Steven Spielberg's movie about Lincoln is pure BS!!!!!!

[dsummoner]

Do you really think the founding fathers would have wanted an executive to sit around and do nothing while the insurrectionists or invaders ran roughshod over the capital merely because Congress wasn't in session? We're talking the 19th century here. If Lincoln had simply waited the weeks and months it took to reconvene the congress he may have been remembered as an even shorter-lived president.

One suspects that they would have stood by the Constitution rather than rushing down the road of giving greatly expanded powers to the Executive, to the detriment of individual liberty - liberty that could be suspended under little more than Executive interpretive whim (such is the nature of 'public safety' as we are seeing played out in modernity).

The Founding Fathers generally articulated a clear and cogent methodology for separation of powers. Lincoln's power grab was self-justified, in part, not on the clearly defined issue of whether or not the government had the right to suspend habeus corpus but on the 'vague' issue of which branch of government, specifically, could engender such a suspension. Lincoln's unconstitutional power grab was clearly elucidated by Justice Taney (that such an action was unconstitutional is a matter of fact). The suspension of habeus corpus as a Congressional power (not an Executive power) was reaffirmed, later, in EX PARTE BOLLMAN, 8 U.S. 75 (1807) 8 U.S. 75 (Cranch).

If at any time the public safety should require the suspension of the powers vested by this act in the courts of the United States, it is for the legislature to say so.

[dsummoner]

Of course, part and parcel of Lincoln's unconstitutional usurpation of authority, was his clear, arrogant, open and overt disregard for the Constitution, after the Merryman ruling was delivered. This was followed by his later drunk on power Proclamation 94. He had no problems with subverting the Constitution when it fit his needs.

[Joy in Mudville]

One suspects that they would have stood by the Constitution rather than rushing down the road of giving greatly expanded powers to the Executive, to the detriment of individual liberty - liberty that could be suspended under little more than Executive interpretive whim (such is the nature of 'public safety' as we are seeing played out in modernity).

Maybe, maybe not...

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of American in Congress assembled, That during the present rebellion, the President of the United States, whenever in his judgment the public safety may require it, is authorized to suspend the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus in any case throughout the United States or any part thereof. And whenever and wherever the said privilege shall be suspended, as aforesaid, no military or other officer shall be compelled, in answer to any writ of habeas corpus, to return the body of any person or persons detained by him by authority of the President; but upon a certificate, under oath, of the officer having charge of any one so detained, that such person is detained by him as a prisoner under the authority of the President, further proceedings under the writ of habeas corpus shall be suspended by the judge or court having issued the writ so long as said suspension by the President shall remain in force and said rebellion continue.

Passed both houses of Congress in 1863 and was signed into law by the president in, I believe, March of that year.
---

Habeas Corpus is certainly the most controversial issue surrounding Lincoln and the Constitution but it is not nearly as open and shut as some of his detractors might wish to suggest.

[Contumacious]

Which is what Lincoln did. We have a constitutional republic and we have abolished slavery.

I guess you also believe in having sex to preserve virginity.

The Constitution (1787) was abolished

The federal government became the NEW slave master;

Shortly thereafter it created a massive welfare/warfare state which the states and the people are forced to support


.

[Smokey 1]

Sorry to burst your bubble but maybe you should consider the makeup of the various secession conventions.

No bubble bursting here. I said the Confederate military not the secession conventions. You would also find that the vast majority of those southerners you hate so much were not slave holders.

There is no mechanism in the Constitution for secession. Buchannan felt is was illegal as did Lincoln which is one of the reasons why he never acknowledged the sovereignty of the south.

No secession wasn't addressed at all in the Constitution. I didn't say it was, I said it was not prohibited in the Constitution. The opinions of Buchannon and Lincoln are irrevelant. You know what they say about opinions.

[Smokey 1]

Do you really think the founding fathers would have wanted an executive to sit around and do nothing while the insurrectionists or invaders ran roughshod over the capital merely because Congress wasn't in session? We're talking the 19th century here. If Lincoln had simply waited the weeks and months it took to reconvene the congress he may have been remembered as an even shorter-lived president.

Invaders? Who invaded who? You are delusional, the Confederacy never attempted to take over the US, they just wanted to be left alone with the government they chose for themselves. You insist on supporting the domination of a people because of your personal offense from slavery. That makes you no better than those slave holders you despise.

[dsummoner]

Maybe, maybe not...

Passed both houses of Congress in 1863 and was signed into law by the president in, I believe, March of that year.
---

Habeas Corpus is certainly the most controversial issue surrounding Lincoln and the Constitution but it is not nearly as open and shut as some of his detractors might wish to suggest.

Lincoln's did not have Congressional authority in 1861 based on the Habeus Corpus Suspension Act of 1863. Furthermore the ruling on Ex Parte Merryman was delivered in 1861. Lincoln's exercise of the power to suspend habeus corpus, until such power was granted to him by Congress, was unconstitutional. This is but one issue over which one can look at Lincoln and find issue with the mythology.

[veritas]

Maybe, maybe not...



Passed both houses of Congress in 1863 and was signed into law by the president in, I believe, March of that year.
---

Habeas Corpus is certainly the most controversial issue surrounding Lincoln and the Constitution but it is not nearly as open and shut as some of his detractors might wish to suggest.

Yet Lincoln arrested the members of the MD legislature supposed to be of secessionist sympathies based solely on a presumption and one that had not been backed up by the actions of that body on several occasions prior to the September, 1861 arrests. Also, in the election several months prior, Unionists had carried the day:

"On April 27 and 28 the Assembly declared that it had no constitutional authority to take any action leading to secession. In the Senate the vote was unanimous, and the House of Delegates the majority was more than four to one," wrote historian Harold R. Manakee. "On May 10 the lawmaking body of the state issued a more detailed statement, protesting the war as unconstitutional and unjust. It called upon the people of Maryland to work for peace between North and South, and declared that the state would have no part in the war. It asked for the recognition of the Confederate States as an independent nation, and protested against military occupation of Maryland as a violation of the Constitution. Finally, it stated that any move to organize and arm the state militia, or to call a state convention to vote on secession would be unwise." 36


The Lincoln Administration won a series of small but important electoral victories in the summer of 1861. Unionists were sent to Congress but Henry May defeated Henry Winter Davis for a Baltimore congressional seat on June 13. Lincoln critic William Marvel argued: "Aside from the implied intimidation of the nearby encampments, the June election passed without active military interference -- unlike the rest of Maryland's elections during this war -- and in that last relatively free plebiscite, Union candidates of one stripe or another own every congressional seat and most other offices. These results should have offered more assurance that Maryland posed no threat of secession."


Historian Sprague thought the threats overblown. He wrote: "Of all the events that occurred in the Civil War, none is more remarkable than the absolute certainty with which everyone in the North, from the highest officials down to the most lowly newspaper reader, confidently expected an invasion of Maryland, an uprising in Baltimore, and an attack upon Washington in September, 1861. This was the cloud behind which every action was taken in Maryland, and it prompted many things to be done that would never have been done otherwise." He wrote: "And so panic spread throughout the Administration to President Lincoln and a review was made of the situation to see whether the Maryland legislature should be suppressed. This legislature had met in Frederick immediately after the Battle of Bull Run (late July) and even then, with the Confederate army triumphant, no secession move had been proposed."74


So, one could say that the Lincoln administration overreacted based on faulty information and their own fears. While they heard rumors of plots, there was no indication at all that the legislature was contemplating a vote of secession. While secessionist sympathies certainly existed in Baltimore and other parts of the state, it is a fact that Union troops had been pouring into Washington through Annapolis without incident. While arguments have been made that Lincoln acted to keep Washington from being isolated from the rest of the North, the situation in September 1861 did not suggest that Maryland leaving the Union was any real possibility.


http://www.abrahamlincolnsclassroom....D=108&CRLI=156

[veritas]

Lincoln's did not have Congressional authority in 1861 based on the Habeus Corpus Suspension Act of 1863. Furthermore the ruling on Ex Parte Merryman was delivered in 1861. Lincoln's exercise of the power to suspend habeus corpus, until such power was granted to him by Congress, was unconstitutional. This is but one issue over which one can look at Lincoln and find issue with the mythology.

One could argue that the Merryman arrest and Lincoln's subsequent successful ignoring of Taney's order to produce him, emboldened him for his later action against the legislators. These acts were certainly un-Constitutional. Of course, Roosevelt later engaged in similar activities when he threw law abiding Japanese citizens into internment camps.

[Contumacious]

You insist on supporting the domination of a people because of your personal offense from slavery. That makes you no better than those slave holders you despise.

Why the Totalitarians Among Us Love Lincoln

by Thomas J. DiLorenzo

"In The Road to Serfdom F.A. Hayek pointed out that a characteristic of a totalitarian mindset, one that distinguishes it from individualism, is a belief in the notion that "the ends justify the means." All of the worst totalitarians of Hayek’s day espoused this view, from Stalin to Hitler and Mussolini. To Stalin, the end of a "communist paradise" was said to justify any means – even the murder of tens of millions of dissenters. Petty totalitarians like David Brooks, who would probably never personally harm a fly, also espouse this dangerous, anti-social ideology and urge the rest of us to do so as well. Getting the Thirteenth Amendment through Congress, the main theme of the Spielberg movie, is said to have been "justified" by any means."

.

.

[Grindelwald]

Why are the resident Republicans bashing the first-ever Republican president?

[Smokey 1]

Why are the resident Republicans bashing the first-ever Republican president?

I don't know about the others but I am a Democrat.

[dsummoner]

One could argue that the Merryman arrest and Lincoln's subsequent successful ignoring of Taney's order to produce him, emboldened him for his later action against the legislators. These acts were certainly un-Constitutional. Of course, Roosevelt later engaged in similar activities when he threw law abiding Japanese citizens into internment camps.

Federalist Roosevelt (filth of the gutter) was merely the American statist equivalent of Germany's Hitler, the USSR's Stalin, Spain's Franco and Italy's Mussolini. That Lincoln was offered saintly veneration by the domestic Prygryssyves of the 20th century comes without surprise. Federalist Roosevelt (filth of the gutter) had no qualms about trampling the Constitution when it came to forcing through his pure filth agenda of the 'New Socialist Deal' and when it came to crystalzing his racist and bigoted hate, inclusive of Americans who were of Japanese descent.

[Grindelwald]

I don't know about the others but I am a Democrat.

Lol nice try. You barely support any left wing principles.

[CajunRaven]

Lol nice try. You barely support any left wing principles.

Hey, Calamari has claimed in the past to be a republican.

[hst2]

Why the Totalitarians Among Us Love Lincoln

by Thomas J. DiLorenzo

"In The Road to Serfdom F.A. Hayek pointed out that a characteristic of a totalitarian mindset, one that distinguishes it from individualism, is a belief in the notion that "the ends justify the means." All of the worst totalitarians of Hayek’s day espoused this view, from Stalin to Hitler and Mussolini. To Stalin, the end of a "communist paradise" was said to justify any means – even the murder of tens of millions of dissenters. Petty totalitarians like David Brooks, who would probably never personally harm a fly, also espouse this dangerous, anti-social ideology and urge the rest of us to do so as well. Getting the Thirteenth Amendment through Congress, the main theme of the Spielberg movie, is said to have been "justified" by any means."

.

.

It was actually Machiavelli, the father of modern politics who claimed that "the ends justifies the means" because he recognized human nature and the trickery leaders had to employ for their own survival and the survival of the state. A prince must be able to change with the wind, must be good and appear to be good when doing evil. That is, plain and simple, effective politics.

Your apporach, may I suggest, is ideological. It is pure and unwavering, but it is also narow and unrealistic. Lincoln addressed this approach eloquently when dealing with the ideologue, Thaddeus Stevens, who, of course, wanted total equality for blacks.

In the film, he told Stevens that a true compass points north, and you can rely on it for heading in the right direction. But it does not tell you about the chasms, swamps and other natural phenomena that lie inbetween you and your destination. In this case, those natural phenominum are politics and your ideological compass may point the true way, but can't get you through the politics that lies between you and your destination.

For again, as Machiavelli said so beautifully: "How we live is so far removed from how we ought to live, that he who abandons what is done for what ought to be done will learn to bring his own ruin rather than his preservation.

As for Hayek, he predicted that the post-World War II welfare states of Europe would devolve into dicatatorships and he could not have been more wrong.

[Joy in Mudville]

I guess you also believe in having sex to preserve virginity.

The Constitution (1787) was abolished

The federal government became the NEW slave master;

Shortly thereafter it created a massive welfare/warfare state which the states and the people are forced to support


.

It's interesting. Once your arguments get repeatedly shot down you seem to resort to insults based on some type of sweaty sexual innuendo. Maybe you should seek a professional about this.

As for your bizarro claims about the constitution being abolished... I mean, do you just live in an alternate universe? What did the people of Utah, Washington, South Dakota, North Dakota, Wyoming, New Mexico, Colorado, Idaho, Alaska, and Hawaii ratify when they joined the union? Just a bizarre world view.

[kudzu]

It's interesting. Once your arguments get repeatedly shot down you seem to resort to insults based on some type of sweaty sexual innuendo. Maybe you should seek a professional about this.

He's a Puerto Rican.

They're always sweaty.

[Joy in Mudville]

No bubble bursting here. I said the Confederate military not the secession conventions. You would also find that the vast majority of those southerners you hate so much were not slave holders.

It was the secession conventions that seceded and they were overwhelmingly comprised of white male slave holders. The confederate military did not exist at the time and a significant number of the confederate military after april 1862 were drafted. It's also interesting to remember that desertion was a huge problem for the confederacy and the penalties for those deserting or awol was brutal.

But's let consider this... You keep talking about tyranny. In a case like South Carolina you have a very small group of white male slave holders challenging the authority of the constitution in order to preserve an institution where they are enslaving more than half the population of the state. More than 70 percent of the population (if you count white women) had no say in the matter. And yet, you keep talking about the tyranny of the north.

[Joy in Mudville]

It was actually Machiavelli, the father of modern politics who claimed that "the ends justifies the means" because he recognized human nature and the trickery leaders had to employ for their own survival and the survival of the state. A prince must be able to change with the wind, must be good and appear to be good when doing evil. That is, plain and simple, effective politics.

Your apporach, may I suggest, is ideological. It is pure and unwavering, but it is also narow and unrealistic. Lincoln addressed this approach eloquently when dealing with the ideologue, Thaddeus Stevens, who, of course, wanted total equality for blacks.

In the film, he told Stevens that a true compass points north, and you can rely on it for heading in the right direction. But it does not tell you about the chasms, swamps and other natural phenomena that lie inbetween you and your destination. In this case, those natural phenominum are politics and your ideological compass may point the true way, but can't get you through the politics that lies between you and your destination.

For again, as Machiavelli said so beautifully: "How we live is so far removed from how we ought to live, that he who abandons what is done for what ought to be done will learn to bring his own ruin rather than his preservation.

As for Hayek, he predicted that the post-World War II welfare states of Europe would devolve into dicatatorships and he could not have been more wrong.

Excellent post. However this thread is not actually about the movie which few of the posters have seen. This thread is about the fact that Contumongus hates Lincoln, federalism, and seems to have some sort of homoerotic sexual tic that has gone untreated for far too long.

I did start a thread called "Has anyone actually seen the friggin movie" for anyone who just wants to discuss the film from the perspective of craftsmanship, artistic merit, or some of the themes brought up.

http://talk.baltimoresun.com/showthread.php?t=324681