Lincoln and Chief Justice Taney: Slavery, Secession, and the President's War Powers 
asked by dannyboy on November 26, 2006 4:03 AM
The clashes between President Abraham Lincoln and Chief Justice Roger B. Taney over slavery, secession, and the president's constitutional war powers went to the heart of Lincoln's presidency. James Simon, author of the acclaimed What Kind of Nation -- an account of the battle between President Thomas Jefferson and Chief Justice John Marshall to define the new nation -- brings to vivid life the passionate struggle during the worst crisis in the nation's history, the Civil War. The issues that underlaid that crisis -- race, states' rights, and the president's wartime authority -- resonate today in the nation's political debate.
Lincoln and Taney's bitter disagreements began with Taney's Dred Scott opinion in 1857, when the chief justice declared that the Constitution did not grant the black man any rights that the white man was bound to honor. In the famous Lincoln-Douglas debates, Lincoln attacked the opinion as a warped judicial interpretation of the Framers' intent and accused Taney of being a member of a pro-slavery national conspiracy.
In his first inaugural address, President Lincoln insisted that the South had no legal right to secede. Taney, who administered the oath of office to Lincoln, believed that the South's secession was legal and in the best interests of both sections of the country.
Once the Civil War began, Lincoln broadly interpreted his constitutional powers as commander in chief to prosecute the war, suspending the writ of habeas corpus, censoring the mails, and authorizing military courts to try civilians for treason. Taney opposed every presidential wartime initiative and openly challenged Lincoln's suspension of the writ of habeas corpus. He accused the president of assuming dictatorial powers in violation of the Constitution. Lincoln ignored Taney's protest, convinced that his actions were both constitutional and necessary to preserve the Union.
Almost 150 years after Lincoln's and Taney's deaths, their words and actions reverberate in constitutional debate and political battle. Lincoln and Chief Justice Taney tells their dramatic story in fascinating detail.
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Five MONUMENTAL Stars!! Master historian James F. Simon has written a wonderfully-researched and incisively-written book describing a clash of two historical titans at one of the most critical historical crossroads of the United States of America: "the greatest civil war known in the history of the human race." And he hits every salient historical signpost along the way as he patiently develops and delineates the story.
Primarily it's the story of two men rising to the top of their professions amid the ever-present and explosive issue of slavery that ripped apart a still-expanding young nation. But there is much more going on and he lays it out magnificently. Simon details how slavery was always the major issue between slave states and free states, among many other important issues. The description of the institution of slavery, the treatment of blacks, and the central role of the courts in this time period is a very sad, abhorrent chapter in our nation's history. Mr Simon has done the uninitiated reader a favor with his detailed background work on all of the issues and personalities involved.
President Abraham Lincoln and United States Supreme Court Chief Justice Roger Brooke Taney, both tall, imposing, God-fearing figures, bitterly opposed each other on three important points: slavery, secession, and President "Lincoln's constitutional authority during the Civil War". And the broad tapestry of this book includes all of the major players of that era: John Quincy Adams, Andrew Jackson, Nicholas Biddle, John Marshall, James Knox Polk, William Henry Harrison, John Tyler, Zachary Taylor, Franklin Pierce, Buchanan, Salmon Chase, and the ubiquitous "triumvirate" of Henry Clay, Daniel Webster, and John C. Calhoun, among many more. And then there were the intricacies of the major political parties: Democrats, Whigs, Know-Nothing, American, and Republicans.
He covers the background of Taney and Lincoln in detail. In Lincoln's life we find a man who was always against the institution of slavery. At one point, Taney thought slavery was "evil" and freed his own slaves. But both wound up curiously at odds in later life for different reasons. Lincoln's economic beginnings from postman to early political candidate, Whig party member, and then member of the nascent Republican Party and eventually President were all based on one year of formal education and an unyielding lifelong zest for reading, learning, and memorization. Taney's life is likewise given a detail examination in fascinating prose.
Simon carefully builds both the social/political climates and the laws at issue. He gives an overview of the relevant legal issues of the day: from the "Amistad" case to the Missouri Compromise (1820) to the annexation of Texas and the war with Mexico with it's consequent 'spoils' of half a billion acres of land to the Compromise of 1850 to the Fugitive Slave Act to the tense and bloody period of Dred Scott v. Sandford (where members of congress were armed and a member of the Senate was brutally 'caned' in a crowded Senate chamber) to the Prize Cases, the Conscription Law, and many more. The reader will be 200 pages into the book by the time we get to the point of the book, with the almost unbelievable confrontation in Baltimore between a sitting Supreme Court Chief Justice and the Commander of Fort McHenry.
The book details the fact that, contrary to common belief, Lincoln's problems during the Civil War were harsh and the issues were tricky: the suspension of habeas corpus, censorship, suppression of dissidents, the southern blockade, numerous slavery issues and ultimately the emancipation proclamation, among others. With the trials and tribulations of seceding states, border states with shifting allegiances, British intervention, and military defeats, Lincoln did not need a Supreme Court Chief Justice who publicly challenged the legal validity of Lincoln's decisions at every turn, officially and unofficially, comparing Confederate soldiers to the soldiers of the Revolutionary War and ruling that blacks were permanently excluded from the phrase "all men are created equal" and were nothing more than property. Meanwhile, Lincoln expanded the roles of Commander-in-Chief, Head of State, and Chief Executive by using implied powers of the presidency, walking very close to (if not over) the edge of unconstitutionality (see my second note).
By the time the reader reaches p.306 the fate of the Union, in terms of international law and relations, seems to hang in the balance based on the Court's decision on one matter, the Prize Cases, and the fiery oratory of the author of "Two Years Before The Mast". We know the final outcome but the final chapters of this superb historical book detail how we got here and they are spellbinding.
Lincoln's words at the founding of the Illinois Republican Party are the watchwords of this fabulous historical read: "Liberty and Union, now and forever, one and inseparable". This is a masterful, mesmerizing historical investigation by James F. Simon and it gets my Highest Recommendation. Five AWESOME Stars!!
(*This review is based on an unabridged eBook digital download in eReader format. Save a tree, download your books.
*Those who complain about President George W. Bush's "war" policies should read page 318 of the chapter called "Silencing the Agitator", to find out what Lincoln did to constitutional freedoms during the Civil War, and then read the Epilogue.)
Primarily it's the story of two men rising to the top of their professions amid the ever-present and explosive issue of slavery that ripped apart a still-expanding young nation. But there is much more going on and he lays it out magnificently. Simon details how slavery was always the major issue between slave states and free states, among many other important issues. The description of the institution of slavery, the treatment of blacks, and the central role of the courts in this time period is a very sad, abhorrent chapter in our nation's history. Mr Simon has done the uninitiated reader a favor with his detailed background work on all of the issues and personalities involved.
President Abraham Lincoln and United States Supreme Court Chief Justice Roger Brooke Taney, both tall, imposing, God-fearing figures, bitterly opposed each other on three important points: slavery, secession, and President "Lincoln's constitutional authority during the Civil War". And the broad tapestry of this book includes all of the major players of that era: John Quincy Adams, Andrew Jackson, Nicholas Biddle, John Marshall, James Knox Polk, William Henry Harrison, John Tyler, Zachary Taylor, Franklin Pierce, Buchanan, Salmon Chase, and the ubiquitous "triumvirate" of Henry Clay, Daniel Webster, and John C. Calhoun, among many more. And then there were the intricacies of the major political parties: Democrats, Whigs, Know-Nothing, American, and Republicans.
He covers the background of Taney and Lincoln in detail. In Lincoln's life we find a man who was always against the institution of slavery. At one point, Taney thought slavery was "evil" and freed his own slaves. But both wound up curiously at odds in later life for different reasons. Lincoln's economic beginnings from postman to early political candidate, Whig party member, and then member of the nascent Republican Party and eventually President were all based on one year of formal education and an unyielding lifelong zest for reading, learning, and memorization. Taney's life is likewise given a detail examination in fascinating prose.
Simon carefully builds both the social/political climates and the laws at issue. He gives an overview of the relevant legal issues of the day: from the "Amistad" case to the Missouri Compromise (1820) to the annexation of Texas and the war with Mexico with it's consequent 'spoils' of half a billion acres of land to the Compromise of 1850 to the Fugitive Slave Act to the tense and bloody period of Dred Scott v. Sandford (where members of congress were armed and a member of the Senate was brutally 'caned' in a crowded Senate chamber) to the Prize Cases, the Conscription Law, and many more. The reader will be 200 pages into the book by the time we get to the point of the book, with the almost unbelievable confrontation in Baltimore between a sitting Supreme Court Chief Justice and the Commander of Fort McHenry.
The book details the fact that, contrary to common belief, Lincoln's problems during the Civil War were harsh and the issues were tricky: the suspension of habeas corpus, censorship, suppression of dissidents, the southern blockade, numerous slavery issues and ultimately the emancipation proclamation, among others. With the trials and tribulations of seceding states, border states with shifting allegiances, British intervention, and military defeats, Lincoln did not need a Supreme Court Chief Justice who publicly challenged the legal validity of Lincoln's decisions at every turn, officially and unofficially, comparing Confederate soldiers to the soldiers of the Revolutionary War and ruling that blacks were permanently excluded from the phrase "all men are created equal" and were nothing more than property. Meanwhile, Lincoln expanded the roles of Commander-in-Chief, Head of State, and Chief Executive by using implied powers of the presidency, walking very close to (if not over) the edge of unconstitutionality (see my second note).
By the time the reader reaches p.306 the fate of the Union, in terms of international law and relations, seems to hang in the balance based on the Court's decision on one matter, the Prize Cases, and the fiery oratory of the author of "Two Years Before The Mast". We know the final outcome but the final chapters of this superb historical book detail how we got here and they are spellbinding.
Lincoln's words at the founding of the Illinois Republican Party are the watchwords of this fabulous historical read: "Liberty and Union, now and forever, one and inseparable". This is a masterful, mesmerizing historical investigation by James F. Simon and it gets my Highest Recommendation. Five AWESOME Stars!!
(*This review is based on an unabridged eBook digital download in eReader format. Save a tree, download your books.
*Those who complain about President George W. Bush's "war" policies should read page 318 of the chapter called "Silencing the Agitator", to find out what Lincoln did to constitutional freedoms during the Civil War, and then read the Epilogue.)
reviewed by jan1975 on November 26, 2006 4:10 PM