was doing what any populist of that time would do--development. And the railroads were not quite yet the "robber barons" that they became a bit later in the century. He possibly did it also for the sake of the jobs that it generated--as a public works project. Almost everything else that Lincoln did seems to have been from a populist--workers, family farmers, "the little guy"--perspective, although I just googled on this, and found that Lincoln was responsible for big giveaways of land to the railroads in the Pacific Northwest, which has led to checkerboard clear-cutting of national forests by the spawn of the railroad barons--the big timber companies. However, the Pacific northwest was a truly remote area in those days, with immense uncut virgin forests, and it probably seemed good national policy to make land grants to enterprising businesses; and environmentalism was not a word in those days. (Only the Indians knew of the importance and delicacy of forest ecosystems and their creatures.) Making land grants to American businessmen is a far cry from selling your country to Saudi Arabia and China, as the Bushites have done. Another thought: A lot of what was going on between the north and the south, in the civil war era, had to do with northern manufacturing vs. southern agriculture. The war would put Lincoln on the side of northern manufacturing, for the war effort if for nothing else. And I can't think of a single president of this country who hasn't been pro-business to some extent--with various degrees of mitigation in government regulation, labor laws, control of monopolies, etc. Just because he got tangled up, early in his career, in a public works project that went awry due to big business shenanigans, or acted to develop US resources, doesn't make him a Republican (current era). I mean, look at Boston and the "Big Dig"! FDR and all the war industries that became the global corporate predators of our era. And Clinton and NAFTA. All Democratic "big business" projects.
Would Lincoln have tolerated a Halliburton? An Enron? An Exxon-Mobile? A Maxxam? A Diebold/ES&S? I think he would be appalled at these monstrous and anti-democratic entities. And the USA in debt to the tune of $10 TRILLION, to foreign nations? Lincoln and all generations of previous Americans must be rolling over in their graves! Enterprise is one thing--even including "robber barons." But treason and fascism are quite another.
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Lincoln and the Suspension of the Writ of Habeas Corpus.....
"Suspension during the Civil War and Reconstruction
"Habeas corpus was suspended on April 27, 1861, during the American Civil War by President Lincoln in Maryland and parts of midwestern states, including southern Indiana. He did so in response to riots, local militia actions, and the threat that the border slave state of Maryland would secede from the Union, leaving the nation's capital, Washington, D.C., surrounded by hostile territory. He was also motivated by requests by generals to set up military courts to rein in "Copperheads" or Peace Democrats, and those in the Union who supported the Confederate cause. His action was challenged in court and overturned by the U.S. Circuit Court in Maryland (led by Supreme Court Chief Justice Roger B. Taney) in Ex Parte Merryman, 17 F. Cas. 144 (C.C.D. Md. 1861). Lincoln ignored Taney's order. In the Confederacy, Jefferson Davis also suspended habeas corpus and imposed martial law. This was in part to maintain order and spur industrial growth in the South to compensate for the economic loss inflicted by its secession.
"In 1864, Lambdin P. Milligan and four others were accused of planning to steal Union weapons and invade Union prisoner-of-war camps and were sentenced to hang by a military court. However, their execution was not set until May 1865, so they were able to argue the case after the Civil War. In Ex Parte Milligan 71 U.S. 2 1866 the Supreme Court of the United States decided that the suspension of the writ did not empower the President to try and convict citizens before military tribunals. The trial of civilians by military tribunals is allowed only if civilian courts are closed. This was one of the key Supreme Court Cases of the American Civil War that dealt with wartime civil liberties and martial law."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Habeas_corpus--------------------------------------
This is an edit to my remarks above about the Bushites and the Suspension of the Right of Habeas Corpus--that they have no understanding of, or respect for, the rule of law.
The US is not at the beginning of a civil war with Washington DC surrounded by hostile armies! --to defend Lincoln in suspending this right. If Lincoln had NOT suspended habeas corpus and had permitted Maryland, a slave state, to join the forces against the US, we might not have a country now. Certainly slavery might have lasted another 50 to 60 years, greatly retarding the progress of black civil rights, and/or, would have ended in a big and bloody slave revolt. The country was truly in a state of emergency--not a fake one, such as Bush has created.
Bush's arbitrary designation of certain persons as "enemy combatants," thus depriving them of Prisoner of War status and human rights under the Geneva Conventions, and his detaining them, some as much as 4 years, without any kind hearing, let alone a real trial, is far different from what Lincoln did in order to hold the union together. Bush had no excuse--no such emergency existed. And even if you grant something of an emergency just after 9/11, what is the emergency now? Many of the US "enemy combatants" whose governments have negotiated their release have turned out to be innocent bystanders. Yet many REMAIN in prison, without a hearing, without a trial, without a lawyer, and with no human rights status--four years later. This is unconscionable! And what of the tortured innocents at Abu Ghraib? And what of the hundreds of thousands of slaughtered innocents in Iraq? These are heinous and entirely UNNECESSARY crimes. Lincoln was acting to preserve the union. The US has never, at any time during Bush's term, been under any threat of destruction or dissolution of our country, and the greatest threats to our country have been caused by the Bush regime's gross negligence, unjust military action, lawlessness, greed, and stupidity born of ideological extremism. Abe Lincoln would not recognize this as Republicanism, or "conservatism," or Americanism. He would think our country had gone mad.