Legacy

James Ross should be commended for placing a spotlight on prison abuse in Afghanistan, Iraq and Guantnamo Bay in Bush, Torture, and Lincoln’s Legacy (8/15). But he loses credibility when he extols our 16th president as a model of restraint and humanistic principles. Has he never heard of Sherman? Of Lincoln’s abolishing of habeas corpus? His issuing of an arrest warrant for Chief Justice Roger B. Taney (after the 84-year-old judge decided that Congress, but not the president, can suspend habeas corpus)? His instituting of the draft (followed by draft riots)? His jailing of tens of thousands of dissenters without due process for reasons of criticizing the Lincoln administration (including the mayor of Baltimore, a Maryland congressman, an Ohio congressman and scores of newspaper editors)? His belief in the inherent inequality between the black and white races?

Leading Catholic thinkers of the time were very troubled by the precedents set by Lincoln. Since then, whatever constitutional safeguards remain reflecting restraint and humanistic principles in government have been trampled to such an extent that presidents can no longer be bothered with requests for declarations of war. Today, the military serves as the sitting president’s private army, while actions taken in places like Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib are justified with the same logic that Lincoln used to circumvent constitutional (and moral) constraints of his day. The military doctrine of Shock and Awe has 19th-century roots.

A frank discussion of the restraint and humanistic principles of U.S. presidents would be fascinating. Unfortunately, I am still waiting to see one.

Christopher Westley