Re: Are the Ten Commandments the foundation ofthe Anglo-Americanlegal system?

[Paul Finkelman]

I will not get into these many complicated issues now, but address the 
strictly legal one:  the Emancipation Proclamation. It was a brilliant 
piece of legal work, authorizing the emancipation of millions of slaves 
as soon as the United States Army could get to them.  Since he had NO 
POWER, none at all, to free slaves in the loyal slave states, it would 
have made no sense for the E.P. to apply to those places.  He signed 
laws ending slavery in DC (where Congress had power to act); he urged 
representatives from KY to end slavery there, and he used his power as 
Commander-in-chief to end slavery in all places then in rebellion. As a 
result, Sherman's march to the sea became the greatest act of human 
liberation in history (at least before World War II). Every time the US 
Army moved further into the South, thousands of slaves were instantly 
freed.  You ask note he "did not free any slaves that the Union had the 
power to liberate," but of course he did. The Union had the power to 
liberate most of the slaves in the South, and over the next 16 months it 
did so.  Do you have some constitutional theory of how Lincoln had the 
power to end slavery in Missouri or Kentucky or Maryland or Delaware? 
Certainly no one in the Lincoln administration has such a theory, even 
the life long abolitionist lawyer Salmon P. Chase could not come up with 
a constitutional theory on how to end slavery in the four loyal slave 
states.

Newsom Michael wrote:
I agree that we should probably take this discussion off list.  However,
how do you account for his put-down of Black leaders near the end of his
Presidency?  (He "invited" them to the White House in order to denigrate
their views on race matters, and otherwise dress them down.) How do you
account for his well-known views that Blacks were inferior?  How do you
account for the fact that the Emancipation Proclamation did not free any
slaves that the Union had the power to liberate?  And how do you account
for the fact that Black people today think little of, or about, Lincoln?
Lincoln wanted to save the Union.  He did not set out to free the
slaves, and, in any event, some very bad men might see some tactical
advantage in freeing slaves (but nonetheless also enforcing a cruel
peonage in place of the Peculiar Institution).
Lincoln was a bad man, so were a lot of other people.  The latter fact
does not detract from the former.  In relative terms, at least, I find
much more to respect and admire in the Abolitionists, particularly the
more radical ones who dared to think about the central issue of
redistributive justice.  Some of their progeny kept the faith, and
played an important role in the founding of the NAACP, for example.
Lincoln had little to nothing to do with the real defenders of racial
justice in America. 

-----Original Message-----
From: Paul Finkelman [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] 
Sent: Thursday, December 23, 2004 3:37 PM
To: Law & Religion issues for Law Academics
Subject: Re: Are the Ten Commandments the foundation ofthe
Anglo-Americanlegal system?

I suspect that Lincoln's extremely complicated views on race, and his 
actual policies towards blacks are well beyond the scope of this list 
serve.  I will simply point out that Lincoln was the first president to 
invite a black man into the White House, the first President to ask for 
the advice of a black, the first President endorse blacks as officers in

the military, the first President to invite a black to his inauguration 
and to greet him in public as his friend, the first President to endorse

black male suffrage, and I believe the first President to appoint a 
black to public office. Given the racial attitudes of most white 
American at the time, it is pretty hard to argue that Lincoln was "a bad

man."  It would have been nice if all presidents before Lincoln (and 
most after) were equally "bad."

Newsom Michael wrote:
Paul, you give Lincoln far too much credit, I fear.  Take a look at
his
relations with African-Americans, his condescension, and worse.  On
the
subject of race, he was a bad man, pure and simple.
-----Original Message-----
From: Paul Finkelman [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] 
Sent: Monday, December 20, 2004 10:51 PM
To: Law & Religion issues for Law Academics
Subject: Re: Are the Ten Commandments the foundation ofthe
Anglo-Americanlegal system?

... Lincoln resurrected the promise of the D of I at 
Gettysburg and in his five years as President.  ...
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--
Paul Finkelman
Chapman Distinguished Professor
University of Tulsa College of Law
3120 East 4th Place
Tulsa, Oklahoma  74104-2499
918-631-3706 (office)
918-631-2194 (fax)
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
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