THINK NEO-

Greetings, Poly and the Psy-fie's

And... welcome to the shell game:

So...

You think things are looking rather grim for the (so called) "Majesty of Constitutional Law" these days, do you?

Well, stick around a bit 'cuz You ain't seen nothin' yet.

Consider the fate of the "peace" Democrats of the North during Mr. Lincoln's war of aggression.

Following the election of "Honest Abe" Lincoln and the Republicans, the Democratic party was badly fractured.

The two most visible public factions were the "War" Democrats and the "Peace" Democrats.

The Peace Democrats soon became known as the "Copperheads."

The appellation was originally a slur cast against them by the Republicans but was accepted with pride by the Democratic Peace party who sported copper pennies on their lapels to show their opposition to what they considered to be the Constitutional illegality of the Lincoln administration and its therefore unlawful acts.

The most popular of the Copperheads was Democratic Congressman Clement L. Vallandigham, who in 1862 introduced a bill in Congress to imprison the President.

Vallandigham and his supporters held that Mr. Lincoln was guilty of unlawful acts and of subverting the Constitution, (true, IMO) and of high crimes and treason against the State and the People.

Instead, Vallandigham and a large number of other Democrats, including judges, newspaper editors, politicians, and antiwar activists, quickly found themselves arrested and imprisoned without trial on the orders of Lincoln and Secretary of War Stanton!

Habeas Corpus was unlawfully suspended making the potential for arrest to be dependant upon the whim of "Honest Abe."

Lost on the people of the time was the fact that this thereby proved the case for Congressman Vallangdigham, "ex post facto"!

When a righteous fear of the people and deferential respect for the Law of the Land is replaced with contempt for both, it naturally follows that one Imperial presidential transgression soon breeds another.

True to form, the Suspension of Habeas Corpus followed hard on the heels of the even more unlawful Executive Order #1 issued by Lincoln in order to facilitate the Sanctification of the first of many eventual stakes in the heart of the Republic yet to be planted by a rump Congress unable to even form a Constitutionally required quorum.

To turn a phrase, Lincoln and Stanton were a couple of true co-conspirators who had decided to drop any pretense of due process in dealing with persons they considered "guilty of any disloyal practice."

Basically, what that meant was...Anyone who disagreed with their intent to pursue a policy of aggressive war against the People of the South.

Not only did Lincoln and Stanton have the power to do so, but both were also quick to borrow a page from Confederate General Nathan Bedford Forrest who's formula for victory was to know the value of "getting there first'est with the most'est."

Both men were much more politically and socially savvy than their plodding Constitutionalist opponents.

Both men knew how to use that power to paint "those who would hold the Koran on their lances" into an indefensible corner.

And...in shades of deja vu.....These outrages were accepted passively by the buffaloed American people.

Naturally, this public quiescence only emboldened further criminal acts of the Executive branch who eclipsed all their former frauds by the outrageous boldfaced theft of the 1864 election from the very popular (with the enlisted men) General George B. McClellan, AKA "Little Mac"

This martial robbery was accomplished via the aegis of paid thugs and commissars posted to the field army and to all its polling booths to insure that the vote received was the vote paid for in Washington City.

Hence, Lincoln was enabled to continue his pet project based on the precedent of fraud and empowered by a presidency of dubious legality.

Does any of this sound familiar to contemporary observers?

-CliffMickelson