Challenging The Legality Of The Definition Of Terrorism

“It is an ancient English legal concept that empowers judges to order imprisoned persons to be brought into core to determine if they are being legally held” (Lincoln and the Writ of Liberty). This quote comes from “Lincoln and the Writ of Liberty” showing how the writ of habeas of corpus allows a fair trial for all criminals. The Constitution and Bill of Rights includes accused persons the right to fair and speedy trial, a jury of peers, and protection from cruel or unusual punishment. “On September 24, 1862, Lincoln issued a proclamation unprecedented in American history. He suspended the writ of liberty everywhere in the United States. The suspensions applied to Confederate spies or to those who aided the rebel cause, interfered with military enlistments, resisted the draft, or were ‘guilty of any disloyal practice” (Lincoln and the Writ of Liberty). Mrs. Surratt was accused to be an aid in the rebel cause and the suspension of the writ of liberty affected her trial immensely. Mary Surratt’s execution was not equitable because she did not have access to the basic rights given to U.S.

In order to protect the nation, President Lincoln was entirely justified in suspending rights during the wartime situation. The North would have had no chance of victory over the Confederacy’s superior military had Lincoln not supported our small, inexperienced army. It was also crucial that the President kept the slave-holding Border States to be able to lure the

The power was explicitly given to the Legislative branch of the government since it was mentioned in Article I; however, the argument can be made that this was an exigency that was granted for a particular emergency, in this case an insurrection. Even knowing that he had a basis to take action on his own, he waited for Congress to make the final decision and grant him the privilege to not overstep any boundary. When Congress made a decision “it was imposed upon the President for the very reason that the courts and the marshals are too weak to perform it (the suspension of the Writ of Habeas Corpus)” (Bates 295). President Lincoln was just upholding and living up to the oath that he “will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States and will…preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States. When all else fails the President is the “Guardian of the Constitution” and must not be denied due to believing that a power can be easily abused, when every law is subject to good and bad, it’s the chances that must be taken (Bates 295). The circumstances all pointed to the the executive branch, the president, to step in and enact the suspension of the Writ of Habeas Corpus indicating that the power, although given only to the legislative, it seems that the framers knew that when the time came congress would not be able to perform such actions. The only grounds that indicated that the president wasn’t automatically given the power was

"So when Lincoln suspended the writ of Habeas corpus in order to arrest those accused of treason, the "Peace Democrats" had more ammunition against the president. There was much controversy as to whether the president had the power to suspend habaes corpus, and it was argued that only Congress had that right. The writ of habeas corpus protects people from arbitrary arrest and detainment. The power to do so was both that of the legislative branch as well as the judicial branch. It was unclear whether the Philadelphia convention placed it in Article I, just to identify it or define it as a legislative function. Either way, Lincoln did so, and the suspension of the writ of Habeas corpus brought on thousands of arbitrary arrests. Many of those who were arrested were spies, foreigners and smugglers. The question is: Did Lincoln go too far and unlawfully exercise his executive powers to manipulate constitutional limits?

Lincoln’s decision in regard to suspension of habeas corpus is best understood from the perspective of the civil war. After secession of Virginia from the Union in April 1861, Maryland was the only option available for communication, transport, troop movements and supplies to Washington DC, the country’s capital. Because the railway ran through Baltimore, which was a difficult city to deal with, and Maryland’s support could not be taken for granted President Lincoln closely monitored its legislature session and also ordered many members to be arrested. Lincoln’s main objective was to keep the transport and communications routes through Maryland functioning, which was the main reason for his issue of presidential executive order in regard to Suspension of the Writ of Habeas Corpus (Dueholm, 2008).

1. The general meaning of the right of habeas corpus in the U.S. Constitution and its relationship to the protection of other civil liberties.

Terrorism is something that has been going on since the dawn of mankind, and it will be with us until the very end. Most people know terrorism only as a horrific, inhumane process that is used to inflict harm and fear towards specific ethnic and religious groups. In reality, however, terrorism was actually used in our very own revolution, the American Revolution. You will see that the Boston Tea Party is a superb example of terrorism. American settlers dressed up like Native Americans, parading and shouting down the streets of Boston late at night, all the way down to the docks, boarded the tea ships, and dumped every parcel of tea down the Charles river. This was the start of American terrorism in the American revolution, and it continued through the war as the Americans started using guerilla warfare and attacking major centers for the British military and the British economy.

A case concerning executive actions that suppress civil liberties. President Lincoln gave his military commanders powers to arrest civilians suspected in engaging in traitorous activates and ordered them to be tried in military courts. But, in location where there were not hostilities occurring, the army had no legal authority to arrest these individuals. Additionally, before civilians could be tried in military courts, martial law had to be declared and habeas corpus had to be suspended. Article I Section 9 allowed the for the suspension of habeas corpus only in cases of rebellion or invasion for public safety purposes by the legislature. Lambdin Milligan was an attorney in Indiana who was sympathetic towards the

POL 201 Week 5 Final Paper Civil Liberties, Habeas Corpus, and the War on Terror

In The Real Lincoln by Thomas DiLorenzo he writes that Lincoln was a dictator, flagrantly violated constitutional freedoms, violated civil liberties, justified his actions by its necessity of the war, and permitted because of war powers that are never clearly defined except putting down rebellion, the real motive was to centralize power under his dictatorship government. While he was president, Lincoln committed numerous violations of civil liberties including the suspension of habeas corpus, instituting martial law, using military tribunals for civilian trials, suppressing free elections, interfering with state legislatures, engaging in a war without the consent of congress, blockading southern ports, censoring telegraphs and newspapers, authorizing a mass execution of natives in a Sioux uprising in Minnesota. In Lincoln’s Constitution, Daniel Farber,

On September 15, 1863 President Abraham Lincoln temporarily suspended Habeas Corpus, which is the right to due process. Anyone who was a confederate sympathiser or spoke out against the war were arrested, put in jail and weren 't given a trial until after the war was over. Lincoln suspended Habeas Corpus because he wanted to suppress dissenters to strengthen the War effort. More than 13,000 civilians in the Union were arrested under martial law throughout the War. Lincoln viewed his action as justified since he believed the country was in a time of crisis.

The case was then brought to the Supreme Court, where it sided with the district court and the petitioner, Mr. Johnson. The Court ruled that if denied access to a ‘jail-house lawyer' and unable himself to file the writ, he essentially has been denied his federal right to habeas corpus.

All through American history there have been many debates on whether during war times rights can be suspended or not. On April 27th 1861 Abraham Lincoln suspended the Writ of Habeas Corpus, he did this under the justification of the start of the Civil War.Franklin D. Roosevelt also suspended the writ of Habeas Corpus for Japanese-Americans during World War 2, this was not the last time this happened two other presidents have suspended the Writ of Habeas Corpus they were Bill Clinton and George Bush. Although the framers did allow for the removal of rights it is a long laborious process. Due Process was first stated in the fifth amendment, it is written as no person may “be deprived of life,

This has brought in the question of the effect of the Suspension Clause in the absence of a formal suspension. A question that has been asked by many is whether the Clause simply restrains Congress’s ability to suspend whatever habeas jurisdiction is currently on the books, or whether the Clause grants an affirmative right to habeas review (or an adequate substitute for it).The Court seems to have resolved this dispute in Boumediene v. Bush (2008), where it held that the Clause does not simply restrain Congress’s ability to suspend existing habeas statutes but affirmatively guarantees prisoners some forum in which they can challenge the legality of their detention.Also in Boumediene, the Court decided—to much controversy—that habeas jurisdiction

Now this issue by Lincoln was used against John Merryman, who was a state legislator from Maryland. He was arrested in turn for attempting to disrupt or hinder