Beschreibung:

LINCOLN, Abraham. Partly printed document boldly signed ("Abraham Lincoln") as President, his order to affix the seal of the United States to THE PROCLAMATION TO SUSPEND THE WRIT OF HABEAS CORPUS, Washington, D.C., 24 September 1862. 1 page, 4to (9 7/8 x 7 5/16 in.), browning, small repair to top right corner with small loss, three small punch holes in left margin . SUSPENDING THE WRIT OF HABEAS CORPUS: LINCOLN EVOKES THE WARTIME POWERS OF THE EXECUTIVE TO SUPPRESS TREASON ON THE HOMEFRONT An order to affix the Great seal of the United States to "my Proclamation," one of Lincoln's most critical and controversial wartime measures. Confronting and defeating domestic treason was a considerable challenge to the Lincoln administration. Lincoln's Secretary of State believed that intrigue, sabotage and sedition was widespread: "Convinced that treason lurked everywhere, in every bureau, post office, customs house, regiment, and ship of war, Seward took extraordinary steps to root out subversives" (Oates, With Malice Toward None , p. 254). Lincoln believed that many of the arrests were based upon unsubstantiated evidence, and insisted that "unless the necessity for these arbitrary arrests is manifest , and urgent , I prefer they should cease." As a lawyer, Lincoln was deeply troubled about the legality of seizing and holding citizens without just cause and without the promise of a proper trial as prescribed by the Writ of Habeas Corpus. Based upon traditions rooted in the Middle Ages, the Writ assured that no person could be detained unless charged in court with a specific crime. This fundamental guarantee of Civil Rights was protected in Section 9, Article 1 of the Constitution which stipulated: "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." Certainly, the Civil War fulfilled the Constitutional condition for the suspension of the Writ, but what branch of the government had the power to suspend it? On this, the Constitution was silent. Lincoln, who did not hesitate to utilize an extension of executive power to successfully wage the war, questioned Presidential authority to suspend the Writ, and queried the Attorney General, Edward Bates: "1. In the present time of great and dangerous insurrection, has the President the discretionary power to cause to be arrested persons known to have criminal intercourse with the insurgents? 2. In such cases of arrest, is the President justified in refusing to obey a writ of habeas corpus issued by a court or judge, requiring him to produce the body of the prisoner?" Bates responded with certainty: "The power to do those things is in the hands of the President, placed there by the Constitution...And for any breach of trust he is responsible before the high court of impeachment, and before no other human tribunal" (Macartney, Lincoln and his Cabinet , p. 72). Chief Justice Roger Taney (who had written the majority opinion in the Dred Scott case) disagreed, advising that suspension of the Writ was a Congressional power and reminding Lincoln that he would be violating the very laws that he had been elected to uphold. In his Message to Congress in Special Session on 4 July 1861, Lincoln countered: "Are all the laws, but one? to go unexecuted, and the government itself go to pieces, lest that one be violated?" (Basler 4:430). During the first year of the war, Lincoln only resorted to a suspension of the writ in limited areas. But when conscription was introdoced in the summer of 1862, under the Militia Act and resistance to it appeared certain, Lincoln was forced to consider imposing a blanket national decree. On August 8 the War Department gave military officers, U. S. marshals and police authorities the power to suspend the writ in cases where men resisted or avoided the draft. The suspension was applied nationally, and laid the foundation for the Lincoln's unprecendented September proclamation. Lin