Janine+Ko-Suspended+Civil+Rights+During+the+War

= = =Suspended Civil Rights During the Civil War=

toc = = The Civil War was a war fought between the North (Union) and the South (Confederacy) of the United States of America. In desperate attempts to regain control and keep the country together, the president of the Union, President Abraham Lincoln suspended several rights directed particularly at the South.

**Habeas Corpus **
The privilege to the writ of habeas corpus is defined in the Constitution in Article 1, Section 9, Clause 2 as such: //"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 writ of habeas corpus gives the imprisoned the right to be brought before a judge in order to determine if they are being held lawfully. If the judge finds that the government is holding them unlawfully, they will be released. As the Constitution explains, this right cannot be taken away except in times of great national danger. By a proclamation made on September 24, 1862, President Abraham Lincoln suspended the writ of habeas corpus. Although this was issued on his own motion, the heavy critique that followed compelled him to seek and receive Congressional approval. After this was approved by Congress on May 3, 1863, Lincoln continued to issue two more suspensions on September 15, 1863 and July 5, 1864. One example of a time where President Abraham Lincoln had to suspend the writ of habeas corpus, was when he had to put down Southern supporters in Maryland in an attempt to keep them from joining the Confederacy. Because Maryland was a key state to winning the Civil War, Lincoln's decision played a crucial part in the Union's victory.

Several other rights along with habeas corpus were suspended in Lincoln's proclamations. The militia draft would be used to fill military ranks. Anyone avoiding, resisting or hindering the draft would be arrested. Disloyal people helping the Southern insurrection would be arrested, tried in a military court and imprisoned in a military area. In addition, Lincoln also suspended the right to freedom of speech as speaking or writing against the Union or the war was prohibited.

==**Opposition **==

[|Erastus Corning] was an influential businessman and former congressman. Although he supported President Abraham Lincoln in general, he was an outspoken critic on the suspension of the writ of habeas corpus. He organized a public meeting about the war that led to a letter sent to President Lincoln on May 19, 1863 questioning his decision to suspend habeas corpus. In his letter, he offered the president full support for keeping the Union together but criticized his methods to do so. In particular, he disapproved of several arrests of New York citizens accused of avoiding service. Lincoln's lengthy response, now well-known as a testimonial to the dire situation in the country, essentially explained that desperate times called for desperate measures. Erastus Corning resigned from the senate in October, 1863 due to failing health and disagreements with President Lincoln. Despite his differing beliefs with the president, he remained firmly loyal to the Union.

Thoughts on Southern Secession
Immediately after the war had ended, there was controversy over whether or not the South had actually seceded and if the Southerners were citizens with full American rights. After some debate, it was generally decided that the South had never seceded. Or, if they had, it would now be looked past and the focus put on healing the torn nation. They were admitted back into the Union as states and the Southerners held full rights as citizens with the condition that they follow the new amendments and laws passed. Below are opinions on Southern secession from several different views.

**According to Conservative Republicans-- [|Thaddeus Stevens]: **
Thaddeus Stevens from Pennsylvania was one of the most influential conservative republican leaders in the House of Representatives. His ideas on reconstruction after the war involved a tighter rein and harsher treatment of the South. His theory was that the South had seceded and had, therefore, been a separate, unfriendly country for four years. Now that they had lost the Civil War, the "dead states" should now be accepted into the United States only as territories. The people, having relinquished all rights as American citizens when they seceded, would have to rebuild and work to regain their statehood.

**According to Liberal Republicans--[|Henry J. Raymond]: **
Henry J. Raymond was an American journalist, politician and the founder of the New York Times. He was one of the most prominent supporters of President Abraham Lincoln's ideas and an outspoken critic to the reconstruction ideas of Thaddeus Stevens. Although he was a member of a republican party, he was also an active advocate for a lenient reconstruction for the defeated confederacy and so lost favor among the republicans. He is representative of the ideas of the liberal republicans on Southern secession. In a speech on reconstruction made in 1865, he detailed his reasons for a gentle rebuilding of the South. He believed that these states had never seceded at all. They had declared, at the beginning of the Civil War, their intent to secede. But because the Constitution prohibits the secession of states without permission from Congress, they then "proceeded to carry [the declaration] into effect" by starting a war. Because they lost this War, they did not fulfill their initial intent to become separate and had, therefore, never been a foreign entity. So their people should now be considered internally dispaced citizens who should be cared for as American citizens. This sped up the healing of the country.

Emancipation Proclamation
The emancipation proclamation was issued by President Abraham Lincoln during the Civil War. The first executive order was given on September 22, 1862. This freed all slaves in the Confederate states. The second executive order was issued on January 1, 1863 and listed ten specific states that the first order applied to. It declared that "all persons held as slaves within any States, or designated part of the State, the people whereof shall be in rebellion against the United States, shall be then, thenceforward, and forever free."The Emancipation Proclamation established that the North would clearly fight against it. To gain support, he proposed that slave owners be compensated for giving up their "property." However, the proclamation only freed slaves not in the Union. Lincoln, knowing that the Union was in need of support, decided not to aggravate the slave states loyal to the Union by freeing their slaves. The proclamation not only gave black soldiers the right to fight in the war, but also directly tied the issue of slavery to the war.

[[image:abraham_lincoln1.jpg width="200" height="264" align="right" caption="Abraham Lincoln, former president of the United States of America"]]
Voting before, during and after the Civil War was a right that was knitted tightly with black freedom. The main candidates for presidential election of 1860 were Abraham Lincoln and John Beckinridge. This revealed how incredibly divided the United States was as nearly the entire North voted for Lincoln and nearly the entire South voted for Beckinridge. Lincoln won, despite the fact that his name was omitted from the ballots of nine Southern states. The fourteenth amendment, passed July 9th, 1868 as part of reconstruction after the Civil War, declared that anyone born or naturalized in the United States was a citizen. This established that blacks were citizens. The fifteenth amendment, passed in 1870, specifically addressed black voting rights. It declared that no one shall be denied the right to vote based on race, color, or previous condition of servitude. This was further enforced by the act of 1870, which set up criminal penalties for anyone interfering with another person's right to vote. However, this struggle to give blacks the right to vote was not as effective as hoped. The Ku Klux Klan, which dominated many Southern States, tried to keep blacks from voting by means of intimidation and violence. Poll taxes, literacy tests, vouches of "good character," and disqualification for "crimes of moral turpitude" were passed in many Southern states in an attempt to prevent blacks from voting.

Rights as a Result of the War
After the victory, the North quickly agreed that focus must be put on peace-keeping and establishing an equality between races. The thirteenth amendment, adopted December 6, 1865, prohibited slavery. This established a more permanent version of the emancipation proclamation. The fourteenth amendment extended legal protection to everyone regardless of their race. The fifteenth amendment gave blacks the right to vote.




 * 1) "Emancipation Proclamation." //PBS//. Web. 11 May 2010. .
 * 2) "Erastus Corning." //Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia//. 19 Feb. 2010. Web. 05 May 2010. .
 * 3) "Henry Jarvis Raymond." //Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia//. 2 Mar. 2010. Web. 05 May 2010. .
 * 4) "Historical Issue-Analysis and Decision-Making: Civil Liberties During Wartime." //Library of Congress Home//. Library of Congress, 18 Mar. 2010. Web. 05 May 2010. .
 * 5) Lincoln, Abraham. "Abraham Lincoln to Erastus Corning and Others, [June] 1863 (Draft of Reply to Resolutions concerning Military Arrests and Suspension of Habeas Corpus)." //American Memory from the Library of Congress - Home Page//. Library of Congress Archives. Web. 05 May 2010. <http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/r?ammem/mal:@field(DOCID+@lit(d2399500))>.
 * 6) Lincoln, Abraham. "General Orders No. 233." //American Memory from the Library of Congress - Home Page//. Library of Congress, 5 July 1864. Web. 05 May 2010. <http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/ampage?collId=lprbscsm&fileName=scsm0819/lprbscsmscsm0819.db&recNum=0&itemLink=D?scsmbib:7:./temp/~ammem_winC::>.
 * 7) Lincoln, Abraham. "General Orders No. 315." //American Memory from the Library of Congress - Home Page//. Library of Congress, 15 Sept. 1863. Web. 05 May 2010. <[]>.
 * 8) Lincoln, Abraham. "Proclamation Suspending the Writ of Habeas Corpus by Abraham Lincoln." //TeachingAmericanHistory.org -- Free Seminars and Summer Institutes for Social Studies Teachers//. Web. 05 May 2010. <http://teachingamericanhistory.org/library/index.asp?document=425>.
 * 9) Raymond, Henry J. "Speech on Reconstruction." In Scott, John, ed. //Living Documents in American History.// New York: Washington Square Press, 1964-68. //American History Online//. Facts On File, Inc. http://www.fofweb.com/activelink2.asp?
 * 10) ItemID=WE52&iPin=E02320&SingleRecord=True (accessed May 4, 2010).
 * 11) "Thaddeus Stevens." //Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia//. 2 May 2010. Web. 05 May 2010. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thaddeus_Stevens>.
 * 12) "US Constitution Annotated - Habeas Corpus Suspension." //US Supreme Court Cases from Justia & Oyez//. 2005. Web. 05 May 2010. <<span class="wiki_link_ext">http://supreme.justia.com/constitution/article-1/51-habeas-corpus-suspension.html>.

Pictures
 * 1) Picture of Proclamation to Suspend the Writ of Habea Corpus accessed from Library of Congress:<http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/ampage?collId=lprbscsm&fileName=scsm0819/lprbscsmscsm0819.db&recNum=0&itemLink=D?scsmbib:7:./temp/~ammem_winC::>.
 * 2) Picture of Congressional Approval accessed from Library of Congress: <[]>
 * 3) Picture of Abraham Lincoln accessed from Wikipedia: <[]>