DO FACTS EVEN MATTER?

This Day in History – Lincoln and Habeas Corpus.

You can't blame them, really. They know no better.

Our US text books, to an astonishing extent, gives the same narrative as Jefferson Davis and Roger Taney gave, probably because US text books were published predominately by Texas school book companies.

It's not that the facts are wrong (though some are) -- it's that so much has been left out.  

LEAVING OUT THE BASICS


1) KANSAS KILLING  SPREES

2) DRED SCOTT


3) HABEAS


A good way to spot people who know nothing of the reality of the Civil War, or what led up to it, is to ask them when they know about Kansas killing sprees, Dred Scott, and Lincoln on habeas.

Sadly, even "history" teachers, particularly in high school, don't know.  You only know what you are told. So if they don't know the original documents (speeches, newspapers, books, especially), how could they know? 

The killing sprees in Kansas are cover elsewhere, but briefly the man who got Kansas Nebraska Act passed, David Rice Atchison, went immediately after it's passage, to kill  and terrorize in Kansas to make sure no one dared speak or much less voted, against slavery. 

In fact, Atchison officially worked for Jefferson Davis, as "General of Law and Order" in Kansas, and he personally created a "law" that made it a crime punishable by death (yes death) to claim Kansas was a free state.  Speaking and writing against slavery was a crime, too.  This sounds absurd -- and it was -- but it happened, and was extremely well known.

In fact Atchison was proud of it.   These "laws" Atchison claimed were in force, were not that different from laws in every slave state, as men were arrested and tortured in the South -- "legally" for speaking or writing, or even owning the wrong book, in the South.  But since even that much is not told, when people hear of the laws in Kansas for death penalty for people  who wrote or spoke against slavery there, it sounds bizarre to them.

Most people heard of "trouble in Kansas"  but they have no idea of the specifics. Why?  Because those specifics are not in US text books, and when that subject is covered, it's made to seem like "radicals" on both sides were all nuts.  The "free soilers" are spoken of much like Jefferson Davis would explain them, when he wasn't busy having them killed or arrested.

Roger Taney - a former slave owner who wrote the Dred Scott decision, that declared blacks are not human beings (not persons) and who ordered the federal government to protect slavery, ruled that Lincoln Lincoln could not suspend habeas.

Never mind that Taney had allowed the arrest, torture, and imprisonment of people in Kansas and the South for even speaking against slavery in public,  so clever and loud are Southern apologist that Lincoln is the bad guy, stopping people from their rights.


For example, in a recent informal survey of high school "history" teachers, not one knew about Taney's order in Dred Scott, that specifically said blacks are not persons, but property.

Yet that "ruling" which the South used to escalate their killing sprees in Kansas,  was the most famous Supreme Court ruling of the entire century.   Not only was this headline news, for years, but endless fights,  debates,  cartoons, speeches (the Lincoln Douglas debates were mostly about Taney's ruling)  and eventually, the Civil War was fought, largely as a consequence of Taney's ruling that tried to force the spread of slavery, by judicial decree.

The big fraud needed to trash Lincoln on habeas, is to ignore or not know, the facts which show what violent lunatic Southern leaders in the field, and how evil they were on the Supreme Court.

We do not each either - not what Southerns did, such as killing to stop speech against slavery, nor what their leaders did on Supreme Court.

Orr example, in no text book in the US, does anyone bother to mention the South's long history of arrest and torture of anyone who even spoke against slavery, particularly the killings and tortures in Kansas.

To hear stupid people teach history, LIncoln suspended habeas, and the South was all about freedom.  Lincoln would not have had to do anything -- even run for office, -- if Southern leaders had not killed to spread slavery, and declared blacks are inferior beings, not human beings, and that blacks had no rights which white man must respect.

As with any narrative, it's true only to the extent the facts behind it are true and complete -- at least, complete on the basics.   

On April 27, 1861, Lincoln suspended habeas corpus  along one geographic route,  Lincoln had received word that anti-war Maryland officials intended to destroy the railroad tracks between Annapolis and Philadelphia, which was a vital supply line for the army preparing to fight the south. (Indeed, soon after, the Maryland legislature would simultaneously vote to stay in the Union and to close these rail lines, in an apparent effort to prevent war between its northern and southern neighbors.

On April 27, 1861, Lincoln suspended habeas corpus  along one geographic route,  Lincoln had received word that anti-war Maryland officials intended to destroy the railroad tracks between Annapolis and Philadelphia, which was a vital supply line for the army preparing to fight the south. (Indeed, soon after, the Maryland legislature would simultaneously vote to stay in the Union and to close these rail lines, in an apparent effort to prevent war between its northern and southern neighbors.

however, when it came into session it failed to pass a bill favored by Lincoln to sanction his suspensions. During this period one sitting U.S. Congressman from the opposing party, as well the mayor, police chief, entire Board of Police, and the city council ofBaltimore were arrested without charge and imprisoned indefinitely without trial.

Over the following six months as the American Civil War continued habeas corpuswas also suspended in other states, and on this day in 1861 Lincoln even suspended it in Washington, D.C. for military related charges.

 Lincoln delivered a message to the special session of Congress.[5] He referred to his suspensions of the writ, quoted the suspension clause, and justified the suspensions on the ground that "we have a case of rebellion, and the public safety does require" suspension of the writ. He then went on: "Now it is insisted that Congress, and not the Executive, is vested with this power. But the Constitution itself, is silent as to which, or who, is to exercise the power; and as the provision was plainly made for a dangerous emergency, it cannot be believed the framers of the instrument intended, that, in every case, the danger should run its course, until Congress could be called together; the very assembling of which might be prevented ... by the rebellion. No more extended argument is now offered, as an opinion ... will probably be presented by the Attorney General. Whether there shall be any legislation upon the subject, and if any, what, is submitted entirely to the better judgment of Congress."[6]

The promised opinion of Attorney General Edward Bates came the next day.[7] The opinion was devoted primarily to the president's power to make arrests without warrant, rather than to the suspension of habeas corpus. Bates argued that the president is authorized to suspend the writ because he is charged with preservation of the public safety, but he then concluded with his personal opinion that the power of suspension flows from the president's power to make warrantless arrests.

While Lincoln's defense of his constitutional power of suspension is stated tentatively in his message to Congress, his actions and later words confirm his belief that he, and he alone, had the constitutional power to suspend the writ of habeas corpus.

On July 2, just two days before Congress convened, Lincoln issued an order authorizing suspension of the writ of habeas corpus between New York and Philadelphia—friendly territory for the administration. But he didn't suspend the writ, which suggests a lack of urgency. Lincoln could have sought and almost certainly could have obtained congressional authorization before issuing the order, but he didn't do so. He didn't seek suspension authorization in his July 4 message or at any later time. Indeed, when he says in his message that "whether there shall be any legislation on this subject ... is submitted to the better judgment of Congress," Lincoln appears to advise Congress to act with more deliberation than speed if it decides to act at all.

Congress accepted Lincoln's invitation to dawdle. As we will see, Congress did not enact legislation authorizing suspension of habeas corpus until March 3, 1863. In the meantime, Lincoln's 1861 orders authorizing suspension remained in force, and on September 24, 1862, he issued a proclamation imposing martial law and suspending the writ of habeas corpus. The proclamation orders that, for the rest of the war, (i) "all rebels and insurgents, their aiders and abettors within the United States, and all persons discouraging volunteer enlistments, resisting militia drafts, or guilty of any disloyal practice, affording aid or comfort to rebels against the authority of the United States, shall be subject to martial law and liable to trial and punishment by courts martial or military commission," and (ii) "the writ of habeas corpus is suspended in respect to all persons arrested or imprisoned in any fort, camp, arsenal, military prison, or other place of confinement by any military authority or by the sentence of any court martial or military commission." [8]