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  • Essay / Abraham Lincoln and the Suspension of the Writ of...

    Seven slave states seceded from the Union once Abraham Lincoln was elected president in 1860. Four more states joined when hostilities broke out. began to break out between the North and the South. This conflict escalated into a bloody civil war, which saw brother fighting against brother and cost the lives of more than 600,000 Americans. President Lincoln was determined to preserve the Union and fight the rebels. In these efforts, President Lincoln abused his enumerated powers and violated one of the nation's fundamental rights he was trying to preserve by suspending the writ of habeas corpus and ignoring the Supreme Court while assertively defending unreasonable his own illegal actions. The Writ of Habeas Corpus Corpus is perhaps the most important right a citizen possesses. Sir William Blackstone, the author of Young Lincoln's revered Commentaries on the Laws of England, declared that "the writ of habeas corpus [is] the most famous writ in English law." The warrant guarantees anyone imprisoned by the government an appearance in court where a judge will determine whether they were lawfully detained. Once suspended, the government has no legal responsibility to confirm the cause of the detention. This order can be considered “the fundamental guarantee against illegal and arbitrary state action”. The power to suspend the writ of habeas corpus clearly exists in the Constitution of the United States of America. In Article I, Section Nine, the Constitution simply states that "the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus shall not be suspended, except as cases of rebellion or invasion of public safety may require it." However, this clause never specified which branch of government was responsible for this suspension, and certainly did not insinuate this...... middle of paper ......tion, which it claims indicates clearly that secession is illegal, without suspending habeas corpus. The President's normally infallible logic is once again called into question; How can a president uphold the values ​​and doctrines of the Constitution while illegally suspending one of the fundamental principles of citizenship? In conclusion, President Lincoln violated constitutional law and abused his enumerated powers when he suspended the writ of habeas corpus, also known as the writ of liberty, within the Loyal States. He disregarded the opinion of the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court while illogically defending his own illegal actions. To preserve the Union, Lincoln sacrificed fundamental principles whose importance as a lawyer he understood. President Abraham Lincoln abused his presidential power, violating the fundamental rights of the Union he was trying to preserve..