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9. The Conkling Letter
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133 9 The Conkling Letter Whatever its long-term international effects, General Order 100 had no discernable impact on the political and legal debate about the morality , wisdom, and constitutionality of the Emancipation Proclamation. This intense, emotional, and highly learned controversy began as soon as the preliminary proclamation was issued and continued after the final proclamation entered into force.1 The president initially remained aloof from the furor he had provoked, waiting for the right time and occasion before publicly defending this most controversial of his actions. One important development came on March 10, 1863, when the U.S. Supreme Court issued its decision in The Prize Cases.2 Several neutral merchant ships had been captured by the U.S. Navy while attempting to evade the blockade on Confederate ports. The navy placed prize crews aboard these vessels and sailed them to Northern ports to be condemned , along with their cargos, as prizes of war by U.S. district courts. The owners contested the legality of the captures, arguing that although blockading an enemy’s coast was authorized by the laws of war, no international war, declared by Congress, existed, and that in any event it was Congress, not the president, that had to authorize a blockade. Eventually these cases came before the Supreme Court of the United States, and that Court upheld the president’s power to apply the law of war: The parties . . . in a public war are independent nations. But it is not necessary to constitute war, that both parties should be acknowledged as independent nations or sovereign States. A war may exist where one of the belligerents, claims sovereign rights as against the other. . . . . It is not the less a civil war, with belligerent parties in hostile array, because it be called an “insurrection” by one side, and 134 Act of Justice the insurgents be considered as rebels or traitors. It is not necessary that the independence of the revolted province or State be acknowledged in order to constitute it a party belligerent in a war according to the law of nations. . . . Whether the President in fulfilling his duties, as Commanderin -Chief, in suppressing an insurrection, has met with such armed hostile resistance, and a civil war of such alarming proportions as will compel him to accord to them the character of belligerents , is a question to be decided by him, and this Court must be governed by the decisions and acts of the political department of the Government to which this power was entrusted. . . . The proclamation of blockade is itself official and conclusive evidence to the Court that a state of war existed which demanded and authorized a recourse to such a measure, under the circumstances peculiar to the case. . . . We are of the opinion that the President had a right, jure belli [by the law of war], to institute a blockade of ports in possession of the States in rebellion, which neutrals are bound to regard. Chief Justice Taney and three of his colleagues dissented. The Supreme Court had finally ruled that a true war existed, and that the president could rely on the international law of war to define his power as commander in chief. No longer was there a need to equivocate , as he had in the Emancipation Proclamation, over the nature and sources of his power to fight the war with the weapons he deemed best. On June 17, 1863, Lincoln’s opponents held a mass meeting in Springfield, Illinois, where the speakers denounced the Emancipation Proclamation and the enlistment of black soldiers, and demanded an immediate end to the war.3 To counter this demonstration, Illinois Republicans organized their own mass meeting. On August 14, Republican leader James C. Conkling invited the president to speak to “a Grand Mass Meeting at Springfield on the 3rd day of September.”4 The meeting would be open to “unconditional Union men of all parties,” so the audience would include conservative Republicans and War Democrats who doubted both the legality and the wisdom of the Emancipation Proclamation. In late summer 1863, the Army of the Potomac was still recovering from the battle of Gettysburg, [35.173.233.176] Project MUSE (2024-03-28 15:28 GMT) The Conkling Letter 135 while Lincoln was urging General George Meade to follow up his victory there by attacking Lee’s army. Understandably, the president was unable to attend the Springfield meeting. Despite his inability to appear in person, the president decided to use the occasion to draft...