The Civil Wars America

Published Date: 02 Nov 2017

First let’s look at how Lincoln's exercises of power; First, in the early days of the war, the North would simply have been deal with the situation at Fort Sumter if Lincoln had not used his powers aggressively. Lincoln was forced to try to fix the incompetence of his predecessor James Buchanan had been much who basically sat by passively while the South declared a proxy war against the Union then eventually secede. Because of this Lincoln was forced to call up militia forces, expanded the regular army, declared a blockade on Southern ports, and suspended habeas to keep Washington from being isolated from the northern states. Without Lincoln’s leadership, the South would have won the war by default. Secondly, on the issue of Southern property, Lincoln didn’t think much of the Supreme Court after the Dred Scott decision; I don’t believe any abolitionist did. The fact that the Supreme Court determined that slaves were not citizens even though they were born here and then basically stripped them of their human rights by relegating them to property. It seems that the Supreme Court gave up their rights to criticize Lincoln because of their own failure to follow the United States Constitution. This brings me to the Emancipation Proclamation; this President order tipped the balance of the war, it encouraging blacks to join the Union Army and stopped British and French intervention on behalf of the South.

Lincoln revealed his broad concept of presidential war powers in a letter he wrote to a Kentucky newspaper editor in 1864:

Lincoln reveled that his desire to save this country caused him to stretch the constitution to its limits and to preserve the United States and the constitution he might have to break it. This was not a new thought Thomas Jefferson also spoke about the wartime President and their responsibility to the country he stated:

With these basic concepts ingrained into Lincolns thinking it was easy to see why he would chose to preserve the Union rather than see it destroyed. If he was truly to the best of his ability to:

History is an interesting teacher and Lincoln a student of history understood what was at stake of the country devoured itself from within. At a time of war judgment calls are made just like during the War of 1812, just before the Battle of New Orleans, General Andrew Jackson, acting on orders from President Madison, arrested a newspaper reporter for arousing mutiny among Union forces. A federal judge issued a ruling that demanded General Jackson to free the writer, and Jackson then promptly had the judge arrested. Lincoln may have taken a page out of Jacksons and President Madison’s handbook because he is dealing with civilians in the Union who were openly supporting the South and encouraging the rebellion. In April 1861, an angry Marylander named John Merryman did not support the war or Lincoln. Merryman who live in the Union was instrumental in the recruiting a large number of soldiers for the Southern Army. Not only were his verbal attacks giving comfort to the enemy but he engaged in raising an armed group to attack and overthrown the United States government. Merryman was arrested by the military for various alleged acts of treason. At this point Lincoln had authorized the suspension of the writ of habeas corpus:

Now Merrymans lawyer Taney, yes of the dreaded Dred Scott decision, stated Lincoln did not have the authority to take away citizens writ of habeas corpus. This was a constitutional disagreement between the executive branch and the judicial branch of our government even though the Constitution does permits the suspension of the writ in "cases of rebellion and when the public safety" requires it. But it is unclear who has the power, Congress or the President. Taney who refused to acknowledge the rebellion was even taking place probably because in the back of his mind he knew that his Supreme Court decision was partial responsible for the rebellion in the first place. In the summer of 1861, Union military forces would arrested more than a dozen Maryland state legislators who were planning treason against the United States by planning to vote for secession.

The point is ultimately ended Two years later; Congress resolved the ambiguity in the Constitution and permitted the President the right to suspend the writ while the rebellion continued. (Congress 1863) The Supreme Court eventually upheld Lincoln’s actions. The Court explained that:

A point to ponder is that everything Lincoln did pales in comparison to the abuses of power under Roosevelt when he rounded up undesirables during World War II to the tune of 115,000 Japanese Americans and several thousand German and Italy Americans compared to

Lincolns 18,000. Sadly Roosevelt gets a pass and his detentions were questionable because we were fight two foreign countries while Lincolns are constantly being debated and he was fighting his neighbor in his back yard. I do find it interest that Lincoln fought a war to make all men equal despite their race; Roosevelt arrested people because of their race.

Now we begin to look at the emancipation proclamation, now nothing in the Constitution gives either the Congress or the President to take away citizens property without compensation. The Emancipation Proclamation declared that slaves in the states still in rebellion to be free. Lincoln had used his powers of a war time President to free the slaves as a war measure to weaken the enemy:

When we look to the powers that the Constitution invests its Commander-in-Chief with the laws of war, his job is to hurt the enemy and make them surrender. For the South using their slaves was a vital part of their war effort. Their belief that slaves are nothing more than property made them a legitimate target for the Union. Now this being stated what President would not want to hurt their enemy and with the law of war you are supposed to take or destroy the enemy’s infrastructure and property with the idea that in doing so helps us, or hurts them.

In the end Lincoln was willing to do everything within his power to preserve the Union, if it meant that he had to destroy the south he would do it, because he believed it could always be rebuilt. Destroying is easy preserving is hard, the South wanted to destroy this nation; they would have burned the Constitution because it represented everything they hated, namely the equality of men. Sadly many in the North for whatever reason chose to join the side of the South and embrace the idea that God created two kind of humans one, the slave, the other the master. Lincoln used his Presidential powers unlike any President before him simple because no one had to ever deal with the same situation that was thrust upon him. Did he over reach his Presidential authority in some cases, Lincoln admits that he did, but to save the Union he was willing to sacrifice what he believed in to preserve not only the constitution but democracy for future generations.