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I doubt seriously whether his negotiations during the interregnum were genuine attempts to keep the South in the Union, because he knew he could do ever so much more politically with the South out of the Union and out of the Congress, and that his policy was always a war policy, whose implementation began immediately on his taking office, as shown by the documents turfed up by nolu chan and rustbucket on the other thread.

BINGO! Congress could have been assembled in days not months if the Lincoln had actually desired to wrap his actions in the veil of legality. Lincoln waited until the Congress, having REFUSED to use force against the seceded states, adjourned, and then proceeded with his plans - refusing to meet with the peace commisioners, lying to former Supreme Court Justice Campbell et al about Ft. Sumter.

Lincoln waited until the Congress, having REFUSED to use force against the seceded states, adjourned, and then proceeded with his plans - refusing to meet with the peace commisioners, lying to former Supreme Court Justice Campbell et al about Ft. Sumter.

Yes, as we put this puzzle together, it's starting to look worse and worse for the Big Guy........do you suppose that all that white marble over all these years has actually covered up that much intriguing and Constitution-flouting? Or have other historians seen it, and simply turned away because the implications for what we're all taught to believe about America would have been too deadly?

BINGO! Congress could have been assembled in days not months if the Lincoln had actually desired to wrap his actions in the veil of legality.

I read an interesting letter on that subject the other day...

"Every just view that can be taken of this subject, admonishes the public of the necessity of a rigid adherence to the simple, the received, and the fundamental doctrine of the constitution, that the power to declare war, is fully and exclusively vested in the legislature; that the executive has no right, in any case, to decide the question, whether there is or is not the cause for declaring war; that the right of convening and informing congress, whenever such a question seems to call for a decision, is all the right which the constitution has deemed requisite or proper." - James Madison, Letters of Helvidius No. 1 (emphasis added)

Seems as if Madison saw things quite clearly on that issue. If the president wanted to engage in war he had NO CHOICE but to call congress and his power to convene congress was intended for exactly that purpose. How one could claim that Lincoln acted properly by waging war without Congress' presence is beyond absurd.