Pittsburgh schools in need of name changes?
- Thread starter Big Money
- Start date
christiefan915
Catalyst
Well then,
Under the Constitution the federal government can unquestionably suspend the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus if the public safety requires it during times of rebellion or invasion.
Historical perspective on that issue in the context of the Civil War requires a study of the actions of Congress and the president, Lincoln's defense of his suspensions of the writ, and presidential and congressional dealings with and reactions to each other.
The background is well known. After Virginia seceded from the Union on April 17, 1861, the only lines for overland supplies, troop movements, transportation, and communication to Washington, D.C., ran through Maryland, with the railroads running through Baltimore.
Baltimore was a rough city for the Union, and Maryland an uncertain ally.
In February, Baltimore rowdies had forced President-elect Lincoln to sneak through the city in disguise, and a mob attacked the Sixth Massachusetts Regiment as it marched through Baltimore on its way to Washington.
Confederate sympathizers in Maryland were numerous, organized, and sometimes violent.
The Maryland legislature was of questionable loyalty, prompting Lincoln to monitor its April 26 session and, later, to order the arrest of a number of its members.
Determined to keep the Maryland lines open, on April 27 Lincoln issued an order to General Winfield Scott authorizing him to suspend the writ of habeas corpus, at or near any military line between Philadelphia and Washington if the public safety required it.
Lincoln issued his order pursuant to the provision in Article I, Section 9 of the Constitution stating that "the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in cases of rebellion and invasion the public safety may require it," generally called the suspension clause.
http://quod.lib.umich.edu/j/jala/2629860.0029.205?rgn=main;view=fulltext
christiefan915
Catalyst
^^^^^^^^
1. ...Union generals could arrest and detain without trial anyone in the area who threatened "public safety."
Controversy followed. The most explosive incident centered on John Merryman, a Marylander arrested for insurrectionary activities. Summarily jailed, Merryman petitioned for a habeas corpus writ, which Chief Justice Roger Taney granted. But the commanding officer at Fort McHenry, where Merryman was held, refused to release the prisoner, citing Lincoln's edict. With the army loyal to Lincoln, Taney couldn't enforce his order and railed against the president while Merryman stewed in jail for seven more weeks. After being freed, he was never tried.
Where Democrats marshaled constitutional arguments against Lincoln's order, Republicans replied that in an emergency, only the president could act fast enough to protect the public safety. Lincoln himself took this line in a famous July 4, 1861, speech to Congress. He also, more memorably, used a pragmatic argument. "Are all the laws but one to go unexecuted," he chided his critics, "and the government itself go to pieces, lest that one be violated?"
Despite the rhetorical power of Lincoln's speech, there's no evidence the government would have gone to pieces. By the time he issued his April 27 order, Union troops had made their way through Baltimore, and it should have been clear that Washington wasn't going to be fatally isolated."
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/history_lesson/2001/11/lincolns_crackdown.html
1. ...Union generals could arrest and detain without trial anyone in the area who threatened "public safety."
Controversy followed. The most explosive incident centered on John Merryman, a Marylander arrested for insurrectionary activities. Summarily jailed, Merryman petitioned for a habeas corpus writ, which Chief Justice Roger Taney granted. But the commanding officer at Fort McHenry, where Merryman was held, refused to release the prisoner, citing Lincoln's edict. With the army loyal to Lincoln, Taney couldn't enforce his order and railed against the president while Merryman stewed in jail for seven more weeks. After being freed, he was never tried.
Where Democrats marshaled constitutional arguments against Lincoln's order, Republicans replied that in an emergency, only the president could act fast enough to protect the public safety. Lincoln himself took this line in a famous July 4, 1861, speech to Congress. He also, more memorably, used a pragmatic argument. "Are all the laws but one to go unexecuted," he chided his critics, "and the government itself go to pieces, lest that one be violated?"
Despite the rhetorical power of Lincoln's speech, there's no evidence the government would have gone to pieces. By the time he issued his April 27 order, Union troops had made their way through Baltimore, and it should have been clear that Washington wasn't going to be fatally isolated."
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/history_lesson/2001/11/lincolns_crackdown.html
christiefan915
Catalyst
2. If Lincoln's Maryland actions were dubious, a wave of arrests the following summer under another habeas corpus suspension was downright indefensible. The wave began after Congress instituted the first-ever military draft in July 1862. Because the draft proved highly unpopular and hard to enforce, Secretary of War Edwin Stanton, at Lincoln's behest, issued sweeping orders on Aug. 8 suspending habeas corpus nationwide—the first time the writ was suspended beyond a narrowly defined emergency area. Stanton decreed that anyone "engaged, by act, speech, or writing, in discouraging volunteer enlistments, or in any way giving aid and comfort to the enemy, or in any other disloyal practice against the United States" was subject to arrest and trial "before a military commission."
The exceedingly broad mandate precipitated a civil liberties disaster. It allowed local sheriffs and constables to decide arbitrarily who was loyal or disloyal, without even considering the administration's main goal of enforcing the draft. At least 350 people were arrested in the following month, an all-time high. Some of the accused had done nothing worse than bad-mouth the president. (That was also true before Aug. 8. On Aug. 6, for example, Union Gen. Henry Halleck arrested one Missourian for saying, " wouldn't wipe my ass with the stars and stripes.")
On Sept. 8, the federal official overseeing these arrests decreed that law enforcement agents were enforcing the Aug. 8 orders too stringently. It was evident that people were being arrested who posed no threat to the public safety. Thereafter, the arrests subsided. Still, Lincoln himself reiterated the suspension on Sept. 24, and arrests without trial continued. Overall between 10,000 and 15,000 people were incarcerated without a prompt trial. On balance, their detention almost certainly did not enhance American security nor hasten the Union victory.
In the last 140 years, America has not faced a crisis anything like the Civil War, and the power to suspend habeas corpus has mostly gone unused. Although (as I'll explain next week) the Supreme Court never definitively ruled Lincoln's suspensions unconstitutional, his actions did come to be seen as a blemish on an otherwise heroic record of wartime leadership. That disrepute into which his behavior fell just may have helped deter his successors from using such measures themselves.
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/history_lesson/2001/11/lincolns_crackdown.2.html
The exceedingly broad mandate precipitated a civil liberties disaster. It allowed local sheriffs and constables to decide arbitrarily who was loyal or disloyal, without even considering the administration's main goal of enforcing the draft. At least 350 people were arrested in the following month, an all-time high. Some of the accused had done nothing worse than bad-mouth the president. (That was also true before Aug. 8. On Aug. 6, for example, Union Gen. Henry Halleck arrested one Missourian for saying, " wouldn't wipe my ass with the stars and stripes.")
On Sept. 8, the federal official overseeing these arrests decreed that law enforcement agents were enforcing the Aug. 8 orders too stringently. It was evident that people were being arrested who posed no threat to the public safety. Thereafter, the arrests subsided. Still, Lincoln himself reiterated the suspension on Sept. 24, and arrests without trial continued. Overall between 10,000 and 15,000 people were incarcerated without a prompt trial. On balance, their detention almost certainly did not enhance American security nor hasten the Union victory.
In the last 140 years, America has not faced a crisis anything like the Civil War, and the power to suspend habeas corpus has mostly gone unused. Although (as I'll explain next week) the Supreme Court never definitively ruled Lincoln's suspensions unconstitutional, his actions did come to be seen as a blemish on an otherwise heroic record of wartime leadership. That disrepute into which his behavior fell just may have helped deter his successors from using such measures themselves.
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/history_lesson/2001/11/lincolns_crackdown.2.html
christiefan915
Catalyst
I did.
"It was evident that people were being arrested who posed no threat to the public safety. Thereafter, the arrests subsided. Still, Lincoln himself reiterated the suspension on Sept. 24, and arrests without trial continued. Overall between 10,000 and 15,000 people were incarcerated without a prompt trial. On balance, their detention almost certainly did not enhance American security nor hasten the Union victory."
christiefan915
Catalyst
Did public safety require it or did Lincoln just want the railroad to stay open for "overland supplies, troop movements, transportation, and communication to Washington, D.C."?
Airstrip One
Completely Effed
We didn't turn against each other. One side lost a presidential election, seceded from the US to form a separate country, and then proceeded to attack an American military post. The South started the war, which created a situation under which Lincoln could actively pursue his abolitionist program, which would otherwise have been impossible during the short term (in time, the plan was to bring the entire West into the US as free states, thus giving abolition a 3/4 advantage).
Now, the US didn't back down after Pearl Harbour and 9/11, so there's no reason why we should have accepted the attack on Fort Sumter, either. Right there is all the justification for the Civil War that one should need. I don't have to go on about what terrible people the Southerners were/are, how pathetic it was that they basically had controlled the White House since 1801 and then seceeded as soon as Lincoln was elected, or any of the usual rants I like to go on.
As for habeus corpus, no one can justify that, just as no one can justify the Sedition Acts under Adams and Wilson, the Japanese Internment EXORD under FDR, and potentially the Patriot Act under Bush. In Lincoln's defense, Congress eventually made the suspension legal by moving forward after the fact (the SCOTUS later on would symbolically rule that Lincoln acted unconstitutionally, of course - while the SCOTUS after WWII actully defended Internment).