Help!! In a July 1861 speech to Congress concerning his suspension of habeas corpus, Lincoln asked, “Are all the laws, but one, to go unexecuted, and the government itself to go to pieces, lest that one be violated?” Do you agree with his argument?
What circumstances, if any, would make it necessary?
Do you think Lincoln’s position is consistent with the rule of law?

On May 28, 1861, Supreme Court Chief Justice Roger Taney directly challenged President Abraham Lincoln’s wartime suspension of the great writ of habeas corpus, in a national constitutional showdown.

roger_Brooke_Taney

Lincon and Taney had not been on good terms prior to Taney’s decision on the habeas question in Ex Parte Merryman, which he issued while acting as a circuit judge. Taney had also written the majority opinion in the controversial Dred Scott case in 1857, a decision than Lincoln publicly criticized in his famous debates with Stephen Douglas. Lincoln also made the Dred Scott decision a central theme of his 1860 presidential campaign.

As Chief Justice, Taney was forced to issue the presidential oath to Lincoln in March 1861, and to listen to Lincoln’s inaugural address, where he again criticized Taney and the Dred Scott decision, but not directly by name.

“The candid citizen must confess that if the policy of the Government upon vital questions affecting the whole people is to be irrevocably fixed by decisions of the Supreme Court, the instant they are made in ordinary litigation between parties in personal actions the people will have ceased to be their own rulers, having to that extent practically resigned their Government into the hands of that eminent tribunal,” Lincoln said.

About three months later, Taney had his chance to address Lincoln’s vision of executive power in Ex Parte Merryman.

Article 1, Section 9, of the Constitution states that “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.” The Great Writ’s origins go back to the signing of the Magna Carta in England in 1215 and the writ compels the government to show cause to a judge for the arrest or detention of a person.

After the start of the Civil War, President Lincoln ordered General Winfield Scott to suspend habeas corpus near railroad lines that connected Philadelphia to Washington, amid fears of a rebellion in Maryland that would endanger Washington.

On May 25, 1861, federal troops arrested a Maryland planter, John Merryman, on suspicion that he was involved in a conspiracy as part of an armed secessionist group. Merryman was detained at Fort McHenry without a warrant. Merryman’s attorney petitioned the U.S. Circuit Court for Maryland, which Taney oversaw, for his client’s release.

On May 26, Taney issued a writ of habeas corpus and ordered General George Cadwalader, Fort McHenry’s commander, to appear in the circuit courtroom along with Merryman and to explain his reasons for detaining Merryman.

Cadwalader didn’t comply with the writ and instead sent a letter back to Taney on May 27 explaining that Lincoln had authorized military officers to suspend the writ when they felt there were public safety concerns. Taney then tried to notify Cadwalader that he was in contempt of court, but soldiers at Fort McHenry refused the notice.

On May 28, Taney issued an oral opinion, which was followed by a written opinion a few days later. He stated that the Constitution clearly intended for Congress, and not the President, to have to power to suspend the writ during emergencies.

“The clause in the Constitution which authorizes the suspension of the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus is in the ninth section of the first article. This article is devoted to the Legislative Department of the United States, and has not the slightest reference to the Executive Department,” Taney argued. “I can see no ground whatever for supposing that the President in any emergency or in any state of things can authorize the suspension of the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus, or arrest a citizen except in aid of the judicial power,” Taney concluded.

However, Taney noted that he didn’t have the physical power to enforce the writ in this case because of the nature of the conflict at hand. “I have exercised all the power which the Constitution and laws confer on me, but that power has been resisted by a force too strong for me to overcome,” he said. But Taney did order that a copy of his opinion be sent directly to President Lincoln.

Lincoln didn’t respond directly or immediately to the Ex Parte Merryman decision. Instead, he waited until a July 4th address to confront Taney at a special session of Congress.

Explanation:

explanation:

diaspora, (greek: dispersion)hebrew galut (exile), the dispersion of jews among the gentiles after the babylonian exile; or the aggregate of jews or jewish communities scattered “in exile” outside palestine or present-day israel. although the term refers to the physical dispersal of jews throughout the world, it also carries religious, philosophical, political, and eschatological connotations, inasmuch as the jews perceive a special relationship between the land of israel and themselves. interpretations of this relationship range from the messianic hope of traditional judaism for the eventual “ingathering of the exiles” to the view of reform judaism that the dispersal of the jews was providentially arranged by god to foster pure monotheism throughout the world.

the first significant jewish diaspora was the result of the babylonian exile (q.v.) of 586 bc. after the babylonians conquered the kingdom of judah, part of the jewish population was deported into slavery. although cyrus the great, the persian conqueror of babylonia, permitted the jews to return to their homeland in 538 bc, part of the jewish community voluntarily remained behind.

the largest, most significant, and culturally most creative jewish diaspora in early jewish history flourished in alexandria, where, in the 1st century bc, 40 percent of the population was jewish. around the 1st century ad, an estimated 5,000,000 jews lived outside palestine, about four-fifths of them within the roman empire, but they looked to palestine as the centre of their religious and cultural life. diaspora jews thus far outnumbered the jews in palestine even before the destruction of jerusalem in ad 70. thereafter, the chief centres of judaism shifted from country to country (e.g., babylonia, persia, spain, france, germany, poland, russia, and the united states), and jewish communities gradually adopted distinctive languages, rituals, and cultures, some submerging themselves in non-jewish environments more completely than others. while some lived in peace, others became victims of violent anti-semitism.