Melville Fuller Quotes
The Emancipation Proclamation is predicated upon the idea that the President may so annul the constitutions and laws of sovereign states, overthrow their domestic relations, deprive loyal men of their property, and disloyal as well, without trial or condemnation.
Fuller, Melville W. Speech to the Illinois House of Representatives, 1863. Quoted in King, Willard L., Melville Weston Fuller: Chief Justice of the United States, 1888-1910. Macmillan, 1950, p. 55.
In the early days of the Civil War slaves who escaped and reached the Northern lines were routinely returned to their Southern owners as the Fugitive Slave Act required. The first actual emancipation of the Civil war was not the President’s proclamation but was Butler who as a Union General ordered that the slaves escaping from Virginia no longer be returned. He was accused of violating the then existing law, however he had a legal rationale which hoisted Virginia on its own petard.
Lincoln had promised amnesty to Southerners who would pledge loyalty to the Union. What many feared was that this would include slave owners re-enslaving their former "property," or that the government would allow them to do so in order to stop the rebellion.
Porfirio Diaz - the longtime dictator of Mexico stole the election of 1910 and had his opponent Francisco Madero arrested and imprisoned. Madero got out, crossed the border to San Antonio, and issued this declaration which started the Mexican Revolution. See {613620} for the statement that declared the Revolution.
President Andrew Johnson had been impeached by the House of Representatives and was being tried in by the Senate. A majority of the Senators voted for conviction but the vote was 1 short of the two-thirds that were needed. Johnson remained in office.
He had no authority to do this. He just took it upon himself. This was one of the incidents which caused later Congresses to pass very strict laws limiting the authority of all Federal Military and other intelligence and police forces so that they have little or no authority within the United States. President Lincoln did not allow the order to stand, although he repudiated it very delicately and as privately as possible. Many in his own party strongly favored this proclamation as it cracked down on the Southern Rebels and emancipated slaves—both objectives of many Republicans. In addition, Fremont was very popular with the people and had strong political connections. (He would later run for President.) See {635739}.
Note that Lincoln did not justify the emancipation proclamation on moral or humanitarian grounds, but on the grounds of military necessity.
President Lincoln and Several of the Commanding Union Generals had declared that black slaves were free during the midst of the Civil War under the legal theory that if the slaves were property of the rebels, then they cold be seized as “contraband” and removed from the control of those who had committed treason. The question was, what would happen to those now free Negroes after the war? Many Negro leaders were anxious that if there were surrender, then the status quo ante might prevail and the Negroes—many have who had fought for the Union might be returned to slavery. This speech by the Secretary of State alarmed them further. This is why the Emancipation Proclamation was so important and even that might have been overturned by a subsequent President. This is why Lincoln, the white radical Republicans and the Black leadership placed so much emphasis on passing the 13th Amendment.
Melville Weston Fuller was an American politician, lawyer, and judge who, from 1888 to 1910, served as the eighth chief justice of the United States.
