Going To See "Lincoln" Tommorrow...

[Big RR]

Jim--while I agree Lincoln had a lot going for him, I honesly don't think I'd like to have lived in the country while he was president. From his jailing of political enemies to suspending habeas, to putting opposition newspapers out of business, etc., the man ruled like a tyrant. It apparently all owrked out for the best, and his assasination assured that many of these "misdeeds" would remain in the dustbin of history, while his personna as a great and caring man who cared for the rights of all lived on. I honestly think the man was a lot more complex than history has painted him.

[oldr_n_wsr]

I just love a history lesson. (not my strong suit). Thanks to all, I do learn things here every time I log on.

[MajGenl.Meade]

BigRR - I know one general who had great insight.... (but oldr, don't take this without a large pinch of salt)

SHAME AND ABE L

To Mrs. George G. Meade

CAMP PIERPONT, VA., Sunday, December 8, 1861.

My last letter was written on Thursday evening. The next day I went, in command of my brigade, on a foraging expedition, to the farm of a man named Gunnell. We stripped his place of everything we could use ourselves and have imprisoned some civilians without recourse to law. It made me sad to do such injury, and I really was ashamed of our cause, which thus required war to be made on individuals.

Ord argues that Mr. Lincoln has himself dispatched such scruples in a thoroughly legal manner, and we should be reassured by the President’s long experience as a lawyer in Illinois. As recently as July, Mr. Lincoln addressed the legislators and said that his suspension of habeas corpus is entirely consistent with the Constitution. Contrarily, Reynolds maintains that Mr. Lincoln is dissembling, for Justice Taney declares firmly that the Constitution speaks of it only in Article 1, Section 9 dealing with congressional, and not executive, powers.

McCall was determined to quash such dissension amongst his brigadiers by quoting from Mr. Lincoln’s speech to a young men’s Lyceum in Springfield as long ago as 1838, in which the future president declared “to the support of the Constitution and Laws, let every American pledge his life, his property, and his sacred honor; let every man remember that to violate the law, is to trample on the blood of his father, and to tear the character of his own, and his children's liberty.”

Therefore, says McCall, since the President believes what he said in 1838, and he says he didn’t violate the Constitution in 1861, then he indeed did not and that is all there is to it, regardless of Taney’s notions. It is gratifying to have such fine logic enlighten these complicated matters.

It is coincidence that on Saturday my pickets brought me an intoxicated person, found wandering down the Georgetown pike. He identified himself somewhat incoherently as Ward Lamon, federal marshal, former legal partner and particular confidant of Mr. Lincoln. He was seeking Chief Justice Taney on a matter of some urgency, to do with a warrant that Lamon cared not to show me, save the signature by A. Lincoln which appeared quite genuine. All I could get out of the fellow was that it was something to do with needing Justice Taney to closely inspect the interior of a jail cell at Fort McHenry on behalf of a man named Merryman.

I had the men keep him under watch until he recovered command of his faculties, whereupon he apologized for his behavior, and tore up the mysterious paper, claiming that it was merely an old relic of no current relevance. He then made off at speed for the Chain Bridge to go into Washington city and I trust it is the last we shall hear of him. I had some men pick up his discarded papers and toss the pieces on a camp fire.

We continue to forage and drill, conduct reviews and make no advance whatever. It appears unlikely that anything of interest to posterity will ever happen in this place. I am very much pleased with my new horse, all except the price, which is pretty digging.

[Big RR]

Interesting meade. Thanks.

[Lord Jim]

You realize Big RR, that missive was penned by our own General Meade...

(Yes, he's really good at it; he caught me with one of those once.... )

[Big RR]

I wasn't certain; I thought the story about Taney was a bit suspicious (as was the lack of a link or citation), but the rest looked pretty believable. I hoped my noncommittal response might provoke another response from Meade (along the lines of "gotcha" or some further information). But my hat is off to Meade for concocting a pretty believable hoax.

[MajGenl.Meade]

Thank you gentlemen... the first paragraph is genuine Meade as is the final sentence. I've written a looooong article about the raid on the Gunnell farm in Virginia and have visited the place, courtesy of a very understanding lady who now owns it. Taney did rule against Lincoln's suspension of habeas; the 1838 quote is genuine Lincoln. The rest is me having fun explaining a mystery.... the trick is to almost tell the truth, viz. this from Wiki:

The Taney Arrest Warrant is a conjectural controversy in Abraham Lincoln scholarship. The argument is that in late May or early June 1861 President Lincoln secretly ordered an arrest warrant for Roger B. Taney, the Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court, but abandoned the proposal. The arrest order is said to have been in response to Taney's Circuit Judge ruling in Ex parte Merryman, which found Lincoln's suspension of the writ of habeas corpus to be unconstitutional.

As McGinty (2008) concludes, if there was such a plan to arrest Taney it would have been both reckless and inflammatory on Lincoln's part, for it would have dramatically escalated political tensions. McGinty, like all of Lincoln's major biographers, concludes there never was any arrest warrant. The single primary source document is a manuscript written in the 1880s by Ward Hill Lamon, Lincoln's friend, bodyguard, and United States Marshal for the District of Columbia during his administration. According to the manuscript, which is a brief history of Ex Parte Merryman by Lamon:

After due consideration the administration determined upon the arrest of the Chief Justice. A warrant or order was issued for his arrest. Then arose the question of service. Who should make the arrest and where should the imprisonment be? This was done by the President with instructions to use his own discretion about making the arrest unless he should receive further orders from him. The warrant was never served, according to Lamon, for reasons that are not given.

But now you know the real story!

Meade

[Gob]

Serious question Meade, I'm impressed with your stunning knowledge of US history, are you interested in Brit history too?

[MajGenl.Meade]

Serious answer Gob. . . (and thank you but I hasten to amend: knowledge of the US Civil War is more like it). My interest is patchwork re British history. WW1 - especially aircraft; the Anglo-Boer war (before I ever thought of coming here); anything Flashman was involved in (!) . . .

Not so much eh

[Andrew D]

Yes, Taney concluded that Lincoln's suspension of habeas corpus was unconstitutional.

But Taney's ruling was not a ruling of the Supreme Court. It was the ruling of one Justice who was "riding circuit".

The Supreme Court never addressed the issue, principally because in 1863, Congress passed the Habeas Corpus Act, which effectively ratified what Lincoln had done.

And there was not, and still is not, any serious dispute over whether Congress has the power to suspend habeas corpus: It does.

The constitutionally interesting question is whether the power to suspend habeas corpus belongs exclusively to Congress. The conventional argument is that only Congress has the power to suspend habeas corpus, because that power is listed in Article I, Section 9 of the Constitution, and that Section deals only with Congress's powers.

The rub there is that Section 9 of Article I does not deal only with Congress's powers. It includes the provision:

No Money shall be drawn from the Treasury, but in Consequence of Appropriation made by law ....

That is a limitation of executive power -- of the President's power -- not a limitation of Congress's power.

So once we see that Section 9 of Article I deals not only with Congress's powers, but also with the President's powers, the argument that only Congress can suspend habeas corpus, because Section 9 of Article I deals only with Congress's powers collapses.

[Gob]

Not so much eh

A fair bit more than me though. I must admit that history was never really on my reading/studying agenda, though it is gaining attraction the older I get.

Nostalgia eh?

I have a hankering for the history of 60's Britain.

[dales]

[Gob]

[Guinevere]

I have been a history buff since I started reading biographies in elementary school. I read as much non-fiction as fiction (and sometimes more).

[Rick]

Isn't it going to be a little scary for your young'n Jim?

Lincoln and Van Helsing shared a 1st name...

[Joe Guy]

I watched 'Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter' last weekend. I learned a lot about Lincoln that I hadn't known before then. The 'Lincoln' movie is most likely a lot of propaganda about him that I've already heard.

Old 'Honest Abe' was quite the axe slinger. He was a complicated man in a simpler time in U.S. history.

If you want a real education, see Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter.

[Crackpot]

Abe could hold an axe straight out at arms length with his thumb and forefinger gripping at the bottom of the handle.

[Gob]

Honest?

[Joe Guy]

Yes he was.

[dgs49]

With all the positive things one can read about Lincoln, the one negative that is never mentioned is that the Civil War was an unprecedented waste of lives and resources, and he could have prevented it (albeit with an indefinite extension of slavery). History records that then - as now - the opposing political sides had reached a point where compromise appeared impossible, and war came.

But the adulation of Lincoln presumes that no diplomatic solution was possible, and that is an unknown. Considering him our greatest president (which many do) ignores this total failure to resolve our differences without bloodshed. Had he personally decided to support the South's right to secede, there would have been no war, and slavery would have died of its own economic weight within a generation. Slaves would have, one by one, been emancipated because it simply made no economic sense to keep them. Would they be better off today or worse off? Who knows?