Was Abraham Lincoln right to suspend habeas corpas during the Civil War and put Copperheads like Clement Valladingham in prison?
Vallandigham.
No.
Corpus
Yes Lincoln was right in suspending Habeas Corpus:
From the U.S. Constitution - Article 1 Section 9:
The privilege of the Writ of Habeas Corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in Cases of Rebellion or Invasion the public Safety may require it.
This site provides some historical context and documention:
The fact that the government can do it doesn’t mean it should do it. I don’t think it’s unreasonable in times of war though.
Article 1 lists the powers and responsibilities of the Congress. It is up to Congress to make that decision, not the President. That’s why the Taney Court ruled he couldn’t do it (see your link.)
Exactly. Congress, not the prez.
Is there some reason the OP did not weigh in on the subject?
His name’s not Vallandingham. (Props if you know what that’s about.)
First, I would suggest that the the locaiton fo the point . Yes, Congress does have the power to override Habeus Corpus; however, there is no reason the President should not also. It was strongly suggested then by numerous scholars, including the administration, that the the Congress was not able to act at certain times. The Present can act, however, and thus he must have the power in times of civil energency.
Second, the Taney Court’s opinion didn’t amount to much. Taney, and his court, was nakedly hostile to Republicans and let’s not forget, gave us the dubious Dred Scott case previously. He is a very clear example of letting your politics go before your law.
Third, the administration used it fairly reasonably, suspending Habeus Corpus most significantly in Maryland for about 6 months early in the war. Congress mostly agreed, barring a few angry Democrats, and in effect gave a nod in a bill specifically authorizing Lincoln to do it more later.
(Actually, both sides weren’t too bad with suspending it. The Confederacy used it more sparingly though in more dubious cases owing to its own somewhat dubious authority and it was indeed Jeff Davis who did so under essentially the same Constitution.)
Fourth, Lincoln didn’t want to arrest Vallandigham, not was Habeus Corpus really at issue - Burnside on his own authority arrested Val under military authority for interfering with recruiting.
It’s habeas corpus.
Is this to be another instance of the OP opening a one line thread without expressing his own opinion be it pro or con? What is the OP’s opinion and can you defend that opinion?
Yeah, yeah. Latin gets me every time.
Did you fail to observe the contextual clues vesting the power to suspend the Writ with Congress and not the Presidency?
How about the fact the U.S. Constitution does not vest the authority to suspend the Writ with the Presidency. I think this is a very good reason why the President lacks the authority to suspend the Writ.
What we do know, however, is the President did have the power to make war in the absence of a declaration of war to repel a sudden invasion, insurrection, or rebellion. This is why the Philadelphia Convention chose to change Congress’ power originally from “to make war” to “declare war”. So, textually speaking, the President has the authority to call up troops, deploy them, and have them engage in armed conflict to repel an invasion, insurrection or rebellion. To my knowledge, there isn’t any textual evidence for him to suspend the Writ of habeas corpus.
He was right in suspending the Habeus part, but not the Corpus part
Lincoln’s suspension of habeas corpus has to be viewed in context, though even then it still ultimately boils down to opinion. It was a very different time- no such thing as information technology as we know it, and D.C. was essentially a southern city with many active spy cells and information changing hands constantly (though the best intelligence the South had on the North was northern newspapers). OTOH, it was frequently abused and you need look no further than the fact all of Lincoln’s key assassination conspirators were walking around free before Lee’s surrender. (Mary Surratt’s guilt in the assassination will never be determined fully, but there’s no debate that her boarding house in D.C. was a Confederate cell and her tavern in Maryland was used for intelligence relays and as an underground post-office; Robert E. Lee’s letters to his pro-Union sister in Baltimore probably passed through it.)
OTOH, it’s impossible to tell how many calamities it did prevent, because some of the people arrested on it were absolutely spies.
Vallandigham’s treatment is impossible to defend. General Order 38was thuggery worthy of Peron.
[hijack]One of my genealogical finds that I thought interesting was my g-g-grandfather’s unit (Co H- 51st Alabama Cavalry) was the one that escorted Vallandigham when he was exiled to Confederate lines. [Lincoln didn’t order his exile, but he deliberately drug his feet about stopping it.] The CSA really didn’t know what to do with him- they considered using him for propaganda speeches for proof that Lincoln was a tyrant, but after a short debriefing realized this wouldn’t work; he was anti-war and very pro state’s rights, but he was also anti slavery and anti-southern and anti-Jefferson Davis, and he had too many relatives and friends in the Union Army to actively aide the CSA. He remedied the situation by jumping the first blockade runner he could find to the Caribbean and from there to Canada; technically he was under house arrest Alexander Stephens had more or less conveyed “if he tries to escape, let him” and he wasn’t actively watched.[/hijack]
The actual constitutional issue here is at the core of the late Chief Justice Rehnquist’s book All the Laws But One. It’s bvery much worth a read.
There are two problems with this line of reasoning.
- Congress cannot neccessarily act in times of severe crisis (as in fact occurred in the War)
- Situations can arise where the President may have no better alternative, as happened during the War - not suspending Habeas Corpus risked the destruction of the government entirely.
It’s possible the Founders simply failed to realize this, of course. I would favor a Constitutional Amendment to that effect if neccessary. Nonetheless, if Lincoln violated the text of the law, he kept all the rest of it, and the rest of the entire Consitution.
Not exactly true. Burnside’s arrest (which was technically legal but monumentally stupid and unwanted by the administration) of Val was a serious embarassment and put Lincoln in a difficult position. He couldn’t easily slap Burnside down for, in effect, doing his job, and he couldn’t let Val go the prison. He therefore tried first to bargain with some Midwestern Democrats, and then did order Val’s release. However, he may have done so under the table, so it was a military court which signed the papers as it were. He also made his stane clear later by essentially ignoring Vallandigham when he made his back to US territory.
The sad thing is, General Order #38 wasn’t “thuggery worthy of Peron.” Burnside was just that dim.
I’d never heard of Vallandigham, had to look him up on Wikipedia. I don’t mean to hijack the thread, but I find the story of his Civil War arrest less interesting than that of the last case he handled as a defense lawyer. I’m sure there are a lot of people who wish more attorneys were that dedicated to their clients.
This does not give the President to exercise authority exclusively granted to Congress. If so, then the President could borrow money on the credit of the U.S. and coin money, regulate the value of it, because it is necessary for him to to do so in a severe crisis when Congress cannot act. In fact, the President can exercise ALL of those powers given to Congress in Article I under such circumstances.
Since I disagree with your assumption the President can legitimately and constitutionally exercise a power vested to Congress under the U.S. Constitution when they cannot act in a severe crisis, then I do not foresee this as a problem with my reasoning. The President is vested with all of the requisite authority needed to repel a sudden invasion, insurrection, or rebellion and the U.S. Constitution, along with the Framers, found it necessary to deprive him of the power to suspend the Writ.
I am not convinced had Lincoln not suspended the Writ, then the North would have lost the war, and the Union forever dissolved and divided. There quite simply are not enough facts to support this contention.
Doesn’t matter what they failed to realize. The text of the U.S. Constitution is controlling, not the Framer’s lack of vision or prognosticating abilities.