|| -----Original Message-----
|| From: owner-lbo-talk at lists.panix.com
|| [mailto:owner-lbo-talk at lists.panix.com]On Behalf Of C. G. Estabrook
||
|| "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."
|| --A. Lincoln, Inaugural Address, March 4, 1861
||
Gore Vidal has a rather different take on Lincoln. Just to check, I googled this (http://www.lewrockwell.com/dieteman/dieteman50.html):
>From "Getting Lincoln Right" by David Dieterman:
-----------------------------------
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. -----------------------------------
BTW didn't the sedition act expire sometime in the 19th century?
Hakki