Dear Lord, we gather before you now to remember the dead of all America's wars, and beseech you to fill the hearts of our rulers never to send any other Americans off to fight and die in the same senselessness that characterized virtually all of our wars.
The men whom we memorialize today died believing that they were fighting - and killing - in the cause of protecting our people and our nation. But, dear Lord, they were for the most part sadly mistaken, for most of our wars have been fought not to defend our nation against foreign invasion and subsequent rule by outsiders; rather, they were instigated at the behest of a government seeking to extend its powers and rally the people to it, and by powerful interests allied to that government. To be sure, these governments and powers always cloaked their interests in starting these wars in the rhetoric of national defense, or "making the world safe for democracy", or stopping the evils of Nazism and Communism, although strangely they didn't refrain from actions like allying with Stalin or making total war on fellow Americans of the South.
The men who fought and died did so for us, their brothers and sisters, their parents and children, or so they thought. And we brothers and sisters, parents and children, rallied behind them. But in almost every war that the United States has fought, the killing and dying, at least of Americans, was avoidable. The Revolutionary War began over irritants that not only would sound trivial today, but which our own government now visits upon us. The Civil War resulted in a carnage of both attackers and defenders alike, all because the defenders did not wish to be governed from Washington, D.C. The World Wars, Korea, Vietnam: none of these had much to do with defending the U.S. and its people from attack. And, dear lord, let us not even mention the travesties of Iraq and Afghanistan.
The one war that seems to have resulted in lasting benefit to these United States, the Mexican War, is the one that is most deplored as an act of imperialism on our part, so perverted have our notions of our best interests become. (And our casualties were few!)
And let us not neglect to mention that our government neglects to stop a real invasion across our borders, occurring even now.
Protect us from our government, and save us from having to commemorate any more Americans dead in war. Defend us from the progressives, the liberals, the neoconservatives and, yes, even the conservatives, who all lobby the government to make war for their pet causes. And finally, open the eyes of our fellow Americans, so that they may understand the great injustice that has been and continues to be done to them.
(Complete bilge, I'm sure.)
Happy Memorial Day.
ReplyDeleteYou're right about the Mexican War. AmRen had a piece about the War several years ago -- the gist of it was that rather than being forced into the war by American aggression, the Mexican leadership was eager to fight the U.S. because they expected to gain a lot of territory at our expense. In that they were sadly mistaken, to our *legitimate* benefit.
Amen.
ReplyDeleteNice post. Here on South Beach we honor our men and women by bring in 300k or more "urban youth" for the police and residents to deal with.
ReplyDeletehttp://modernitysucks.wordpress.com/2011/05/30/then-and-now-south-beach/
Great post Dennis and I agree 100% but man, try saying this "prayer" at the family dinner table with Grandpa the Korean War vet who was a big Bush supporter and wants to keep fighting the "terrorists" no matter where they are or how long it takes.
ReplyDeleteThe vast majority of Americans will NEVER accept that all the war deaths since, oh say 1850, have been in vain and could have been easily avoided. How many hundreds of thousands of American men have been killed and maimed for NOTHING in the last 150 years? And how many more foreign lives have we destroyed by engaging in wars that were NONE of our business? Wars that existed for nothing more than to serve grandiose, self-absorbed politicians in their quest for glory at the expense of naive soldier's lives.
This Memorial Day, I hang my head in shame at the crimes America the Great has committed and continues to commit in this world. May God have mercy on us.
That the 1861-65 war is officially called the Civil War shows how much the victors have rewritten history. A civil war is when two factions fight over which will rule a country. The south never had the slightest interest in ruling the United States of America; it wanted out.
ReplyDeleteThe "winner's history" has obliterated all the complexity and all the southern arguments about the proper relationship of state and federal powers -- an argument that, far from being settled by the war, is with us today. Revisionism has turned the war into a contest over slavery and saving the Union. In fact only a small percentage of southerners, mainly plantation owners, owned slaves. It was of course a degrading system that needed to end. It didn't need to end by way of northern terrorism at the hands of invading armies.
As for the sacred Union, that political abstraction became an obsession for a president who suffered from deep depression, who was willing to violate the Constitution (jailing anti-war newspaper publishers, suspending habeas corpus) and spill the blood of hundreds of thousands for his crusade.
Neither the north nor the south occupied any moral high ground. The former had its abolitionist fanatics for whom no price in lives and social disruption was too great so long as they could bask in their own virtue. The latter wanted slavery extended to the new states in the west. It was all horrible and tragic and set the stage for many of the ills that have characterized sectional and race relations ever since. Some crusade.
Great point about the Mexican War. This war actually resulted in tangible benefits to the US without much cost in blood and treasure. Plus it was over in 2 years. Compare that cost-benefit with Vietnam, Afghanistan and Iraq.
ReplyDeleteI wish more people would discuss the Mexican War, and by extension, the credibility of the various claims that Mexico has upon the land we won.
I've heard people argue that Mexicans are really Native Americans and thus the land is theirs. You will here this sentiment expressed in the saying 'we did not cross the border, the border crossed us." Yet my understanding is that the tribes to which most Mexicans are related, such as Aztecs, never settled north of Mexico City. Natives who did occupy that land like Apaches are still there and have reservations.
I've also heard the claim that Mexico claimed that territory after 1821. But the fact is they only claimed what Spain had stolen from the Natives. At that time the Philippines, along with Mexico, was administratively part of New Spain. So if Mexico thinks her claim emanates through Spain, does she think she owns the Philippines too?
Finally, all the territory in the New World was taken from the natives, and if Mexico's 20 year claim to that land is valid, then what about British, French, Spanish, and Russian claims to various parts of North America?
Anyway, I'd like to see a more thorough discussion of Mexico's claims to our Southwest. Just talking to people I am surprise by how many think that Mexico has a valid claim. But then again, Steve Sailer pointed out a gallup poll where a majority of Americans believe homosexuals comprise 1/4 th of our population. If people's minds are that confused on this issue, it's no wonder they believe Mexico's claims are more valid than ours.
Anyway, I'd like to see a more thorough discussion of Mexico's claims to our Southwest. Just talking to people I am surprise by how many think that Mexico has a valid claim.
ReplyDeleteWell, at the time of the Mexican War, the number of Mexicans actually living in most of the terroritories in question was pretty negligible. From what I remember, there were something like 7,000 Spanish speakers in all of California, and maybe 15,000 in all of Texas. Except for parts of New Mexico, the entire region was more or less empty desert.
After the war, most of the Mexicans stayed and generally kept their property, and the wealthier ones often intermarried with the upper class American arrivals and then became part of the local elites. But since over 99% of the eventual population were English-speaking newcomers, they were demographically swamped, and disappeared as a distinct group. In fact, the long-established Mexican-American populations of CA and TX actually tend to derive from the large waves of Mexican immigrants/refugees who fled across the border during the Mexican Revolution/Civil War of the 1920s, and hence long post-date much of the local Anglo populations.
And despite a little noisy chatter in universities and on the Internet, the percentage of real-life Mex-Ams who seek the establishment of an Aztlan Republic or whatever is approximately zero. Put another way, I'd say the numbers are about the same as those of whites who espose WN ideology, and also have much less room for potential growth, since Aztlanism isn't artificially suppressed by massive media-demonization...
The Civil War isn't quite on topic, since people never post on it, but since it has come up....
ReplyDeleteA civil war is when two factions fight over which will rule a country. - Rick Darby
"James Fearon, a scholar of civil wars at Stanford University, defines a civil war as "a violent conflict within a country fought by organized groups that aim to take power at the center or in a region, or to change government policies".[1] Ann Hironaka further specifies that one side of a civil war is the state.[3]" - Wikipedia
Sounds like this might be a matter of opinion.
The south never had the slightest interest in ruling the United States of America; it wanted out.
The South wanted to extend slavery into the territories in order to rule the Senate, which it wanted to do in order to rule the country. They saw that this was going to fail when an anti-extensionist (whom they called an abolitionist, even though he wasn't one until 1865), and that is when they wanted out. They either left because they couldn't rule or they left because of hurt feelings.
Furthermore, Southern support of the Dred Scott decision belies their attachment to states' rights. That decision invalidated all state laws freeing slaves.
That the 1861-65 war is officially called the Civil War shows how much the victors have rewritten history....
The "winner's history" has obliterated all the complexity and all the southern arguments about the proper relationship of state and federal powers -- an argument that, far from being settled by the war, is with us today.
Whose history is it that has obliterated the knowledge of Abraham Lincoln's role in sending the 13th Amendment to the states? He has been declared a non-abolitionist by a simple(?) lacuna. It sounds like losers' history to me.
It didn't need to end by way of northern terrorism at the hands of invading armies.
Agreed. A typical European approach was to declare all babies to be born free regardless of their parentage. This would kill off the noxious slave-breeding industry, but beyond that it wouldn't have hurt the Southerners' beloved property rights. Another option would have been letting the South go in peace, and setting up a decent border (fence). Given the status quo circa 2011, I'm certain this would have been the better option.
As for the sacred Union, that political abstraction became an obsession for a president who suffered from deep depression, who was willing to violate the Constitution (jailing anti-war newspaper publishers, suspending habeas corpus) and spill the blood of hundreds of thousands for his crusade.
So, Lincoln was a bastard for jailing newspaper publishers. Agreed. Now then: given that habeas corpus is referred to in the constitution as a privilege, and that the American ____ War surely constitutes rebellion and/or invasion ... how exactly was the Constitution violated?
WWI was fought so that Germany would not dominate the Continent and thus fulfill the Zimmerman Telegrams promising Mexico restoration of all lands lost in 1845.
ReplyDeleteWWII was fought to prevent the Nazis and Japanese from turning the US into Lebensraum colonies. Quibbling about an alliance with Stalin is like bemoaning K-rations in a disaster. Hitler and Tojo were existential threats to the US, more so than any other.
The Korean War and Vietnam wars were fought to "signal" US determination and avoid a nuclear war with the USSR. By engaging in a proxy war, with limited engagement rules. Given that the US was not obliterated by a nuclear onslaught, I'd say both were pretty successful.
The big lesson of Pearl Harbor is ... don't be weak. America had only 8 carriers, only 4 less than our current 12. Had we built 25 (which we could have easily done) neither Tojo nor Hitler would have dared cross our mustered power. America was basically, according to Ike in "Crusade in Europe" disarmed, to the point where maneuvers in 1940 took place with jeeps and trucks in place of tanks and broomsticks for guns.
I see a disturbing lack of appreciation for reality among the Alt-Right. Humanity is no bed of roses, and no group of people EVER in history EVER found peace without being very strong, and able to deter attackers. Save hunter-gatherers in the Arctic or desert, or others in undesirable places. Everyone always covets thy neighbors land, and the human race is not a Disneyland ride.
ReplyDeleteWWII was fought to prevent the Nazis and Japanese from turning the US into Lebensraum colonies.
ReplyDeleteAssuming this is true (I don't think so), I'd rather have a Lebensraum for the Germans than a Lebensraum for Mestizos.
Whiskey: WWI was fought so that Germany would not dominate the Continent and thus fulfill the Zimmerman Telegrams promising Mexico restoration of all lands lost in 1845.
ReplyDeleteOf course! Woodrow Wilson sent 100,000 American troops to die in Europe because of the threat from Mexico. It's so obvious! Please, teach more oh wise one.
Whiskey, we already know what the conventional wisdom is.
ReplyDeleteHow very disappointing and simplistic of you, Mr. Mangan. I'm afraid that your (justified) disgust with the American government of today is coloring your view of the past, in the same way that the radicals of the 1960's projected their parochial concerns onto the entire history of the U.S. You even denounce the war that created our country in the first place. Sad to say, this entire screed could be copied and pasted onto a far-leftist website, with only a few alterations.
ReplyDeleteSo much for the alt-right and patriotism, or even a sense of reality. Really, really disappointing.
Tschafer
How about that Spanish-American War? Wasn't that a good one?!
ReplyDeleteGlad to see the evolvement of independent thinking on what all these incessant wars really mean for the majority of Americans, rather than just being browbeaten into conformity by the use of emotional appeals invoking images of soldiers who have been killed.
ReplyDeleteIt used to be that anyone with reservations about this or that action would automatically be accused of being a traitor, of working for the enemy, etc.
Since Vietnam more people have realized the government is often dishonest and manipulative.
Instead of members of the general public being disloyal it's being realized by many that it's actually part of the elite running things who are the disloyal ones. There's been something of a tectonic shift in perceptions in just the last forty or so years.
"Whiskey said...
ReplyDeleteWWI was fought so that Germany would not dominate the Continent and thus fulfill the Zimmerman Telegrams promising Mexico restoration of all lands lost in 1845."
This is absolute nonsense. Even had Germany won WWI, they would have had no way to make good on such a promise.
"WWII was fought to prevent the Nazis and Japanese from turning the US into Lebensraum colonies. Quibbling about an alliance with Stalin is like bemoaning K-rations in a disaster. Hitler and Tojo were existential threats to the US, more so than any other."
First of all, you betray a deep seated ignorance of the those times by comparing Hitler to Tojo. Hitler was an autocratic dictator and the center of a personality cult. Tojo was the leader of of a military Junta - a first among equals, and as such he was essentially interchangeable with any other japanese military bigwig.
Germany never sought "lebensraum" in North America, it sought it in eastern Europe. The idea of lebensraum predated the Nazi regime and was put forth by, among others, General Friedrich von Bernhardi, prior to WWI. Nazi Germany was an existential threat to european jews, and to the slavic peoples of eastern Europe, but not to America. Japan was only a threat to our overseas empire in the Pacific.
As Dennis mentioned, Whiskey, we already know the conventional wisdom. You however, though conventional, are not wise.
"Anonymous said...
ReplyDeleteI've also heard the claim that Mexico claimed that territory after 1821. But the fact is they only claimed what Spain had stolen from the Natives. At that time the Philippines, along with Mexico, was administratively part of New Spain. So if Mexico thinks her claim emanates through Spain, does she think she owns the Philippines too?"
This is a good point. Mexico's claim derives from that of Spain. And it should be remembered that Mexico's elite back then was mostly pure-bread spanish. So Mexico's claim to ownership is based on the receipt of stolen property - stolen by those evil, white, spanish imperialists.
whiskey said, "WWI was fought so that Germany would not dominate the Continent and thus fulfill the Zimmerman Telegrams promising Mexico restoration of all lands lost in 1845."
ReplyDeleteWhiskey, you might be interested in reading this column about WW1 from William Lind
Even more importantly, the Christian conservatism — more accurately, perhaps, traditionalism — represented by the Central Powers would have been greatly strengthened by their victory. Instead, the fall of the German, Austro-Hungarian and Russian monarchies let the poisons of the French Revolution loose unchecked upon the West, and upon the world.
whiskey said, "WWII was fought to prevent the Nazis and Japanese from turning the US into Lebensraum colonies. Quibbling about an alliance with Stalin is like bemoaning K-rations in a disaster. Hitler and Tojo were existential threats to the US, more so than any other."
ReplyDeleteWhiskey you really need to think about this. Germany, at the height of her power, was unable to cross 24 miles of English Channel to subdue and conquer Great Britain. Why would you think they could have crossed 3000 miles of ocean to conquer America? Germany was no existential threat to the US. She wanted living space in the East.
Also, at the time of our entry into the war, Stalin had more blood on his hands than Hitler. And as it turned out the real existential threat was indeed the USSR because, as a non-ethnic, non-racial entity, communism was able to spread to other countries without military force. So long as there were a hard core group of believers in the US, the US as we knew it was always under threat from Stalin and his allies. Of course you might not agree with this because of your attachment to those believers.
Japan too wanted colonies. But she wanted them in Asia. She never entertained the thought of conquering the US. She just wanted the US to keep out of her backyard. A surprise strike on Pearl Harbor is no invasion, and Japan did not have the ability to cross 4000 miles of ocean to invade a larger, more industrialized, more populous nation. Yes, they conducted the Aleutian Campaign, but that was a feint with a small force, and the US did not try very hard to repel it because it was not considered a grave threat.
Japan and Germany have had more success post-war turning us into an economic colony because of the disastrous trade policies advocated by your neocon friends.
You need to stick to your own blog, whiskey's place. Why have you not updated that site since April?
whiskey said, "I see a disturbing lack of appreciation for reality among the Alt-Right. Humanity is no bed of roses, and no group of people EVER in history EVER found peace without being very strong, and able to deter attackers. Save hunter-gatherers in the Arctic or desert, or others in undesirable places. Everyone always covets thy neighbors land, and the human race is not a Disneyland ride."
ReplyDeleteWhiskey, you are the one with a lack of appreciation for reality. Because people on the alt-right don't wish to get involved in foreign entanglements, you automatically believe we live in a dream world and don't appreciate human nature. However, to us it is you who seems to not understand human nature.
As a neocon you wish to go overseas to fight people who do not have the ability to invade us, yet you seem to have no problem with letting those same folks immigrate en masse to our nation. If they are so dangerous, why would you want to threaten our unique culture with them?
As a neocon you seem to either not understand, or not care, that participating in all these wars leads to growth in what the Founders and us fear most, the government. You seem to relish the the power of the central government which history has shown is a greater threat to the people than any foreign army.
As a neocon you wish to to give the world access to our markets to make everyone interdependent. Yet the very act of making every nation economically interdependent upon the rest of the world means that the US is no longer the independent republic it used to be. Without this economic independence our sovereignty is threatened.
You say no people in history ever found peace without being strong. Well we had it. We hadn't been vulnerable to a foreign power since the War of 1812. We were the most prosperous, independent republic in history with the highest standard of living in the world. We had been to the moon and back. Yet the people that you tie your ideological wagon to have done everything they can to change all that.
And you question our understanding of human nature?
"Sad to say, this entire screed could be copied and pasted onto a far-leftist website, with only a few alterations."
ReplyDeleteOr Pat Buchanan's website-with no alterations. Rightists were not always unhinged warmongers: witness, for example, Charles Lindbergh, John T. Flynn and Robert Taft.
John Lukacs is an old-school conservative (*not* a neocon) who is probably less disingenuous than most of the interventionists:
ReplyDeletehttp://mises.org/daily/1900
(...)
The fallacy in Lukacs's argument can be seen in what he himself tells us: "After December 1941 Hitler could no longer win his war because the British and the Russians had held out against him until finally the Americans joined them in full force. But before Pearl Harbor he could have won it" (p. 667). But if Hitler was unable to overcome British and Russian resistance before December 1941, why was American entry into the war essential? For his argument to have merit, Lukacs would have to show that the British and Russians would have been unable to resist further after December 1941, absent American intervention. To conjure up visions of Hitler's success before this, as Lukacs does, is not to the point.
Lukacs cannot defeat his opponents' arguments; instead, as suggested earlier, he impugns their motives. Although, with becoming generosity, he acknowledges, "There is something to be said for the arguments of isolationists before World War II", the smear follows immediately: ". . . except that consistent isolationists were few and far between. The 'isolationism' of most of the 'conservatives' was deeply compromised because of their selective indignation. Most of those who had been critical of the American intervention on the side of Britain (and of Russia) against Germany very soon became the most vocal advocates of . . . intervention against Russia" (p. 535, emphasis in original).
Lukacs here ignores, whether willfully or not I shall not venture to say, that many of the prewar "isolationists" opposed the Cold War as well. National Review refused to publish an article by John T. Flynn critical of the Cold War. Herbert Hoover can hardly be described as a Cold Warrior, and Robert Taft opposed the Korean War as unconstitutional. Harry Elmer Barnes, to whom Lukacs devotes considerable attention, was an ardent Cold War revisionist.
...He condemns Charles Tansill's America Goes to War as a "radical and Germanophile" book and seems shocked that it won the praise of Henry Steele Commager and Allan Nevins (p. 149). Tansill, whom he terms "the prototype of a zealous crusader," was one of the foremost diplomatic historians of the twentieth century, and his book remains to this day the best and most thorough study of its subject. Lukacs disagrees: he thinks the "most serious" revisionist book on American entry into World War I was Walter Millis's The Road to War. Millis's study lacks the firm documentary basis of Tansill's, but Lukacs esteems him because he shifted to an interventionist position before World War II. This our author considers proof that "he was an honest man" (p. 196).
But I have saved the worst for last. He dons the brass knuckles for an attack on Harry Elmer Barnes, who, by the way, was not a "sociologist turned historian" (p. 145). Barnes taught history from the outset of his career and considered himself primarily a historian. (So at any rate he told me in 1964.) Lukacs says that Barnes after the war "became an admirer of Hitler." He adduces as evidence a shocking quotation. Barnes described Hitler as "a man whose only fault was that he was too soft, generous, and honourable" (pp.147–48). He cites no source for this, but the remark comes from a privately printed pamphlet by Barnes, Blasting the Historical Blackout,which appeared in 1963.
... His version of the quotation does not exactly correspond to what Barnes says...On page 17 of Barnes's pamphlet, the following appears: "Defenders of Hitler, of whom I am not one, contend that he lost the War and his life by being too decent and honorable." ...
It seems to me that this blog entry has highlighted one of the most decisive splits between the general HBD-aware "conservative" crowd, and the extreme reactionary AltRight types.
ReplyDeleteThe biggest division is probably The JQ. But this is a close second.
I think the reaction conservative types have to this blog entry reveals what Bob Whitaker calls Wordism. Conservatives are more loyal to words and ideas rather than PEOPLE.
And its indeed an interesting observation that the most reviled wars in America's history were the ones that benefited the american PEOPLE the most.
While the most celebrated and remembered ones are those that glorify the IDEA of America and the IDEAS of "democracy" and "human rights".
"Another option would have been letting the South go in peace, and setting up a decent border (fence). Given the status quo circa 2011, I'm certain this would have been the better option."
ReplyDeleteYup.
And when the 21st century closes, historians will realize the issue of one-nation-indivisible was NOT settled with the surrender at Appomattox, and that the 145 years of united stateshood between 1865 and the 2010 passage of AZ SB 1070, was just a temporary cease-fire.
Olave d'Estienne @ 5:27,
ReplyDeleteYou write:
The Civil War isn't quite on topic, since people never post on it, but since it has come up....
Dennis said in his posting, "The Civil War resulted in a carnage of both attackers and defenders alike, all because the defenders did not wish to be governed from Washington, D.C." So I don't think it was straying off topic.
"James Fearon, a scholar of civil wars at Stanford University, defines a civil war as "a violent conflict within a country fought by organized groups that aim to take power at the center or in a region, or to change government policies".[1] Ann Hironaka further specifies that one side of a civil war is the state.[3]" - Wikipedia
Scholars spend half their waking hours defining and redefining things, often playing one-upmanship games by expanding a definition. The common sense meaning of "civil war" remains what I said. Look at Wikipedia's list of civil wars: almost all involve rival factions and armies contending for control over a single state.
(Wikipedia also uses the term "intestine war," which I have never run across. Unusually, I will refrain from introducing a pun.)
The South wanted to extend slavery into the territories in order to rule the Senate, which it wanted to do in order to rule the country.
As I alluded to, the south's determination to extend slavery into the new western territories and states was a sore issue, and made it partly responsible for the war. But trying to rule the Senate is not itself an act of war; political parties do it all the time.
Now then: given that habeas corpus is referred to in the constitution as a privilege, and that the American ____ War surely constitutes rebellion and/or invasion ... how exactly was the Constitution violated?
I looked up the Constitution's wording. You're right and Lincoln's suspension of habeas corpus was legitimate on that score.
In the bigger picture, he must be held partly accountable for the carnage. He was not a stupid man, and it should have been obvious what a disaster the war would be. A political abstraction was closer to his heart than the suffering of men and women on both sides of the conflict. The Union of states may have been good as long as all parties agreed to it; once they did not, it was not worth turning the country into a slaughterhouse to preserve it.
It does not much occur to people that were Germany to have won the Great War outright, which they certainly would have done absent the Federal Reserve, Europe may have been a far better place. Certainly Eastern Europe would have been. We also have the prospect of no Second World War, a marginalized Soviet Union, and perhaps even an America that was not quite so Messianic.
ReplyDeleteThe German faults were no doubt equal to their virtues, but in consequence of losing two wars they have managed them while ours are still passing as virtues.
John Quincy Adams-
America goes not abroad, in search of monsters to destroy. She is the well-wisher to the freedom and independence of all. She is the champion and vindicator only of her own. She will commend the general cause by the countenance of her voice, and the benignant sympathy of her example. She well knows that by enlisting under other banners than her own, were they even the banners of foreign independence, she would involve herself beyond the power of extrication, in all the wars of interest and intrigue, of individual avarice, envy, and ambition, which assumes the colors and usurp the standard of freedom.
On the whole I agree with you, Rick Darby. I would write more but I am busy and I would mostly be rehashing.
ReplyDelete
ReplyDeleteIt does not much occur to people that were Germany to have won the Great War outright, which they certainly would have done absent the Federal Reserve
And so now, perhaps, we can understand the reason for the creation of the Federal Reserve.
Olave d'Estienne,
ReplyDeleteThanks for your courteous reply, and I understand what it is to try to comment when very busy. From a brief visit to your blog (I'll read it more thoroughly when I have more time), it doesn't look like we'll have a lot to argue about.
"Rick Darby said...
ReplyDelete""Olave d'Estienne @ 5:27,
Now then: given that habeas corpus is referred to in the constitution as a privilege, and that the American ____ War surely constitutes rebellion and/or invasion ... how exactly was the Constitution violated?""
I looked up the Constitution's wording. You're right and Lincoln's suspension of habeas corpus was legitimate on that score."
Section. 9., Clause 2: 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.
I must admit to being surprised that Habeas Corpus is listed as a prvilege and not a right, but there it is.
Then again, we had only Lincoln's word that "public safety" required it.
I think Lincoln's word that public safety required suspending the privilege would actually have been worth something if there had been no political parties, and if the President had played a much more passive role than he did during that period. The Constitution makes the President sound a whole lot more like a senior security chief than anything else. (Really the veto power is the only Article II power that isn't directly security-related.)
ReplyDeleteThe obvious choice would be to pick a string of George Washingtons, but that is sort of like picking your parents. If the Constitution had limited the number of employees in the executive branch, specified that the President could only veto laws he considered unconstitutional, and set up secret balloting an/or approval voting for the electoral college, the Presidency would have been much less ideological.