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To: WhiskeyPapa
Prize Cases, 67 U.S. 635 (1862)...It's you who ignores the rule of law.

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. You also claimed that precedents aren't really worth anything because a couple of bad rulings like Plessy and Roe v. Wade make all the rest of them worthless.

But now it seems you're back to quoting precedents as long as they support your agenda. I must ask now, what about Bollman? What about Merryman? According to those rulings The Lincoln committed an unconstitutional act when he suspended habeas corpus. Are you content to accept that, Walt, and in doing so concede that your idolatrous false god is flawed? Or, as usual, will you keep your beloved Prize Cases while simultaneously dismissing the rulings you don't like? Either way, you show yourself as a dishonest fraud.

118 posted on 12/21/2002 4:31:00 PM PST by GOPcapitalist
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To: GOPcapitalist
Prize Cases, 67 U.S. 635 (1862)...It's you who ignores the rule of law.

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.

I didn't say any such thing.

What I said then and say now is that people in the ACW era went by different standards than we do today. One of those standards is that rulings of the Supreme Court only applied to the particular case.

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

From the Prize Cases:

"It has the same commission, and none other, which gives authority to the President and to Congress -- the Constitution. It arose at the creation of this Government, coeval and coordinate with the Executive and Legislature, independent of either or both. More, it was charged with the sublime trust and duty of sitting in judgment upon their acts, for the protection of the rights of individuals and of States, whenever "a case" should come before it, as this has come, challenging the Constitutional authority of such acts."

"...whenever a case should come before it."

Such cases came, and the Court ruled that the president had the right --under law-- to put down the rebellion.

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

Walt

119 posted on 12/22/2002 6:40:42 AM PST by WhiskeyPapa
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