Everybody loves Lincoln, right?
I mean, come on, he’s the greatest president of all time.
Regardless of politics, most people see Lincoln as an almost saintly leader, who reluctantly bore the burden of rebellion.
You may be surprised, then, to learn that “Honest Abe” was actually totally despised in his own time.
I can almost hear you saying— “What? Despised by The South, you mean?”
Sadly, no, I mean by everyone.
Contrary to popular opinion, Lincoln was quite despotic. He usurped more power and broke more laws than virtually any president in the whole of American history.
It wasn’t until after his death that the story began to change.
Don’t believe me?
Consider the fact that Lincoln suspended habeas corpus. Habeas corpus, y’know, the right of every citizen to have a fair trial? Yeah, he just did away with that.
Why? The short answer is that there were a lot of people who didn’t like him — both in the media and in politics. (Popular leaders typically don’t have to suspend the rule of law in order to stay in power…)
Under the charge of treason, Lincoln was able to put his critics in prison at Fort McHenry. He imprisoned hundreds of (Northern) journalists who dared to criticize the war and his presidency.
Thanks to unilaterally abolishing habeas corpus, he did all this without having to deal with that pesky “trial by jury” thing.
Now, you may be wondering:
“But Lincoln couldn’t have been that bad, right? After all, we have the Judiciary system! The courts would have declared this all unconstitutional. You must be wrong about something.”
Sorry, no.
If any judge did oppose the president, Good Ol’ Honest Abe had him arrested and thrown in at Fort McHenry!
See, that habeas corpus thing is kind of central to a functioning justice system…
In fact, many judges did speak out against the suspension of habeas corpus, and many even officially ruled against the policy.
One such judge was Roger B Taney, Chief Justice of The US Supreme Court. He ruled that Lincoln had violated the constitution with his suspension of habeas corpus.
You read that correctly, the Chief Justice of The Supreme Court actually ruled against Lincoln. In a healthy republic, that would have been the end of the story.
Lincoln, of course, responded by appealing the decision via the proper legal channels. In a noble effort to uphold the Constitution, Lincoln appeared before the Supreme Court to defend his interpretation of the Presidency.
Oh wait, no…. he didn’t do any of that....
He just issued an arrest warrant for Chief Justice Taney.
That’s right, he tried to kidnap Justice Taney in what scholar Thomas DiLorenzo calls a “breathtaking display of despotism.”
I use the word ‘kidnap' because obviously the warrant itself was illegal.
Whatever power the government has, is derived from the consent of the people. The government cannot pretend to wield legal power that the governed have not expressly given to it.
Say I hired someone to throw you in a dungeon. You never committed a crime. You were never given a chance at trial. No court ever gave me the power to do this. Yet I insist nevertheless that I had you legally arrested.
Well I think we would all agree that I should be charged with a crime.
The same should be true even if I work in the White House. So correctly understood, Lincoln did try to kidnap Justice Taney.
Thankfully, even Lincoln’s expansion of power had met its limit — he could not find a single US Marshall who would carry out the order.
For some reason, no one was willing to drag the 84-year-old Chief Justice to a dungeon at Fort McHenry on the grounds of treason.
Unfortunately the same cannot be said of many other federal judges that Lincoln did throw in prison for similar rulings.
Curiously, after the war, the Supreme Court ruled that neither the President nor any act of Congress could suspend habeas corpus….
If you found this story interesting, check out the historical works of Thomas DiLorenzo.
Professor DiLorenzo has spent much of his life as a Lincoln scholar and libertarian economist.
His books The Problem With Lincoln and Lincoln Unmasked are fabulous, accessible, overviews of Lincoln’s life and presidency.
Though they are controversial and contain trivial errors, I highly recommend them as the only source to find honest criticism of Abraham Lincoln’s presidency.
You can get The Problem With Lincoln here.
For a full treatment of the civil war and Lincoln’s presidency, you can read The Real Lincoln: A New Look at Lincoln, His Agenda, and an Unnecessary War.
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