Constitutional Law, International, Politics, Society

Lincoln, The Great Colonizer? New Book Details Plans By Lincoln To Ship Freed Slaves To English Colonies

Author Phillip W. Magness has long harbored the view that Lincoln biographers had sanitized the history of “The Great Emancipator” to fit his modern popular image. Certainly, civil libertarians have long questioned Lincoln preeminence as a voice of freedom given his denial of habeas corpus and violations of constitutional rights and powers. Now, Magness is about to publish a book entitled “Colonization After Emancipation: Lincoln and the Movement for Black Resettlement,” revealing research showing that Lincoln actively explored and planned for the relocation of freed slaves to British colonies.

The book details how, soon after issuing the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863, Lincoln authorized plans to pursue a freedmen’s settlement in present-day Belize and another in Guyana. Magness and his co-author, Sebastian N. Page, found the documents in British archives, including an order authorizing a British colonial agent to begin recruiting freed slaves to be sent to the Caribbean in June 1863.

Lincoln died a year later.

Other historians have questioned these conclusions and noted that Lincoln was against any compulsory deportation.

Source: Washington Times

Jonathan Turley

393 thoughts on “Lincoln, The Great Colonizer? New Book Details Plans By Lincoln To Ship Freed Slaves To English Colonies”

  1. ekerya:

    “And you haven’t addressed one of the issues I brought up.”

    ************

    That would be pointless. The starting point of every discussion of American law is the Constitution. Ignoring that leaves you in the ephemeral world of your own subjective interpretation of Natural Law which cannot be debated. You can insult Lincoln to your heart’s content; make crass,wild accusations; and even figuratively defame the man himself, but as VT pointed out, you may create only your opinion not the facts. Debating about whether Lincoln was a great President is like debating whether the sky is blue. History’s jury is back on that one and no serious appeal was ever taken.

  2. Here is an unfavorable review of DiLorenzo:

    http://www.claremont.org/publications/crb/id.736/article_detail.asp

    “Of course Lincoln and his Republican party supported tariffs, as had many Federalists, Democrats, and Whigs before them. They understood, as DiLorenzo does not, that all economics is political economics, and that in a world dominated by monarchs it made sense to encourage the expansion of American manufacturing power through tariffs. According to DiLorenzo’s libertarian-public choice analysis, Alexander Hamilton and his Whig followers — Daniel Webster, Henry Clay, and Lincoln above all — were arch-villain “statists” for supporting tariffs, while Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and John C. Calhoun were defenders of “free trade.” DiLorenzo seems not to know that the first protective tariff in American history (1816) was introduced by Calhoun and supported by Madison and Jefferson, and opposed by Webster. DiLorenzo is so blinded by his commitment to purely theoretical free trade that he is oblivious to the real growing division between pro-slavery and pro-freedom forces in America in the 1850s. He cannot see that tariffs were in the service of free trade because they were in the service of freedom: tariffs advantaged free labor and put the squeeze on slave-labor economies.”

    Dishonest About Abe, A review of The Real Lincoln: A New Look at Abraham Lincoln, His Agenda, and an Unnecessary War, by Thomas DiLorenzo, Review by Thomas L. Krannawitter

  3. Here is an excerpt from a FAVORABLE review of DiLorenzo:

    “Despite its provocative insights and obvious rhetorical skill, however, The Real Lincoln is seriously compromised by careless errors of fact, misuse of sources, and faulty documentation. Although individually these flaws may seem trivial and inconsequential, taken together they constitute a near-fatal threat to DiLorenzo’s credibility as a historian. A few examples indicate the scope of the problem: DiLorenzo’s own article on Lincoln as “The Great Centralizer” appeared in the The Independent Review in 1998, not in 1988 (p. vii); Lincoln advised sending freed slaves to Liberia in a speech in 1854, not “during the war” (pp. 16–17); Lincoln was not a member of the Illinois state legislature in 1857 (p. 18); the commerce clause was not an “amendment,” and Thomas Jefferson was not among the framers of the Constitution (pp. 69–70); Thaddeus Stevens was a Pennsylvania representative, not a senator (p. 140); and Fort Sumter was not a customs house (p. 242).

    “Unfortunately, these lapses are more than matched by a clumsy mishandling of sources that violates the presumed trust between author and reader. DiLorenzo claims, for example, that in the four years “between 1860 and 1864, population in the thirteen largest Northern cities rose by 70 percent” (p. 225). On the face of it, this statistic is absurd and defies common sense, and sure enough, the source DiLorenzo cites says that the growth occurred “in fifteen years.” Page 11 says that Lincoln’s law partner and biographer William Herndon was quoting his own recollections of Lincoln, but he really was quoting another biographer. A few pages later (p. 14), DiLorenzo claims that Lincoln, in his eulogy for Henry Clay, “mustered his best rhetorical talents to praise Clay,” but all of the examples that follow come from the “beautiful language” of a newspaper that Lincoln was quoting at length. Moreover, Lincoln’s supposed comment about the “deportation” of blacks in his Cooper Union speech was in fact a quotation from Thomas Jefferson, as Lincoln himself says (p. 18). In chapter 3, DiLorenzo claims that in a letter to Salmon P. Chase, Lincoln “admitted that the original [Emancipation] proclamation had no legal justification, except as a war measure” (p. 37). His source, however, is the recollections of a conversation (not a letter) that portrait artist Francis B. Carpenter (not Chase) had with Lincoln, and at no point do these recollections sustain DiLorenzo’s summary of them. Moreover, in the reference for this section, DiLorenzo misidentifies the title of his source as Paul Angle’s The American Reader, when in fact the jumbled material comes from Angle’s The Lincoln Reader. Other errors include misplaced quotation marks, missing ellipses, and quotations with incorrect punctuation, capitalization, and wrong or missing words.

    “Further examination of the endnotes leads into a labyrinth of errors beyond the ingenuity of Ariadne’s thread. On page 281, for instance, note 1 cites page 66 of David Donald’s Lincoln, when in fact the quotation comes from page 66 of Donald’s Lincoln Reconsidered. On the next page, note 7 cites Lincoln’s debate with Stephen Douglas at Ottawa, Illinois, on August 21, 1858, but the quotation comes from the debate at Charleston, Illinois, on September 18, 1858. Moreover, hardly a single citation of the Basler edition of Lincoln’s Collected Works includes the volume number (see notes 25, 26, and 33), and several of the remaining citations of the Collected Works turn out in fact to be references to Basler’s Abraham Lincoln: His Speeches and Writings (notes 24, 31, and 44). Note 9 on page 282 again cites Lincoln’s 1858 debate with Douglas at Ottawa, but the quotations this time actually come from Lincoln’s 1852 eulogy for Henry Clay. Note 14 leads down another blind alley to no trace of the quoted material. On page 287, note 3 cites the wrong page number from Donald’s Lincoln, and although note 4 immediately following says “ibid.,” it actually refers to Basler’s Abraham Lincoln. On page 293, DiLorenzo cites Federalist No. 36 as his source, but the quotation comes from Federalist No. 46. Sad to say, this catalog of errors is only a sampling. Readers looking further into the matter will find incorrect titles and subtitles as well as misspelled publishers’ names. Obviously, in view of these problems, the maze of endnotes does not provide the “meticulous documentation” promised by the book’s dust jacket.

    “As it stands, The Real Lincoln is a travesty of historical method and documentation. Exasperating, maddening, and deeply disappointing, The Real Lincoln ought to have been a book to confound Lincoln’s apologists and to help rebuild the American historical consciousness. Ironically, it is essentially correct in every charge it makes against Lincoln, making it all the more frustrating to the sympathetic reader. DiLorenzo’s love of the chase needs to be tempered by scrupulous attention to detail. Without it, his good work collapses. He is an author of evident courage and ability, but his sloppiness has earned him the abuse and ridicule of his critics. A book such as The Real Lincoln needed to be written, but until it is revised and corrected in a new edition, this is not that book. In the meantime, there is still hope for skeptical cynics.”

    RICHARD M. GAMBLE

    http://www.independent.org/publications/TIR/article.asp?issueID=14&articleID=79

    Please note that “Moreover, Lincoln’s supposed comment about the “deportation” of blacks in his Cooper Union speech was in fact a quotation from Thomas Jefferson, as Lincoln himself says (p. 18).”

    This may be why some folk still believe that Lincoln supported “deportation.”

    He never did.

  4. My first comment on this thread should be amended to read:

    Vince Treacy 1, February 11, 2011 at 10:21 am

    The post describes “an order authorizing a British colonial agent to begin recruiting freed slaves to be sent to the Caribbean in June 1863.

    “Lincoln died a year later.”

    Lincoln did not die a year after June 1863. It is well know that he was shot on Good Friday, April 14,1865, and died on April 15, 1865.

    Sorry about that.

  5. Ekay said: “Also please address every other society in history ending slavery peacefully without bloodshed.”

    I did:

    http://jonathanturley.org/2011/02/11/lincoln-the-great-colonizer-new-book-details-plans-by-lincoln-to-ship-freed-slaves-to-english-colonies/#comment-201519

    “The difference in the United States was that the white slaveowners in the south began a shooting war by bombarding Fort Sumter. It was the white south that “decided to solve its social problems through violence and bloodshed.” They started the war, not Licoln. Lincoln finished it.

    “The white south swore to keep their slaves forever, and never, ever, entertained any measures for peaceful emancipation. To the contrary, Lee’s troops sought to round up free blacks during his invasion of Pennsylvania in 1863 and to return them to the south to be sold into slavery. Those are historical facts.

    “The white south did not approach slavery very peacefully.”

    ekay, and Tootie, please address the historical fact that Lincoln offered a plan of peaceful, gradual, compensated emancipation to the border states during the war and was rejected.

    Lincoln offered a peaceful plan, even after the white slaveowners had started a shooting war.

  6. I have read that quotation from Mencken before. It is false historically.

    He said “it was the Confederates who fought for the right of their people to govern themselves.”

    That is false. The so-called confederates fought for the right of white southern slaveowners to continue to enslave four million human beings of African descent and to deny them self-determiation, freedom and their very lives.

    The Union soldiers in 1863 fought to save the Union and to free the slaves under the promises of the Emancipation Proclamation.

    It is a good time to recall Lincoln’s words:

    “Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

    “Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battlefield of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

    “But, in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate—we cannot consecrate—we cannot hallow—this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us—that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion—that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom— and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”

  7. I said: Vince: “Texas was not annexed.”

    Bob,Esq. at 6:41 linked to the Joint Resolution, but the operative language, as a matter of fact, “admitted” Texas to the Union:

    “Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That Congress doth consent that the territory properly included within and rightfully belonging to the Republic of Texas, may be erected into a new State to be called the State of Texas, with a republican form of government adopted by the people of said Republic, by deputies in convention assembled, with the consent of the existing Government in order that the same may by admitted as one of the States of this Union.”

    Texas was admitted, not annexed.

    It was “admitted as one of the States of this Union,” not annexed, notwithstanding the unofficial title of the Resolution.

    The operative language in the Resolved clause is the law.

    They tried annexation of Texas as a territory by treaty in 1844, but it lacked two-thirds approval in the Senate and failed. So they admitted Texas as a State in 1845.

    “The fact that Texas flies its flag at the same height as the American flag is simply” … irrelevant.

    BTW, I actually agree with you that FDR should be on Rushmore rather than TR.

  8. H.L. Mencken

    “The Gettysburg speech was at once the shortest and the most famous oration in American history…the highest emotion reduced to a few poetical phrases. Lincoln himself never even remotely approached it. It is genuinely stupendous. But let us not forget that it is poetry, not logic,; beauty, not sense. Think of the argument in it. Put it into the cold words of everyday. The doctrine is simply this: that the Union soldiers who died at Gettysburg sacrificed their lives to the cause of self-determination–that government of the people, by the people, for the people, should not perish from the earth. It is difficult to imagine anything more untrue. The Union soldiers in the battle actually fought against self-determination: it was the Confederates who fought for the right of their people to govern themselves.”

  9. Fighting slavery with a conscripted army is like Fucking for virginity. Find a new mass murderer to declare a bastion of freedom.

  10. And you haven’t addressed one of the issues I brought up. That sums up your position. Namely fellating the great emancipator.

  11. ekeyra:

    “I could give two shits what the constitution says.”

    ****************

    That sums it up nicely, I’d say.

  12. I could give two shits what the constitution says. Habeas corpus is a human right not a constitutionally granted privilege. Try again. Also please address every other society in history ending slavery peacefully without bloodshed. You have yet to even attempt this and until you do all notions that lincoln was anything but a tyrannical despot are front and center to the lincoln defenders. He was a crazy bearded Asshole. Deal with it and grow up.

  13. These words eloquently set forth the arguments of both sides before the Civil War. They also establish the principles of fealty to the Union that so vexed the citizens of that day and which continue to be rendered so vexatious even today. The times were much like our own-contentious, passionate, and filled with a desperate longing by each side to preserve the principles of the Constitution as each saw them in a perfect harmony with the way of life they observed as children and fervently vowed to pass down to their own children. The excerpt bears repeating lest anyone think the author anything less than a master orator, visionary leader, and servant to all that is noble in a people –in short a great man:

    I hold that in contemplation of universal law and of the Constitution the Union of these States is perpetual. Perpetuity is implied, if not expressed, in the fundamental law of all national governments. It is safe to assert that no government proper ever had a provision in its organic law for its own termination. Continue to execute all the express provisions of our National Constitution, and the Union will endure forever, it being impossible to destroy it except by some action not provided for in the instrument itself.

    Again: If the United States be not a government proper, but an association of States in the nature of contract merely, can it, as a contract, be peaceably unmade by less than all the parties who made it? One party to a contract may violate it—break it, so to speak—but does it not require all to lawfully rescind it?

    Descending from these general principles, we find the proposition that in legal contemplation the Union is perpetual confirmed by the history of the Union itself. The Union is much older than the Constitution. It was formed, in fact, by the Articles of Association in 1774. It was matured and continued by the Declaration of Independence in 1776. It was further matured, and the faith of all the then thirteen States expressly plighted and engaged that it should be perpetual, by the Articles of Confederation in 1778. And finally, in 1787, one of the declared objects for ordaining and establishing the Constitution was “to form a more perfect Union.”

    But if destruction of the Union by one or by a part only of the States be lawfully possible, the Union is less perfect than before the Constitution, having lost the vital element of perpetuity.

    It follows from these views that no State upon its own mere motion can lawfully get out of the Union; that resolves and ordinances to that effect are legally void, and that acts of violence within any State or States against the authority of the United States are insurrectionary or revolutionary, according to circumstances.

    I therefore consider that in view of the Constitution and the laws the Union is unbroken, and to the extent of my ability, I shall take care, as the Constitution itself expressly enjoins upon me, that the laws of the Union be faithfully executed in all the States. Doing this I deem to be only a simple duty on my part, and I shall perform it so far as practicable unless my rightful masters, the American people, shall withhold the requisite means or in some authoritative manner direct the contrary. I trust this will not be regarded as a menace, but only as the declared purpose of the Union that it will constitutionally defend and maintain itself.

    In doing this there needs to be no bloodshed or violence, and there shall be none unless it be forced upon the national authority. The power confided to me will be used to hold, occupy, and possess the property and places belonging to the Government and to collect the duties and imposts; but beyond what may be necessary for these objects, there will be no invasion, no using of force against or among the people anywhere. Where hostility to the United States in any interior locality shall be so great and universal as to prevent competent resident citizens from holding the Federal offices, there will be no attempt to force obnoxious strangers among the people for that object. While the strict legal right may exist in the Government to enforce the exercise of these offices, the attempt to do so would be so irritating and so nearly impracticable withal that I deem it better to forego for the time the uses of such offices.

    The mails, unless repelled, will continue to be furnished in all parts of the Union. So far as possible the people everywhere shall have that sense of perfect security which is most favorable to calm thought and reflection. The course here indicated will be followed unless current events and experience shall show a modification or change to be proper, and in every case and exigency my best discretion will be exercised, according to circumstances actually existing and with a view and a hope of a peaceful solution of the national troubles and the restoration of fraternal sympathies and affections.

    That there are persons in one section or another who seek to destroy the Union at all events and are glad of any pretext to do it I will neither affirm nor deny; but if there be such, I need address no word to them. To those, however, who really love the Union may I not speak?

    Before entering upon so grave a matter as the destruction of our national fabric, with all its benefits, its memories, and its hopes, would it not be wise to ascertain precisely why we do it? Will you hazard so desperate a step while there is any possibility that any portion of the ills you fly from have no real existence? Will you, while the certain ills you fly to are greater than all the real ones you fly from, will you risk the commission of so fearful a mistake?

    All profess to be content in the Union if all constitutional rights can be maintained. Is it true, then, that any right plainly written in the Constitution has been denied? I think not. Happily, the human mind is so constituted that no party can reach to the audacity of doing this. Think, if you can, of a single instance in which a plainly written provision of the Constitution has ever been denied. If by the mere force of numbers a majority should deprive a minority of any clearly written constitutional right, it might in a moral point of view justify revolution; certainly would if such right were a vital one. But such is not our case. All the vital rights of minorities and of individuals are so plainly assured to them by affirmations and negations, guaranties and prohibitions, in the Constitution that controversies never arise concerning them. But no organic law can ever be framed with a provision specifically applicable to every question which may occur in practical administration. No foresight can anticipate nor any document of reasonable length contain express provisions for all possible questions. Shall fugitives from labor be surrendered by national or by State authority? The Constitution does not expressly say. May Congress prohibit slavery in the Territories? The Constitution does not expressly say. Must Congress protect slavery in the Territories? The Constitution does not expressly say.

    From questions of this class spring all our constitutional controversies, and we divide upon them into majorities and minorities. If the minority will not acquiesce, the majority must, or the Government must cease. There is no other alternative, for continuing the Government is acquiescence on one side or the other. If a minority in such case will secede rather than acquiesce, they make a precedent which in turn will divide and ruin them, for a minority of their own will secede from them whenever a majority refuses to be controlled by such minority. For instance, why may not any portion of a new confederacy a year or two hence arbitrarily secede again, precisely as portions of the present Union now claim to secede from it? All who cherish disunion sentiments are now being educated to the exact temper of doing this.

    Is there such perfect identity of interests among the States to compose a new union as to produce harmony only and prevent renewed secession?

    Plainly the central idea of secession is the essence of anarchy. A majority held in restraint by constitutional checks and limitations, and always changing easily with deliberate changes of popular opinions and sentiments, is the only true sovereign of a free people. Whoever rejects it does of necessity fly to anarchy or to despotism. Unanimity is impossible. The rule of a minority, as a permanent arrangement, is wholly inadmissible; so that, rejecting the majority principle, anarchy or despotism in some form is all that is left.

    I do not forget the position assumed by some that constitutional questions are to be decided by the Supreme Court, nor do I deny that such decisions must be binding in any case upon the parties to a suit as to the object of that suit, while they are also entitled to very high respect and consideration in all parallel cases by all other departments of the Government. And while it is obviously possible that such decision may be erroneous in any given case, still the evil effect following it, being limited to that particular case, with the chance that it may be overruled and never become a precedent for other cases, can better be borne than could the evils of a different practice. At the same time, the candid citizen must confess that if the policy of the Government upon vital questions affecting the whole people is to be irrevocably fixed by decisions of the Supreme Court, the instant they are made in ordinary litigation between parties in personal actions the people will have ceased to be their own rulers, having to that extent practically resigned their Government into the hands of that eminent tribunal. Nor is there in this view any assault upon the court or the judges. It is a duty from which they may not shrink to decide cases properly brought before them, and it is no fault of theirs if others seek to turn their decisions to political purposes.

    One section of our country believes slavery is right and ought to be extended, while the other believes it is wrong and ought not to be extended. This is the only substantial dispute. The fugitive-slave clause of the Constitution and the law for the suppression of the foreign slave trade are each as well enforced, perhaps, as any law can ever be in a community where the moral sense of the people imperfectly supports the law itself. The great body of the people abide by the dry legal obligation in both cases, and a few break over in each. This, I think, can not be perfectly cured, and it would be worse in both cases after the separation of the sections than before. The foreign slave trade, now imperfectly suppressed, would be ultimately revived without restriction in one section, while fugitive slaves, now only partially surrendered, would not be surrendered at all by the other.

    Physically speaking, we can not separate. We can not remove our respective sections from each other nor build an impassable wall between them. A husband and wife may be divorced and go out of the presence and beyond the reach of each other, but the different parts of our country can not do this. They can not but remain face to face, and intercourse, either amicable or hostile, must continue between them. Is it possible, then, to make that intercourse more advantageous or more satisfactory after separation than before? Can aliens make treaties easier than friends can make laws? Can treaties be more faithfully enforced between aliens than laws can among friends? Suppose you go to war, you can not fight always; and when, after much loss on both sides and no gain on either, you cease fighting, the identical old questions, as to terms of intercourse, are again upon you.

    This country, with its institutions, belongs to the people who inhabit it. Whenever they shall grow weary of the existing Government, they can exercise their constitutional right of amending it or their revolutionary right to dismember or overthrow it. I can not be ignorant of the fact that many worthy and patriotic citizens are desirous of having the National Constitution amended. While I make no recommendation of amendments, I fully recognize the rightful authority of the people over the whole subject, to be exercised in either of the modes prescribed in the instrument itself; and I should, under existing circumstances, favor rather than oppose a fair opportunity being afforded the people to act upon it. I will venture to add that to me the convention mode seems preferable, in that it allows amendments to originate with the people themselves, instead of only permitting them to take or reject propositions originated by others, not especially chosen for the purpose, and which might not be precisely such as they would wish to either accept or refuse. I understand a proposed amendment to the Constitution—which amendment, however, I have not seen—has passed Congress, to the effect that the Federal Government shall never interfere with the domestic institutions of the States, including that of persons held to service. To avoid misconstruction of what I have said, I depart from my purpose not to speak of particular amendments so far as to say that, holding such a provision to now be implied constitutional law, I have no objection to its being made express and irrevocable.

    The Chief Magistrate derives all his authority from the people, and they have referred none upon him to fix terms for the separation of the States. The people themselves can do this if also they choose, but the Executive as such has nothing to do with it. His duty is to administer the present Government as it came to his hands and to transmit it unimpaired by him to his successor.

    Why should there not be a patient confidence in the ultimate justice of the people? Is there any better or equal hope in the world? In our present differences, is either party without faith of being in the right? If the Almighty Ruler of Nations, with His eternal truth and justice, be on your side of the North, or on yours of the South, that truth and that justice will surely prevail by the judgment of this great tribunal of the American people.

    By the frame of the Government under which we live this same people have wisely given their public servants but little power for mischief, and have with equal wisdom provided for the return of that little to their own hands at very short intervals. While the people retain their virtue and vigilance no Administration by any extreme of wickedness or folly can very seriously injure the Government in the short space of four years.

    My countrymen, one and all, think calmly and well upon this whole subject. Nothing valuable can be lost by taking time. If there be an object to hurry any of you in hot haste to a step which you would never take deliberately, that object will be frustrated by taking time; but no good object can be frustrated by it. Such of you as are now dissatisfied still have the old Constitution unimpaired, and, on the sensitive point, the laws of your own framing under it; while the new Administration will have no immediate power, if it would, to change either. If it were admitted that you who are dissatisfied hold the right side in the dispute, there still is no single good reason for precipitate action. Intelligence, patriotism, Christianity, and a firm reliance on Him who has never yet forsaken this favored land are still competent to adjust in the best way all our present difficulty.

    In your hands, my dissatisfied fellow-countrymen, and not in mine, is the momentous issue of civil war. The Government will not assail you. You can have no conflict without being yourselves the aggressors. You have no oath registered in heaven to destroy the Government, while I shall have the most solemn one to “preserve, protect, and defend it.”

    I am loath to close. We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.[emphasis mine]

    ~Abraham Lincoln (First Inaugural Address,Monday, March 4, 1861)

    Words like that do not spring from the mind of a poser or one devoid of a passionate brand of patriotism and a monumental respect for the rule of law.

  14. Vince:

    On January 23, 1807 a bill is introduced into the Senate requesting a temporary suspension of habeas corpus because of Aaron Burr’s “conspiracy”.

    If the power is not the power of congress then why did the Senate feel it had such authority to offer the bill?

    The House responds:

    “The Senate hath passed a bill suspending for three months the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus, in cases which they think expedient to communicate to you in confidence, and to request your concurrence therein, as speedily as the emergency of the case shall, in your judgment, require.”

    If the power of suspension of habeas corpus belongs to the executive, why were these guys writing law to suspend it?

    From August 28, 1787 (at the Convention)

    “Mr. Rutlidge was for declaring the Habeas Corpus inviolable– He did conceive that a suspension could ever be necessary at the same time through all the States”

    And:

    “Mr. Wilson doubted whether in any case (a suspension) could be necessary, as the discretion now exists with Judges, in most important cases to keep in Gaol or admit to Bail.”

    But shortly thereafter, when the matter came into the forefront it was congress who took action. Thomas Jefferson was president at the time and didn’t seem to question the authority of congress to exercise this power.

    Even though before that time Jefferson said to Madison:

    “Why suspend the habeas corpus in insurrections and rebellions? The parties who may be arrested, may be charged instantly with a well defined crime; of course, the judge will remand them. If the public safety requires that the government should have a man imprisoned on less probably testimony, in those than in other emergencies, let him be taken and tried, retaken and retried, while the necessity continues, only giving him redress against the government, for damages.”

    He is saying that the court already has the necessary powers to deal with insurrection through any crimes that are committed and proved.

    But a recognition of the power to suspend was acknowledged in the Constitution. And it was written in that portion outlining the powers of the congress.

    A scholar writes:

    “…a consensus emerged: there could be circumstances where the writ had to be suspended in the most extreme conditions of war or invasion. It is clear from this record that some delegates understood the Habeas Corpus Clause to mean that the Congress could not suspend the authority of STATE courts (as well as federal courts) in the exercise of the writ except in case of rebellion or invasions. Some delegates also believed that the state courts could exercise habeas authority to review the custody of federal prisoners. Consistent with this understanding, various state courts did exercise habeas jurisdiction over federal prisoners well into the nineteenth century.” Jonathan Turley, page 152 The Heritage Guide to the Constitution.

    I understand that state courts were open during the time Lincoln suspended HC, and if anyone had committed illegal acts they could have prosecuted. There was no excuse for Lincoln.

    You want to point out that the draft of the text once used the word “legislature” and it was removed. But you didn’t point out that the text in question was also once located in Article III (the judiciary) and had been moved to Article I. [IBID]

    Clearly it was put into the legislative powers.

    It is funny you use Lincoln’s oath to the Constitution as some sort of proof of his fidelity to it.

    Lincoln recognized the illegal creation of the state of West Virginia. What fidelity to the Constitution does that demonstrate?

    And he launched a WAR without a declaration from congress. It was an illegal act which violated the Constitution. Where is the oath? Under Lincoln’s big feet.

    The man was a criminal, a thief, a bloodthirsty thug, and he trampled the Constitution. And he didn’t win his “war” until he found a general who was willing to ruthlessly murder tens of thousands of Americans (many of them just kids). What a man!

    You seem to have weakened your own position. You write

    “I think that Lincoln was justified under the Constitution in suspending the writ at a time when organized mobs sought to prevent Congress itself from meeting in order to consider a suspension of the writ.”

    Here you admit that congress was, some 50 plus years later, STILL assuming the power to suspend habeas corpus, but that they just couldn’t manage it because of the mobs.

    And let’s get around to these mobs. Why were they rioting? I suppose like the Egyptian mobs: against despots and tyrants?

    Yes. That sounds about right. And please, don’t pretend with me that everyone in the South was a slave holder and deserved the wrath of a rogue government. That doesn’t fly because it isn’t true.

    Thomas DiLorenzo explains:

    “The North began plundering the South with protectionist tariffs as early as 1824.” Lincoln Unmasked page 117

    Lincoln continued the plunder and federalized it:

    “In his first inaugural address Lincoln shockingly threw down the gauntlet of war over the tariff issue, LITERALLY THREATENING THE INVASION of any state that failed to collect the newly doubled tariff. On the issue of slavery he was 100 percent accommodating, going so far as to pledge his support for a CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT THAT WOULD FOREVER BAN THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT FROM INTERFERING WITH SOUTHERN SLAVERY. But on tariff collection he was uncompromising and dictatorial. ‘There needs to be no bloodshed or violence, and there shall be none unless it is forced upon the national authority.’…

    …In other words, Pay Up or Die…” Lincoln Unmasked page 127

    Secession was provoke by decades of economic attacks from the North and Lincoln.

    He writes “The South exported as much as three-fourths of what it produced and was economically devastated by high protectionist tariffs.”

    The government had no right to destroy the economy of any state let alone several of them. It was the President and the North who were the lawless mob.

    This just didn’t effect the South:

    “During the latter part of the century midwestern farmers became ardent free traders precisely because of tariffs’ effects on their exports. Frank Chodorov…[writes] ‘The plight of these [midwestern] farmers was made worse by the protective tariff policy of the government…The populists clamored for lower tariffs.’ This also likely explains why so much of the Northern opposition to the Lincoln Administration during the War came from the Midwest.” page 122

    Lincoln was dirty. It does no good to defend him. He wanted to get rid of blacks. He wanted to forever give the South the right to hold slaves. He used Christianity to deceive the public. And he wanted all sorts of evil things a good president should never want let alone do.

    Which is why the government schools have brainwashed millions and millions of Americans into believing he was a great man. It always wants the option to murder Americans and hide behind Lincoln to do it.

    Why do you think Obama likes Lincoln so much? Because Lincoln wanted to deport blacks, thought they were inferior, and should be made permanent slaves in the South?

    Ha! Not on your life.

    Obama likes Lincoln KNOWING Lincoln as president committed mass murder against Americans.

  16. Vince Treacy,

    I didn’t see a personal attack on your part or AY’s. Strongly held views was all I took from the exchange … Texas history is fascinating.

  18. AY: “I submit that Vince does not know as much as he proclaims to know. Therefore the savagery of his message is debunked based upon his lack of clear understandably of the history in Texas…….”

    Everybody, there was absolutely no “savagery” in my message. I just quoted a definition, a law, a treaty, and a Constitution in my defense of my statements. There was no personal attack at all.

  19. “By the way I make no argument that Lincoln was a “perfect” person, none of us are, but I think he was more advanced than most of the citizenry he governed intellectually. That doesn’t mean he wasn’t wrong a lot, just that I think he was right about a lot more.” (Mike Spindell)

    I certainly agree with that. I have always seen Lincoln as a master politician who understood the “vision” past Presidents had for America … the sea to shining sea view … and understood how vulnerable the United States would be to foreign interference should the South be successful in seceding. I also believe he viewed an economy partially based on slave labor as unsustainable in the long term. I am not certain that slavery was so much a moral issue for him as it was a practical one.

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