Habeas Corpus and Slavery

¶ … Controversial President Lincoln Abraham Lincoln lived during very controversial times. Moreover, he was elected president in an age in which the very foundation of American social and political life was fraught with controversy. Therefore, it is not surprising that Lincoln's presidency was filled with the sort of controversy that typified the age in which he lived. In fact, many of the more controversial aspects of Lincoln's presidency had widely escape the notice of those who uphold his legacy.

Lincoln famously suspended the writ of Habeas Corpus during the period directly proceeding and involving the Civil War. This basic tenement of law enforcement and criminal proceedings is foundational to the U.S. criminal justice system, yet Lincoln did not so much as hesitate in suspending it. Additionally, he made a practice of fairly routinely throwing his opponents in jail. What is so striking about this practice is that these were political opponents Lincoln imprisoned, which added to the controversy of this practice.

Moreover, perhaps the most controversial facet of his presidency involved the partisan nature of the Republican Party in general. Specifically, Lincoln initially resisted the abolitionist movement within his party, as he did the more radical elements that were looking to effect abolition and, later, rights for freedmen in a much more dramatic manner than Lincoln was looking to do.

Viewed from this perspective, it is quite clear that Lincoln's presidency was most memorable for all of the controversial measures it involved, and the basic relationships between those measures and the pressing issue of slavery (and its abolition) in the time in which he lived. Perhaps the single most controversial aspect of Abraham Lincoln's presidency was his suspension of the writ of Habeas Corpus. This action was emblematic of the controversial nature of Lincoln's presidency in a couple of distinct way.

Firstly, it was intrinsically related to the issue of slavery and the fledgling abolitionist movement that was eventually triumphant during the Civil War waged in its wake. Secondly, this action demonstrated Lincoln's tendency to utilize his presidential power in overt ways. He remained within the constitutional boundaries by suspending the writ of Habeas Corpus. But he certainly came very close to the limits of those boundaries, as he did in many instances during his presidency.

When discussing those boundaries and the controversial nature of Lincoln's presidency, it is critical to understand just exactly what the writ of Habeas Corpus is. It expressly states that prisoners have a right to be brought to court by those that have imprisoned them in order to understand the nature of the charges against them and the reasons that they have been imprisoned. This legal mechanism is one of the basic ways of ensuring that people are not falsely accused or simply imprisoned for unjust reasons (like political prisoners).

Its importance to a proper and just criminal justice system is fairly obvious. However, "Under the constitution the federal government can unquestionably suspend the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus if the public safety requires it during times of rebellion or invasion" (Dueholm). This fact is of critical importance when evaluating the controversial nature of Lincoln's decision to suspend the writ of Habeas Corpus, which he first attempted to do in the spring of 1861.

Lincoln's rationale -- which directly pertained to the constitutionality of his decision -- was that this time period was one characterized by rebellion. The Civil War began during this year. In mid-April of this year there were regular disturbances in Maryland surrounding confederate supporters and their disruptions of civil life because they were opposed to the abolition of slavery. Therefore, Lincoln felt he was justified in suspending this writ in an effort to quell the sort of rebellions that were disadvantageous to national safety.

What makes this aspect of his political term so important is its correlation to slavery, and to its abolition. On the one hand, Lincoln was temporarily terminating a very established part of the criminal justice system, and one which helped to create parity for all in that system. On the other, he was doing so because of situations that would perhaps prove even more rebellious in nature. Those situations, of course, was the succession from the Union on the part of many different southern states.

Viewed from this perspective, Lincoln's controversial decision to suspend the Habeas Corpus directly influenced more controversy -- the initiation of the Civil War itself. Another extremely controversial part of Lincoln's term as president was his relationship with the Republican Party in general. He was one of the first presidents of this party to take office. However, there was far from a unified front among the Republicans with Lincoln in office.

As became readily apparent after Lincoln died and during the period of reconstruction, many Republican's actually advocated a more radical form of reconstruction that would grant full rights to freedmen immediately. During his lifespan -- and particularly during his presidency -- Lincoln was at odds with these members of the Republican party who actually were attempting to push him into eliminating slavery right away (Maas). These Republicans were actually staunch abolitionists. Lincoln, however, merely advocated abolishing slavery as a means of preserving the union of the country.

What is significant about this fact is Lincoln is almost uniformly remembered as an abolitionist, as the man who is widely credited with freeing the slaves. In truth, he was much more concerned about preserving the union of the country. He did not actually engage in the Civil War because he felt strongly about ending slavery and granting full civil rights to slaves or to freedmen. His cause was much more pragmatic.

He was actually attempting to keep the United States as a single nation, a monolithic entity whose future he was attempting to procure. Therefore, it is perhaps not so surprising that Lincoln resisted the abolitionists in his party at the beginning of his presidency. One of the reasons he attempted to do so was because of the strongly radical nature of their abolition movement.

Even when Lincoln later on embraced the abolitionist movement as a way of helping to preserve the union by utilizing the resources such freedmen represented in the aftermath of the emancipation proclamation, his form of abolition was a much more moderate one than that of others in his political party. This fact is perhaps best demonstrated in Lincoln's stance during Reconstruction, and his requirements for enabling the southern states of the confederacy to rejoin the union.

Whereas others wanted extremely strict measures, promises, and payments for these states to rejoin the union, Lincoln actually wanted little more than their promised allegiance to the country as a whole. Lincoln took a similarly moderate stance towards abolition as a whole. He was able to resist the more radical abolitionists' efforts in the beginning of his presidency in order to take this stance to save his overall political purposes. Therefore, he was not the great abolitionist that posterity has largely remembered him as (Maas).

Lincoln's tendency to utilize different aspects of the law (such as Habeas Corpus) and national issues (the abolition movement) to serve his own purposes also included other more overt means. In fact, some of the more controversial methods he used to produce this effect directly pertained to the criminal justice system and the law even more than suspending the writ of Habeas Corpus. There are multiple occasions in which Lincoln was able to utilize the law and his status as president to serve his own political needs.

Specifically, there are occasions in which he was able to mitigate a political threat by jailing proponents of a certain political stance with either dubious or no just cause. In such situations it is difficult to justify these measures other than as a way of ensuring that he was able to make his own political agenda and see it best carried out.

However, the controversy of such methods are that they are almost akin to taking the law into his own hands, which no one is supposed to do -- least of all the head of the executive branch of government, and by extension the head of the country itself. Nonetheless, Lincoln was able to engage in this behavior at certain times during his presidency.

Specifically, he jailed multiple people in the north of the country (the Union) whom he suspected of operating as spies for the confederates -- despite having a paucity of evidence regarding the allegations of people in this regard in several instances (Neely, Jr.).