What is sedition? The New York Times asks.

[David Lockmiller]

‘Sedition’: A Complicated History

The following is the comment that I submitted to the New York Times on this story. The comment has been accepted by the New York Times.

Lincoln first invoked the suspension of habeas corpus when Southern sympathizers in Baltimore, shortly after the surrender of Fort Sumter, were planning to cut the railroad and thus prevent U. S. troops from coming to the protection of Washington DC, the capital of this nation.

President Lincoln addressed this constitutional issue in his message to the extra session of Congress on July 4, 1861 as follows:

Soon after the first call for militia, it was considered a duty to authorize the Commanding-General, in proper cases, according to his discretion, to suspend the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus, or, in other words, to arrest and detain, without resort to the ordinary processes and forms of law, such individuals as he might deem dangerous to the public safety.

It was not believed that any law was violated. The provision of the Constitution that “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,” is equivalent to a provision – is a provision – that such privilege may be suspended when, in case of rebellion or invasion, the public safety does require it. It was decided that we had a case of rebellion, and that the public safety does require the qualified suspension of the privilege of the writ which was authorized to be made.