The Republican Position on USC T 18 Ch 115 Sec 2383ff

[mmotyka at lsil.com]

OK, you got me, so I'm guilty of that political trick of ignoring the
broader picture and using only partial facts in support of my own narrow
point of view. sosumi ;)

The words, taken on their own, are fine words and I stick by the bit
about a government's willingness to persecute dissidents being a sign of
its inherent weakness and lack of fitness to serve.

Mike

"Trei, Peter" wrote:
> 
> > From:         mmotyka at lsil.com[SMTP:mmotyka at lsil.com]
> > What a guy!
> > Abraham Lincoln :
> >
> > "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."
> >
> > President Abraham Lincoln, "First Inaugural Address" (available at
> > http://www.bartleby.com/124/pres31.html)
> >
> > "Any people anywhere, being inclined and having the power, have the
> > right to rise up, and shake off the existing government, and form a new
> > one that suits them
> > better. This is a most valuable,---a most sacred right---a right, which
> > we hope and believe, is to liberate the world. Nor is this right
> > confined to cases in which the
> > whole people of an existing government, may choose to exercise it."
> >
> > (Speech in the United States House of Representatives, Jan. 12, 1848)
> >
> >
> > As far as I am concerned, to the extent that a government restricts
> > speech against it, it betrays its weakness and strengthens the
> > oppostion. When was the last time we heard one of our current crop of
> > political weenies speak so clearly or with such faith in the governed?
> > Not in my lifetime.
> > Mike
> ------------
> As I said in an earlier post, there is usually a gulf - a huge one, between
> what institutions say and what they do
> 
> Consider these actions of Lincoln in the light the above quotes:
> 
> >From 'Getting Lincoln Right':
> http://www.lewrockwell.com/dieteman/dieteman50.html
> 
> [...]
> Also, should those who debate the greatness of Lincoln
> ignore the fact that he arrested and exiled a US Congressman
> from Ohio - Clement Valladingham - who was also running for
> governor of Ohio at the time, over anti-war remarks made
> during a campaign speech?  Valladingham was arrested in his
> bedroom in the middle of the night.
> 
> Should one also overlook Lincoln's destruction of the rule
> of law in "loyal" Maryland? When Maryland voiced its support
> for the CSA and appeared itself ready to secede, Lincoln
> arrested 31 Maryland legislators, the mayor of Baltimore
> (the nation's 3rd largest city at the time), and a US
> Congressman from Maryland, as well as numerous editors and
> publishers.
> 
> Not only did Lincoln imprison two US Congressmen, he also
> wrote out an arrest warrant for the Chief Justice of the US
> Supreme Court, Roger Taney, after Taney wrote the opinion in
> Ex Parte Merryman (1861) rebuking Lincoln's illegitimate
> suspension of habeas corpus (see Charles Adams, p
> 46-53). John Marshall, whose opinion in Marbury v. Madison
> (1803) famously declared that "It is emphatically the
> province and duty of the judicial department to say what the
> law is," also wrote the opinion in Ex Parte Bollman and
> Swartwout (1807) declaring that suspension of habeas corpus
> was a power vested only in the Congress. Lincoln simply
> ignored the law. Additionally, US Army troops refused to
> release Merryman into the custody of a federal marshal sent
> by Taney pursuant to the court order that Merryman be freed.
> 
> Lincoln, then, imprisoned members of the federal legislative
> branch, and also sought to imprison the chief member of the
> federal judiciary. What happened to checks and balances?
> Lincoln, with the backing of the army, simply exercised
> whatever powers he desired. As noted Lincoln scholar Mark
> Neely writes in The Last Best Hope of Earth, Lincoln
> arrested the Marylanders "without much agonizing over their
> constitutionality" (p 133).
> [...]