Replies

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...

;>)