon his resignation from the United States Senate)
January 7, 1861

Yes, you would consider an appeal to the specific written terms of the United States Constitution a "rant," wouldn't you? What was it you said a few months ago?

The Constitution won't even make a good door stop...
276 posted on 10/08/2002 9:28 AM MDT by WhiskeyPapa

That, my friend, is the difference between us - I respect the Constitution, and you apparently do not. And that is quite obviously the difference between you and the "rebels" ("neo" or otherwise ;>) as well...

;>)

"In all cases where justice or thegeneral good might require new laws to be passed, or active measures tobe pursued, the fundamental principle of free government would be reversed. It would be no longer the majority that would rule: the power would be transferred to the minority. Were the defensive privilege limited to particular cases, an interested minority might take advantage of it to screen themselves from equitable sacrifices to the general weal, or, in particular emergencies, to extort unreasonable indulgences. Lastly, it would facilitate and foster the baneful practice of secessions; a practice which has shown itself even in States where a majority only is required; a practice subversive of all the principles of order and regular government; a practice which leads more directly to public convulsions, and the ruin of popular governments, than any other which has yet been displayed among us."

Federalist 58

July 20, 1788

Mr. Madison is not going to serve as the bulwark of your argument.

In fact, as I recall, he was not alive in 1860.

You dodged a straight question. I'll posit it again. Maybe you just misunderstood.

"The Union, Sir, is dissolved."

--Robert Tombs

OR:

South Carolina...cannot get out of this Union until she conquers this government. The revenues must and will be collected at her ports, and any resistance on her part will lead to war. At the close of that war we can tell with certainty whether she is in or out of the Union. While this government endures there can be no disunion...

If the overt act on the part of South Carolina takes place on or after the 4th of March, 1861, then the duty of executing the laws will devolve upon Mr. Lincoln. The laws of the United States must be executed-- the President has no discretionary power on the subject -- his duty is emphatically pronounced in the Constitution. Mr. Lincoln will perform that duty. Disunion by armed force is treason, and treason must and will be put down at all hazards. The Union is not, and cannot be dissolved until this government is overthrown by the traitors who have raised the disunion flag. Can they overthrow it? We think not.

Illinois State Journal, November 14, 1860

Who was right?

Walt

The Constitution won't even make a good door stop... 276 posted on 10/08/2002 9:28 AM MDT by WhiskeyPapa

Here's what gives the Constitution its power:

"A member of the 13th Massachusetts noted that his regiment "listened with respectful attention" while officers urged re-enlistment and extolled the valor of old soldiers, but he added: "It was very sweet to hear all this, but the 13th was not easily moved by this kind of talk. The boys knew too well what sacrifices they had made, and longed to get home again and, if possible, resume the places they had left." In the end the 13th refused to re-enlist, except for a handful who signed up for places in another regiment".

Altogether, there are few facts in American history more remarkable than the fact that so many of these veterans did finally re-enlist —probably slightly more than half of the total number whose terms were expiring. The proffered bounty seems to have had little influence on them. The furlough was much better bait. To men who had not seen their homes for more than two and one half years, a solid month of freedom seemed like an age. A member of the 5th Maine said that it actually seemed as if the war might somehow end before the furloughs would expire, and he wrote of the men who re-enlisted: "What tempted these men? Bounty? No. The opportunity to go home."

It was not hardship that held men back. The 100th Pennsylvania had been marooned in eastern Tennessee for months, cut off from supplies and subsisting on two ears of corn per day per man, but when the question of re-enlistment came up only 27 out of the 393 present for duty refused to sign.

In the 6th Wisconsin, which had done as much costly fighting as any regiment in the army, it was noted that the combat men were re-enlisting almost to a man; it was the cooks, hostlers, clerks, teamsters, and others on non-combat duty who were holding back. And the dominant motive, finally, seems to have been a simple desire to see the job through. The government in its wisdom might be doing everything possible to show the men that patriotism was for fools; in the end, the veterans simply refused to believe it. A solid nucleus did sign the papers, pledging that the army would go on, and by the end of March Meade was able to tell the War Depart- ment that 26,767 veterans had re-enlisted.

The men signed up without illusions. A company in the 19th Massachusetts was called together to talk things over. The regiment had left most of its men on various battlefields, in hospitals, and to Southern prison camps, and this company now mustered just thirteen men and one wounded officer. These considered the matter, and one man finally said: "They use a man here just the same as they do a turkey at a shooting match, fire at it all day and if they don't kill it raffle it off in the evening; so with us, if they can't kill you in three years they want you for three more—but I will stay." And a comrade spoke up: "Well, if new men won't finish the job, old men must, and as long as Uncle Sam wants a man, here is Ben Falls."

The regiment's historian, recording this remark, pointed out that Ben Falls was killed two months later in battle at Spotsylvania Court House."

"A Stillness at Appomattox" by Bruce Catton, pp. 35-36

The Constitution is just words on paper.

Of course, by this time the rebel armies were melting away.

Walt

Federalist 58
July 20, 1788
Mr. Madison is not going to serve as the bulwark of your argument.

You quote Federalist 58 entirely out of context – as usual. The section in question dealt with requirements for a quorum in the House of Representatives, not the secession of States from the union. After all, State secession can hardly have occurred “in States,” now could it? You should be looking in Federalist 43, which details Mr. Madison’s views regarding the proposed secession of the ratifying States from the so-called ‘perpetual union’ formed under the Articles of Confederation:

”...(I)t may be observed that although no political relation can subsist between the assenting and dissenting States, yet the moral relations will remain uncanceled. The claims of justice, both on one side and on the other, will be in force, and must be fulfilled; the rights of humanity must in all cases be duly and mutually respected; whilst considerations of a common interest, and, above all, the remembrance of the endearing scenes which are past, and the anticipation of a speedy triumph over the obstacles to reunion, will, it is hoped, not urge in vain moderation on one side, and prudence on the other.”

Note the recommendation regarding “moderation...and prudence.” What was your quote from the Illinois State Journal? “The revenues must and will be collected at her ports, and any resistance on her part will lead to war.” How nice: “any resistance...will lead to war.” Hardly a course anyone would consider exemplary of “moderation...and prudence.” It would seem the bloodthirsty people of Illinois were unfamiliar with the Federalist Papers as well.

By the way, thanks for the documentation suggesting that the people of Illinois, at least, considered any interruption in the collection of tariffs to be grounds for war. I’m surprised, friend Walt: you have always insisted that tariffs were not an issue.

;>)

In fact, as I recall, [Mr. Madison] was not alive in 1860.

What are you suggesting – that at any given time, the specific written words of the United States Constitution mean only what some unspecified portion of living Americans think they mean? What an eccentric notion! Thomas Jefferson was “not alive in 1860,” but that hardly altered the meaning of his Kentucky Resolutions of 1798, or his 1825 Declaration and Protest on the Principles of the Constitution of the United States of America, and on the Violations of Them. But then, you always did seem to have difficulty with the concept of written words having specific meanings.

;>)

You dodged a straight question. I'll posit it again. Maybe you just misunderstood...
Who was right?

Actually, Mr. Madison answered the question quite clearly:

“A union of the States containing such an ingredient [as the use of force against a State] seemed to provide for its own destruction. The use of force agst. a State, would look more like a declaration of war, than an infliction of punishment, and would probably be considered by the party attacked as a dissolution of all previous compacts by which it might be bound...”

“Maybe you just misunderstood:” the Illinois State Journal was obviously not “right” to propose (in Mr. Madison’s words) “(t)he use of force agst. a State.” As the events following Mr. Lincoln’s call for troops make undeniably clear, such a use of force did indeed “look more like a declaration of war” to nearly half of the Southern States – and those States responded to federal military action by seceding from the union, dissolving “all previous compacts by which [they] might be bound...”

But perhaps you were simply referring to some twisted concept of “right” supposedly conferred by superior military force? Hmm?

;>)

Here's what gives the Constitution its power...

The passage (not surprisingly) makes absolutely no mention of the Constitution. Perhaps you really are suggesting that superior military force determines what is “right”...

The Constitution is just words on paper.

Allow me to refer you (once again) to the words of Thomas Jefferson:

"Our peculiar security is in the possession of a written Constitution. Let us not make it a blank paper by construction."
Thomas Jefferson to W. Nicholas, 1803

Quite obviously, my friend, you prefer a “blank paper” to the rule of law. No wonder you voted for William Jefferson Clinton...

Funny. A few weeks ago you were saying that none of the cases of the time meant much of anything because everybody else was entitled to his own interpretation of that document you hate and curse, the U.S. Constitution. (ME)

I didn't say any such thing. (YOU)

Yes you did. On interpreting the constitution:
"The Executive branch has as much right to interpret the Constitution as the Judicial branch did." - WhiskeyPapa, 12/11/2002 SOURCE: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/804008/posts?q=1&&page=1#90

On your hatred of the constitution:
"As you doubtless know, the separation of powers in that Pact with the Devil we call our Constitution, gives only Congress the right to raise and spend money." - WhiskeyPapa, 11/15/02 SOURCE: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/786927/posts?page=432#432

What I said then and say now is that people in the ACW era went by different standards than we do today.

That's nice, but it doesn't give the president the right to counteract or ignore a court ruling because he doesn't like what it orders him to do.

"It is emphatically the province and duty of the judicial department to say what the law is. Those who apply the rule to particular cases, must of necessity expound and interpret that rule. If two laws conflict with each other, the courts must decide on the operation of each. So if a law be in opposition to the constitution: if both the law and the constitution apply to a particular case, so that the court must either decide that case conformably to the law, disregarding the constitution; or conformably to the constitution, disregarding the law: the court must determine which of these conflicting rules governs the case. This is of the very essence of judicial duty. If then the courts are to regard the constitution; and the constitution is superior to any ordinary act of the legislature; the constitution, and not such ordinary act, must govern the case to which they both apply...The judicial power of the United States is extended to all cases arising under the constitution." - Marbury v. Madison, 1803

One of those standards is that rulings of the Supreme Court only applied to the particular case.

Nonsense. Previous court rulings act as precedents to guide rulings on current particular cases. That's how our legal system works and has worked for centuries, Walt. In The Lincoln's case one such precedent emerged (Bollman) when an actual case pertaining to The Lincoln arose on the circuit court (Merryman).

In this case, we have a case, (or cases) these are the Prize Cases.

If that is your position, go for it. Consistency dictates that you also must concede another case at the time on another issue, Merryman. But we both know that you won't because Merryman shows that your false god was fallible, and you simply cannot bring yourself around to conceding that little fact.

A "case" never came before the court in the matter of Habeas Corpus during the ACW.

Yes it did, Walt. It was called Ex Parte Merryman and the U.S. Circuit Court ruled against your false god in it. If The Lincoln didn't like that, it was his constitutional burden to appeal it to the highest court. Instead he ignored it thereby committing what would have been in other times an impeachable offense.

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