Lincoln's Unconstitutional Actions

[RJNorton]

Here is another opinion on how many newspapers were actually shut down. Dr. Mark Neely writes that there was only one newspaper that Lincoln himself signed an order for suppression. This was the New York World and the date was May 18, 1864.

Neely writes, "On May 18 the New York World and the New York Journal of Commerce, both Democratic newspapers, published what purported to be a presidential proclamation calling for a day of fasting and prayer and for a draft of 400,000 men. The proclamation was an ingenious forgery written by newspapermen Joseph Howard and Francis A. Mallison. Howard imitated Lincoln's style, and the two distributed the bogus proclamation on Associated Press paper at 4 a.m. when the sharper editors were not at work. Even so, only the two papers fell for the ruse; the others in the city found fault with the handwriting. When news of the proclamation reached Washington, Secretary of State William H. Seward immediately sent out an explanation. Apparently at Seward's urging, Lincoln signed an order for the military arrest of the editors, proprietors, and publishers of the two papers on the 18th. Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles immediately assumed that the bogus proclamation was a plot of rebels and gold speculators (the price of gold quickly rose 10 percent). Several arrests were made, but Manton Marble, editor of the World, could not be located. The offices of the papers were closed and occupied by soldiers.

General John A Dix, commanding the Department of the East, conducted a speedy and thorough investigation which quickly proved that the two unfortunate Democratic newspapers were dupes of a scheme got up by Howard and Mallison to raise the price of gold. The perpetrators bought gold on Tuesday and planned to sell on Wednesday the 18th when the bogus proclamations caused the price to rise. With arrests made and confessions procured by the 21st, the War Department allowed the newspapers to resume publication.

Howard, ironically was a Republican. He remained under military arrest at Fort Lafayette until his minister, Henry Ward Beecher, asked the President to intervene. On August 23, !864, Lincoln ordered Howard to be released."

Dr. Neely also writes (about censorship in general), "The President himself had no active role in censorship, but the suspension of the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus permitted arrests of editors (like other citizens) without the preferring of charges. Lincoln himself rarely took a direct hand in muzzling the press. He revoked the military suppression of the Chicago Times in 1863, a little reluctantly...For the most part, however, the President tolerated any political abuse of the administration in the press."