The President's response was to strike his best country-lawyer pose. "I'm a good enough lawyer in a Western law court, I suppose," he replied, "but we don't practice the law of nations up there, and I supposed [Secretary of State] Seward knew all about it, and I left it to him." It was a pity, he added, but "it's done now and can't be helped."
Lincoln surely had a difficult time saying this with tongue firmly implanted in cheek. Crafty dodger. And you know, that is what it takes, in many instances, to get the **** ball rolling.
hurryuphill,
It's even craftier to use a person's negative views of you and your actions to get you to your ultimate goal. I'm sure Lincoln used the 'country bumpkin' or 'western frontiersman' perception folks had of him to get around many a confrontation.
But the point I think being made here in this thread concerning the
Prize Cases is that Lincoln didn't have a free ride or the powers of an absolute dictator.
He had to consider the law and the Constitution when trying to conduct the war. He was not given a free hand, nor was he able to control the country, nor the government, to the degree some claim he did.
In this case alone, Lincoln faced the real prospect of losing. Taney had no love for Lincoln and the majority of the Justices were Southern-leaning or slaveholders, most of them States Rights men. If Lincoln had been the dictator he is viewed by some, why not arrest the Court, or simply ignore their ruling on the matter if it went against him and his administration?
Because he could not do so. The North would have turned utterly against him, with the Democratic party leading the way with a majority of the Northern public joining them. The press, which he did not control to the extent some give him credit for, would have come out howling at such a dictatorial act. He could not do so, because then the European powers would have taken notice and caused far more trouble than they were just by running the blockade.
Lincoln was restrained by the law, the Constitution, the Supreme Court, the press, and the people. This particular case, if you read about it in the books referenced here by the forum members, didn't even come close to having his own way.
Lincoln was a slick Western lawyer, a cunning politician, and a brillant man. The reason I admire him is for what he did, and did not do.
Sincerely,
Unionblue