Curious to see the book on which this essay is based. It is right inasmuch as Justice Marshall and others have argued that the Civil War amendments amounted to a refounding of the constitutional order. Something far more than mere amendments. nytimes.com/2021/11/02/opi…
2/ But the arguments about Lincoln, moral, historical and analytical are extremely dubious. Just no other way to put it. There are numerous instances of this. But I'm struck by the first - in which Feldman argues that Lincoln violated the constitution by going to war to ...
3/ preserve the union. The evidence of this is that Lincoln's predecessor, James Buchanan, and his AG, concluded that the US had no authority to stop the seceding states from leaving. Buchanan was a notorious Doughface, a then current word for a Southern ...
4/ sympathizer from the North. There's even some evidence that as President Buchanan was conniving with the South to break up the union. That point is speculative and debatable. But Buchanan's credibility on this issue is not.
5/ Indeed, 30 years earlier Andrew Jackson threatened and made preparations to lead a federal army into South Carolina to enforce federal law and prevent the state from seceding from the union. The most dispassionate take is that the constitution was intentionally ...
6/ silent on this point, in part because it's an inherently extra-constitutional issue. In any case, this is bad history and adducing the Buchanan administration as the standard is funny and bizarre. The discussion of Lincoln's suspension of habeas corpus is also strained ...
7/ though that's much more complex. The whole thing is curious because the Civil War really does amount to a refounding. Justice Marshall's constitution bicentennial speech on this is really worth reading. Marshall's argument is that the 1787 document was morally defective ...
8/ and something we owe no reverence. It's only with this remade constitution, really bound up in the 13-15th amendments and in some ways especially the 14th amendment that we're on a firm ground and a republic that deserves our loyalty. In any case, maybe the book is ...
9/ better than this oped because these are shaky to weak arguments. The Buchanan thing is just bizarre.
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