Dr. Charles L. C. Minor's The Real Lincoln

In 1904 Dr. Charles L.C. Minor’s The Real Lincoln was published. The Real Lincoln is a scholarly critique on the sixteenth president of the United States. Minor’s book addressed the constitutional issues during Abraham Lincoln’s administration. Minor spends six chapters on the Northern states who were opposed to Lincoln’s war to force the Southern states back into the Union. Dr. Minor sheds light on the fact that Lincoln needed to silence the opposition to the war in the North. Minor illustrates that with the suspension of habeas corpus the Lincoln administration imprisoned hundreds of people throughout the North for writing and speaking against Lincoln’s coercion of the South.
The people of Maryland were sympathetic towards the secessionists in the South. According to Minor, Lincoln’s administration threatened to arrest members of the Maryland legislature if necessary to prevent the secession of Maryland. Minor actually quotes Lincoln’s Secretary of War Simon Cameron saying the following: “The passage of any act of secession by the Legislator of Maryland must be prevented. If necessary, all or any part of the members must be arrested.”[1]Not only state government officials but also outspoken editors in Maryland were arrested. One of these editors was Francis Key Howard. Howard was the grandson of Francis Scott Key who wrote the song Star-Spangled Banner. Francis Howard was a successful editor of the Exchange Newspaper of Baltimore. On the morning of September 13th, 1861, Howard was arrested by the order of General N. P. Banks. By shocking coincidence, Howard was imprisoned at Fort McHenry where his grandfather had written the verses to the famous song. Minor quotes Howard’s own reflections as follows:“The flag which he (his grandfather) had so proudly hailed, I saw waving at the same place over the victims of as vulgar and brutal despotism as modern times has witnessed." [2]
The Lincoln administration dealt with the state of Kentucky in much the same manner for their “disloyalty”. Minor quotes Governor John Brough of Ohio’s letter to Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton in which he states that the same measures taken in Maryland must be taken in Kentucky.
A person Minor only calls Bancroft describes the heart wrenching trials that these prisoners suffered: “Month after month many of them were crowded together in gloomy and damp casemates, where even the dangerous ‘pirates’ captured on privateers and soldiers in battle ought not to have remained long. Many had committed no overt act. [3]
A few of the earliest publications documenting these prisons refer to them as “the American Bastille.” Whether or not this is an exaggerated description of these prisons is up for the reader to decide.
There are, of course, two sides of this issue. Lincoln and Secretary of War Stanton felt that preserving the Union was worth any measure taken. They believed that the perilous times for the nation justified what was done in Maryland, Kentucky, and Ohio. Judging the situation in much the same way that William T. Sherman did during his campaign through Georgia in 1864, they concluded that this was war and unwanted by both sides; however, they were determined to win the war any way they could. They held the philosophy that if arrests of outspoken citizens had to be made in order to keep more states from seceding then it must be done.
In conclusion, I will offer my own opinion of Lincoln and Stanton’s philosophy. I firmly believe that Lincoln set a very dangerous precedent. If infringement of civil liberties can be justified and excused as “necessary war measures”, then the very reason for having a Bill of Rights is defeated. While many good Americans may heap lavish praise upon the head of the 16th President of the United States, we must step back and look at the issues that faced the nation then and how those same issues effect us today. That is why I appreciate the work of Charles L. C. Minor.
Notes:
[1] Minor, Charles L. C. The Real Lincoln Sprinkle Publications, 1992. Virginia: pg.154
[2] ibid pg. 149
[3] ibid pg. 129-130