Ann T. Power Broker

If you read the title fast, it sounds like "anti-power" broker. Take your pick.

I wrote that we had an employee theft situation here. In the immediate aftermath, the Board (herinafter, the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen) closed our network to this employee in the name of records security. We also found that he had been selling things on-line that looked remarkably like items we stock here for repairs.

Bad enough that a unit was robbed. Now we had to consider other possible grievances.

Image via Wikipedia

Nemo, Watching for Tentacles.

Captain Nemo Freaks Out
We then got a legal opinion, and learned that work-site e-mail of all stripes was the property of the employer. So we looked at other employee e-mail boxes to see how widespread this marketing situation might be. And one of the League of Extraordinary Gentleman started obsessing.

Nemo recently lost his job. It was a mystery to him, but not to the rest of the League. He never does any work. He waits until other people present hours of work and comes up with an objection. I am sure he feels like this is the right thing to do, but he's a putz.

This situation excited and terrified him by turns. He browsed employee personal mail, poached the contact position from another Board member with the network administrator, et cetera. It was quite the warning on despotism. And only his peers could stop it, which is quite the lesson in democracy, too.

But we weren't very effing fast at it. And really, he had all that free time. It was hard to keep up.

We warned him. But he started giving orders, each one more erratic than the next. For instance, I received these panicky e-mails ("cut the cord on the shredders! watch all the doors to make sure no evidence leaves!") I finally let him have it. Usually I am diplomatic. Not this time. I was stomping the putz.

At the next meeting, Nemo was just as panicky and querulous as before, but more erratic and rude.
So that's just the end. I know it's not real war, but I went to war.

Image via Wikipedia

Mina Murray, we need you!

Ann T. Panic Mode
If you read that fast, it sounds like anti-panic mode. Maybe.

That "last straw" meeting was the pre-meeting before our Annual Meeting and Elections. We were headed to the mob, or at least that's what we were afraid of. Every Owner wanted to know about the theft situation. They were up in arms about the betrayal of trust. Of course, we are negligent and dumb-assed, a poor sorry excuse for leadership. But nobody was running to replace us.

We had two vacant seats. As a favor, Nemo was planning to run again by acclamation after all. He kept asking, "Now how do I do this?" None of us told him. He did figure it out though.

Weeks before, I'd nagged Allan Quartermain to run by acclamation at the Annual Meeting. And he planned to run; he just didn't want to campaign. Quartermain is just who we need--calm, humorous, and a management consultant by day.

I'd thought about a second person, Mina Murray, who is socially adept, level-headed, and an office manager. I didn't ask her though. I didn't think she wanted to do it, and two days wasn't enough notice.

But I saw Mina at the Annual Meeting, right after Nemo drove me to the brink. I think I grabbed her. I'm pretty sure I didn't shake her. I didn't get on my knees either, but nearly. Her eyes were as wide as saucers and she was nodding as if to a crazy woman while I whispered how important it was. But at least she agreed to run.

That was two minutes' notice instead of two days' notice. I'm not pleased with myself over that.

But I quickly wrote a nominating speech for Mina while Board President Mycroft Holmes ran the meeting. I also gave my Treasurer's report. We had an impromptu/tacky awards ceremony for our committee volunteers over the past year--my idea, just so we'd maybe get a few more after some recognition.

Later, I attempted to nominate Quartermain, who said he would nominate himself. Then I nominated Mina from the floor. She gave her own campaign speech--which I thought was a great sign. The vote was tallied.

President Mycroft Holmes
Afterwards Mycroft Holmes stopped me outside.
"Just how did you arrange this coup d'etat?"

"Didn't you see me?" I said. "I begged, that's how."

"No, I didn't see that. Somebody said you had, though.  But how did you get them elected?"
I debated whether to add. Because the begging was the answer.
"I talked to everyone in that meeting hall," I told him. "I fetched coffee and cookies for anyone who didn't have any. I asked them how they were."
He waited.

"When I gave my presentation, I didn't stand behind the podium," I said next. "I always come out from behind and then I am one of the people."
He rolled his eyes.

"And in my Treasurer's report, I thanked every other member of the League for something specific that they did, except I didn't mention Nemo at all."
"Huh." Mycroft shook his head.

"And then I made it clear who I thought should be nominated," I said. "And then I just hoped it would work."

"Well, thank you," he said. "I still don't know how you did it, but thank you for doing it."
"You should thank Mina," I told him. "She's the one who agreed to this with no notice."

To stop tyranny, at least in these tiny circles I run in, we needed a volunteer.

In four days time, we grew a small-minded madman, a witch-hunter on our Board. He was injudicious, indiscreet. He cloaked it all in principles ("the safety of the residents"), but he was dangerous. He was going to sink our whole damn ship in some crazed quest for secret but irrelevant information. And we have enough leaks in our ship already.

Mycroft Holmes is now calling me a behind-the-scenes power broker. What I think I did was break a power, not broker one.

Thank you, Allan Quartermain and Thank You, Mina Murray! 
We need you against the Zombies.
And Happy New Year to the Arkdale residents. 
You now have a fighting chance at one.

International Standards of Law and Order: Vancouver & the Olympics

Cities, Crime, and The Olympics

This is the second part of Columbia University’s  video linked here, starting about 28 minutes in until the end, on “economic violence”. The first presentation was by Sudhir Venkatesh, on gangs and inner city regimes that conflict with urban political systems. That was discussed in a previous post.  Professor Cutler discusses, in high contrast to poor inner-city regimes, the moneyed regime of the International Olympic Committee.  I wouldn’t call it violent. I do find it interesting.

She refers to the “collision in normative values.” She means we have daily expectations for city services and amenities (police and parks, for instance). Just as gang regimes pressure cities and reduce control, she says the International Olympics Committee dis-empowered the government of the City of Vancouver.

You should know that I checked with a correspondent in Vancouver. This correspondent thinks Ms. Cutler has an inaccurate analysis of events. And I found Ms. Cutler to be unreliable too--with a theory that makes some sense, and that I might even agree with in part--but spinning the results into something that approaches a violence toward reality. Still it's food for thought, even if it reads like Orwell's 1984.

My synopsis of Ms. Cutler's words are green.

Vancouver Prepares for the Olympics
Ms. Cutler reports that the City of Vancouver subordinated its own authority over its own jurisdiction in order to attract the Summer Olympics. By so doing, they reduced the rights of Vancouver's citizens--their human rights--but also their economic rights. In order to win the Olympic bid, Vancouver had to be an "international city". Its urban planning was then modified to suit people who do not vote there, live there, or go to school there. Those who have local businesses, or provide local security were not accorded the same protections.

The "international community" that expects and values "international cities" are generally parts of large corporations, cartels, and governments, and individuals with a significant disposable income. Every city wants their spending dollars, their investments, and their interest. (Ms. Cutler didn't mention this.) However, what does it mean for those in small business, the homeless, the lower middle class, or the privacy of individual citizens, each who are accustomed to a certain street standard?

Paraphrasing Cutler (and I was typing notes as fast as I could):

Changes in Security Regimes:
A.Vancouver had already begun increasing Panoptic Surveillance and control, but the Olympics bid created a major impetus. Surveillance ranged from elevators in the city to along the long highways to Olympic attractions. The surveillance included perimeter detection, license plates readers, airport style surveillance technology all over the featured parts of the city. Sometimes these surveillance systems along the highway traversed different jurisdictions, outside of Vancouver’s bailiwick.


This indicates something about the control of the state--though Vancouver was the one doing it. It means the nation of Canada may have
1. abdicated control (letting Vancouver hold the mandate instead) or
2. that the state of Canada authorized Vancouver’s extra-territorial control or
3. that both state and city suspended their control in order to let the Olympic Committee create standards, ordinances, and methods of security provision, for the benefit of visitors over residents.

B. The technology-driven security is an economic boon to international marketing, not local security. It is "the corporate face of a new war." But private (international, for-profit) security firms were given broad powers of search, seizure, and arrest. This sidelined both the Vancouver Police and the RCMP (national).

If local security was not sidelined, it still creates a culture of cooperation with a corporate/market entity. It gives some parity to corporate security that formerly was a government monopoly. Security arrangements also privileged international security organizations such as NORAD, which played a part in anti-terrorism measures.


Public/private security partnership may be permanent. Contracts were for installation of surveillance devices, but not their removal.

In other words, these systems were purchased not rented. In almost every alternative, the city continues to give away its power over its own jurisdiction.
1. Vancouver decides not to use the security system they paid for, and still must pay to maintain, thereby creating unsustainable development.
2. The RCMP uses it, giving local security duties/powers to the state of Canada that belong to the city of Vancouver.
3. Vancouver PD staff is diverted from street security to panoptic surveillance, swelling police budgets with new hires or reducing street presence. They also watch areas that are not their jurisdiction, thereby wasting some man-hours or exceeding their authority. (NOTE: she offered no reference for this).
4. Vancouver hires a private security company, thus diverting security to a private firm who has first access to the data.

I'm not sure which of these competing alternatives Ms. Cutler found more dangerous. Mostly she was ranting in the scholarly way, of course.

Zoning Restrictions
C. The city re-zoned itself into orderly zones and free speech zones. No dissing of the Olympics, no demonstrations, riots, posters, sit-ins, or protest parades allowed in the Olympic zones or near city attractions. These "orderly zones" included the public library and art museums. Universities were approached, certain known activists, and students, warning them not to kick up any fusses in areas adjacent to Olympic events. Cutler maintains this also crossed jurisdiction (e.g., University by-laws).

I can't get too worked up over this, given how awful protests could have been. In a way, the City of Vancouver is protecting its investment in Olympic attractions, its reputation, and local property. But it does bring up the specter of how much, how long, what precedent does it set? What is considered a "non-celebratory Olympic demonstration?  Does it get into bad manners? Will it mandate manners next time?

Local Expectations vs. Local Capacities.
D. Courts and Citizens
1. The City of Vancouver empowered the police to take homeless populations to shelters or jail them. But there were not enough shelters for the homeless population, so many were inevitably jailed.


2. Vancouver also empowered "City Ambassadors" to "move undesirable people along", watch streets or parks, and report undesirable persons or activities.

Where I live, this activity is routine and not draconian. It does extend surveillance in particular tourist-attractive areas. It also keeps the streets clean, gives the tourists good directions to attractions, and so forth. It is also a benefit for those who live in those parts of my city--that is not shared equally by all residents of that city, but for which all taxpayers must pay.

During the events, a special system of courts was set up, separate from normal municipal courts, to deal with jailing "undesirables" 24/7. This may strain city budgets.

E. Likewise, local business was subject to specific opening and closing times. In the event of business conflict, local businesses in Olympic venues had to agree to take grievances to international commercial arbitration rather than the local court systems.

That’s pretty standard, I think, around the world. It keeps international corporations out of local court. It also creates a huge barrier to suing an international corporation for a small business.

Conclusion—Two Dilemmas
Perhaps the citizens of Vancouver saw this influx of security, such as a 24/7 court system, as desirable. Perhaps the drastic change in "normative values" by moving the homeless along meant that sitting in the park, going to the library or museum, or even taking a walk was better than before.  We would then say that international business brought in greater urban capacity. And that’s what cities need.

But even finding it desirable might also show that cities have lost power. Maybe Vancouver could not enforce these desirable standards without international scrutiny (or the excuse of international scrutiny). Maybe citizen scrutiny was not enough. Or maybe citizens have already accepted a decline in normative values.

Either way, under Cutler's exposition, the city looks weak. And we need not single out Vancouver, either. All cities are trying to attract international business. They are all giving out tax breaks and making promises to get them to come to their cities.

Second, at what point do all of these temporary "protections of investment" manage the risk of terror, riot, local safety, and at what point do they impinge upon citizens? Maybe demonstrations aren't your concern. Maybe some other "normative right" is.

I wonder what you all think of this, and what examples you may have in your own city.

Related articles

• Vancouver Games gave C$2 billion economic boost: study (reuters.com)
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The National Debt

I don't care if you're liberal or conservative, authoritarian or libertarian--

Whatever you believe our government should do in the way of programs, policies, and initiatives--
Whatever you believe our government should get its damned nose out of--

You need to look at the national deficit.
I am not going to send you to anyplace that calls this "Babylon" or "Nero fiddling as Rome burns" or a site that whops one President or another, or indeed points fingers at anyone.

I'm going to send you straight to the guys who report it and let you come to your own conclusion. 

The Federal Government. The U.S. Treasury. We still have transparency in this country. We need to take a look at the truthful things our government is reporting for us.

The interest we have paid so far to our debtors in the last ten months is:

$375,247,863,222.70

.That's the Interest. It's not the Principal, which means we have paid MORE.

This is from the report of the General Accounting Office (GAO) for 2003.  This does point to dates, and leads me to my conclusion as to where to point fingers. However, its Real Value is explaining how we financially transact debt. In short, never mind who's to blame. Learn how it's done.

Cash surpluses during fiscal years 1998 through 2001 enabled Treasury to reduce debt held by the public by $476 billion, from $3,815 billion as of September 30, 1997, to $3,339 billion as of September 30, 2001. Treasury reduced this debt by redeeming maturing debt, reducing the number of auctions and size of new debt issues, conducting “buybacks” of debt before its maturity date, and redeeming callable securities when the opportunities arose.2 

However, because of the return to deficits, in fiscal years 2002 and 2003, debt held by the public increased by $585 billion, with about $371 billion of this increase occurring in fiscal year 2003. Treasury issued more debt by increasing the number of auctions and the size of new debt issues. During fiscal year 2003, Treasury reintroduced the 3-year note, which will be offered every quarter. In addition, Treasury increased the offerings of the 5-year note from quarterly to monthly offerings; the 10-year note from an offering every quarter to eight offerings a year; and the 10-year inflation indexed note from three offerings a year to an offering every quarter. Notwithstanding the increases in fiscal years 2002 and 2003, debt held by the public as a percentage of total federal debt has decreased from approximately 71 percent as of September 30, 1997, to approximately 58 percent as of September 30, 2003.

Debt is held by the people/ individual states/ local governments or by the world market. That also tells you who is making the money off of it. For instance, the City of New York (or my Condo Board) might buy a T-bill and fund City Functions with that interest--a no-risk bond that protects the principal and gives back income.

This report tells us that debt is being held 42% by the market and not by the American people. The GAO is telling us also that the old debt was more internal, and when we made new debt, we went external, to get a lot of money fast. This in response to a national security crisis. Oh, do I find that ironic.


So even though I know whose watch this was, and detest this person myself--have even named my vacuum cleaner for this man, because it sucks so much dirt--

It doesn't matter any more. It only matters What We Do.

We need to get this thing corralled. Every other battle we are fighting--for good education here and for literacy in Afghanistan, for soldiers to have body armor and police officer to have it, to increase manufacturing in this country or stop all unsafe manufacturing--Every Single Thing--is affected by this deficit.

I encourage you to look around the Web to find more reasons to hate the deficit. I also encourage you to take stock of your political priorities, whatever those may be,  and set them against the frame of the deficit. Let's save that money! Let's reduce our debt! Then, with what we save, we can argue over what to spend it on.

Go get 'em. I implore you.

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from The First Circle by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

Solzhenitsyn's shortest and probably most read book on prison camps is One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich. In it Ivan spends the day working to survive, only. If he was jailed for a crime, he's no criminal now. If he was a political dissident, all that is gone too. Ivan Denisovich does not have anyone to send him packages from outside, the things that would enable him to keep from starving or to enjoy small pleasures. He therefore works, a constant opportunist, trying to find ways to earn a piece of sausage or a pinch of tobacco.

The First Circle
Another book Solzhenitsyn wrote about prison camps is entitled The First Circle. The title is meant to recall Dante's first circle of hell--not very far down in hell, and yet no access to heaven or even freedom to roam the earth. The prison here is for intellectuals still of use to an extremely-paranoid Stalin. The prisoners are kept in line by the threat of a worse prison--a far more dangerous gulag in Siberia, for instance. To stay in the First Circle, they must work on Stalin's projects. This particular team is involved in cryptography, that uses math (Euler functions)  to help crack codes.

But one or more of the prisoners in this "country club prison" decide they will no longer aid the regime that has imprisoned them. The book is highly autobiographical, so you get a good view of themes Solzhenitsyn will be considering in his massive Gulag Archipelago series.

I always loved a particular quote in this book. This is an exchange between Pyotr and Nerzhin. If Nerzhin was not actively dissident before, has become so now. He is going to lose everything for the sake of principles, and he knows it.

'Pyotr Tromfimovich, do you know how to make shoes?"

"What did you say?"

'I asked; Will you teach me how to make shoes?"

"Pardon? I don't understand."

"Pyotr Trofimovich, you're living in a shell. I, after all, will finish my sentence and go off to the remote taiga, to permananent exile. I don't know how to work with my hands, so how will I live? It's full of bears. Out there we won't need the Euler functions for three more geological eras."

"What are you talking about, Nerzhin! As a cryptographer, if the work is successful, you'll be freed ahead of your sentence, the conviction will be removed from your record, and you will be given an apartment in Moscow."

"They'll remove the conviction from my record!" Nerzhin cried angrily, his eyes narrowing. "Where did you get the idea I want that little gift? 'You've worked well, we'll free you, forgive you. ' No, Pyotr Trofimovich!" And with his forefinger he stabbe at the varnished surface of the littel table. "You're beginning at the wrong end. Let them admit first that it's not right to put people in prison for their way of thinking, and then we will decide whether we will forgive them."

I have learned various things from this quote. One, that it is necessary to have techne/practical knowledge, the ability to make things, as well as intellectual attainments, in order to be truly free to decide. I think I worry about the U.S. sometimes because I fear we are losing especially practical knowledge: skilled trades. Yet, if I return to Ivan Denisovich, I can see that skilled trade is not enough either. Ivan Denisovich's world is small. He can't grasp anything beyond the immediate, or see that his incarceration is only part of a wider world.

Illya Repin
To illustrate something of the hazards of camps, I bring you an oil painting from Tsarist Russia, by Illya Repin: They Did Not Expect Him (1884-1888). Repin painted the return of a man from the Tsar's gulag. The picture will expand if you click on it. It is considered one of his best works and is an image I turn to over and over as well.

I don't mean to give a depressing message, but one about self-reliance, self-help, freedom v. despotism, and expanding horizons. I think many authors write about prison camps as a microcosm of the world of daily routine.

We need to look up every once in awhile. We need to look down every so often. And sometimes, we need to look beyond.

Anyway, this is what I thought about today.

I Would Prefer a Mayor Who Doesn't Want to Go to Jail

We are having mayoral campaigns soon in D.C. One big issue for this locality is "Taxation without Representation."

We want Congressional seats and for our primaries to count for something. The Founding Fathers were afraid I think that D.C. would become a huge courtier's paradise, with people constantly seeking to influence the President and Congress locally as they went to parties or picnics. They were trying to avoid excessive local-ness of interest.

Perhaps they sensed that the United States really would be this vast continental stretch. Or perhaps it was related somewhat to the slave question. Or perhaps the jealousy of those in outlying sections of the original 13 states, who feared the U.S. would become the United Colonies of Whatever Virginia Wanted.

But it hasn't worked out that D.C. is courtier-central in the way that voting would make a difference. It IS courtier-central, but voting is the least of it. The courting goes on with lobbies, not votes. Most of those elected come from far away. Many of those courted are administrators who are not touched by the electoral process. In the meantime, DC has a voting electorate that has often been ignored. Since most of them believe in the power of government or are somehow attached to it, they get really exercised about having their opinion ignored. LOL. 

And then there are the traditionally disenfranchised. The people who stick with DC are not the middle class or upper class who come for the courting. They are the poor and those who serve the bigwigs their coffee in the morning. Everybody else is very temporary.

So right now, we have a candidate running for mayor who says he would commit "acts of civil disobedience" in order to protest DC's unrepresented status. At which time, he would be arrested, and it would be a good thing.

Image by Getty Images via @daylife

Well, it would be better than the last mayor who got himself arrested.

Washington DC hasn't always had a mayor. Marion Barry served as its second one, from 1979-1991. He was busted in 1990 on drug charges. In the meantime, the city had gone to hell without a responsible leader in charge. I remember hearing on NPR that police officers at that time barely had any budget. The funds for crime kits had been misappropriated or cut. The result was that there were no rape kits. Therefore there were no prosecutions for rape that could survive a trial.

It would go like this: the evidence kits that medical/LEO personnel tried to put together on their own were therefore not standard. Therefore all the evidence was tossed out when the Defense brought this up.

I still get mad about this when I think of it. This is what corruption is really about: not just a waste of taxpayer money, but a waste or diminishment of Every. Single. Freaking. Effort. To Do Good.

Anyway, Mr. Barry served six months in the Federal prison system, and could not run for re-election. However, when he got out, he was back on campaign and was re-elected mayor in 1994, serving until 1999. Congress, which has special powers in DC, appointed a special agency to disburse the funds to the city--just an expensive special oversight to make sure the city funds didn't go up one man's nose.

In 2005, he was elected the Ward 8 councilman and still on and off in trouble. In March of this year, the council voted unanimously to strip him of all council assignments.

Why does he get re-elected? Believe it or not, I HAVE asked. Because the electorate of Ward 8 loves him. He has done for them for years. And he has huge name recognition. And because his electorate feels he represents the truly disenfranchised class in DC.

Congress has always been a little high-handed about DC conditions. Sometimes that has been a good thing, but not always.

But I would like a mayor who concentrated on city management and staying out of jail. I think it's more important than DC statehood. Make no mistake--not having a full vote is limiting. Sometimes I even find it frustrating. But having a mayor hell-bent for jail is far, far, far, worse.

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Crime and Insurrection: The Economic Causes

Today the Ann T. Hathaway blog features Paul Collier as an economist in the Crime and World Economics series. Normally, he's at Oxford University. Thanks to book publishing and the Internet, he can be here also. I did write him a fan letter once. He is very gracious.

This paper is based upon Professor Collier'a studies of civil wars across the globe, 1965-1999. Additionally he follows the economies of African states, which have had a good many civil conflicts. He wrote a most sensible chapter in a textbook I read,  based on these years of research:

"Economic Causes of Civil Conflict and Their Implications for Policy" in Turbulent Peace: The Challenges of Managing Internal Conflict. Edited by Crocker, Hampson, Aall. US Institute of Peace Press.

And of course he kept going. He has two books out for mainstream readers.
--
He found that the political language of civil conflict pops up everywhere. The reasons for grievance never correlated to actual conflict--in short, everyone complains, but it doesn't always lead to war. Some citizens in some countries have extremely good reasons to complain, and still don't have civil conflict. But research showed that civil war occurs only under consistent economic phenomena. These phenomena were:

1. Dependence on primary commodity imports. (they raise cotton, coffee, diamonds, oil, opium, et cetera, but not enough foodstuffs, or goods used at home).
2. Low national income.
3. The ability of the insurrectionists to finance their disorder.

Organized Crime
Collier says that "economic analysis sees rebellion as more of a form of organized crime." This is not a huge leap for us, because the legitimate government is at least titularly in charge, and creates a state-run justice system (see Thomas Hobbes post from last week). Furthermore, the disorder against life and property is, in a specific sense, against the stability that the state is supposed to confer.

Now he goes on to explain about the language of grievance versus the dry quality of economics:

Imagine, for a moment, that you are a leader of a rebel organization, needing to offer an explanation of your goals. What are the likely elements? Most surely, they will be a litany of grievances against  the government, for its oppression, unfairness, and perhaps victimization of some part of the population that your organization claims to represent. That is, your language will be the language of protest.  You will style your  rebellion as a protest movement driven to the extremity of violence . . . almost certainly, the government will have responded to your insurgency with an incompetent counterinsurgency campaign. "Almost certainly" because counterinsurgency is very difficult. . . . .

Rebellion is large-scale predation of productive economic activities.  . . . However, [the economist's] view is so at odds with the popular discourse on conflict that there is temptation to dismiss it as fanciful. The techniques of economics do not help its arguments: compared with the compelling historical detail produced by histories of protest . . .

In other words, grievance creates a story that can sway the emotions. But underneath it all, there's a way to grab capital and power for the "aggrieved" side, which doesn't sound as good no matter who says it.

Unlike organized crime, rebel movements need good international public relations and they need to motivate their recruits to kill. They need good international public relations because most of them are partially dependent upon international financial support. They need to motivate their recruits to kill because, unlike a mafia, a predatory rebel organization is periodically going to have to fight for its survivial against government forces. A rebel organization cannot afford to be regarded as criminal . . . Grievance is to a rebel organization what image is to a business.

While [grievance] is morally interesting to observers--is the cause just?--it is of no practical importance. .  . . The economic theory of conflict argues that the motivation of conflict in unimportant; what matters is whether the organization can sustain itself financially. . . . Regardless of why the organization is fighting, it can fight only if it is financially viable.

It is the feasibility of predation that determines the risk of conflict.

--
So, the question is, can you fund your war?

In Sierra Leone, Angola, and elsewhere, civil conflict is funded by portable, hideable, and valuable diamonds. In Iraq, the insurgency is funded by the very liquid commodity of oil. This has also been true in Chechnya and Dagestan, where Russia is fighting a secessionist movement with some Islamic connections. In Afghanistan, opium pays for terror and Taliban.

In Nigeria, insurrection is funded by oil. It is also funded by the Nigerian scams, diverted but legitimate income from oil companies, shippers, and the like--and by lawsuits. Mostly the oil.

Let's talk about the FARC in Colombia, which Collier (2001) says "has grown to employ around twelve thousand people. . . . The FARC earns around $700 million per year from drugs and kidnapping. . . ."

In Israel and Palestine, in Ulster, conflict is funded by the remittances of rich people living elsewhere.

Mexico
In Mexico, the drug war is taking on overtones of civil war, as police officers and innocent bystanders are massacred. More than one organization is downed only to rise again with new leaders. Each fights for regional control, ruining local stability. But as long as they are fighting among themselves, they are not as busy suborning national government. The civil conflict in Mexico is funded by purchasers of marijuana, cocaine, and methamphetamine. The U.S. is the biggest purchaser because of proximity. However, drugs such as heroin or cocaine sell for a much higher price in Europe, so some illegal trade via Mexico is going there.

The counter-insurgency is also funded by the U.S. in part. Agencies lend expertise and dollars to a huge effort to knock these cartels down. It would not be good for us to have a failed state with a long border adjacent to us.

The only thing missing is the language of grievance. Until that political language enters, it is states versus markets. And when grievance comes in, we'll call it civil war--but it's still states versus markets. The market is definitely strong enough to fund civil conflict in the Caribbean, Colombia, and Mexico. As we see.

--
It is interesting to note for funding civil conflict: the worldwide drug trade, as of 2003, earns an estimated 1% of world GDP. That's more than enough to tip toward civil conflict in states that do not have other industries--see condition 1 above. In states such as Afghanistan, Kyrgyzstan, Jamaica, and Colombia, or in pockets thereof, these make up close to 100% of national or local GDP. These states are all failing.

Just as these things relate to world trade, they also relate to local trade. I'll talk about that tomorrow, using some of Professor Collier's principles.

Two articles below go international! Look beyond our borders to see what's universal!
The third and fourth feature Mr. Collier himself.

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• The Plundered Planet Podcast Series: Day 1 (oup.com) This is Mr. Collier on how poverty can be alleviated, conflicts wane, and a better world. 
• War Games by Linda Polman and The Plundered Planet by Paul Collier: review (telegraph.co.uk)

A Public Assistance Mind-set, part 1

Today and Tomorrow: Two Anecdotal Reports on Public Assistance, with Two Different Viewpoints:

I don't know if I blogged about this before or not. It's a little bit about political correctness I suppose and a little about me. My main point will be, though, that public assistance comes with an attitude. When that attitude is pervasive in your life, I think it is deadening.

A long time ago, I worked for 7-11. At that time, companies such as this were eligible for supplements from the government for hiring people that fit a job-training criteria. Therefore, all of the employees in my district were sent, with pay, to the local Social Services for an interview to see if we were part of 7-11's job-training contribution to American society.

Now this program probably had the intention of rewarding companies that taught job skills, and making it easier for small businesses to hire people who didn't have those skills in the first place. At the same time, it seemed ridiculous to me. This company was nation-wide, and was doing okay. Why give money to a corporation when there were so many people walking around with real problems?

I didn't get it. It was about teaching people how to fish, instead of standing in line for the Dole.

My appointment (although I didn't realize it at the time) took up time for local S.S. (social services, not storm troopers). Multiply that by every clerk in every convenience store in town. We all know that S.S. workload is huge and heartbreaking. Conversely, it is a system dominated by a civil service mentality. So long as Some progress is made, then it's progress, so do your work steadily, slowly, and avoid burnout.  I am sure that my appointment looked like a huge waste of time to the S.S. that interviewed me.

At the end of my interview, she told me that "Yes, I did look like a disadvantaged youth in trouble" to her and so would be eligible for the program. I couldn't believe she said that to me. Was that what I was interviewing for, the position of "Disadvantaged" and "In Trouble"? How could you call a person like me disadvantaged? What about all the amazing steps I was taking, to pay my own rent, get to my own job, fix my own car for the first time in life? I had a royal blue phone and the bill was paid on time. What was so damn wrong with me?

I cried all the way to work. Shouldn't have been driving, really. My boss was flabbergasted.

"They called me a disadvantaged youth, like I have nothing going for me at all," I sobbed.

This (the same guy who told me to use napkins on a bleeding-to-death shooting victim, because they were not on inventory) got mad. "Those Assholes!" he stormed. "You're perfectly good just as you are. I'm calling the f*ing District Manager! None of my people are going to go through this. I'm telling him."

I would like to think that he supported me, but nowadays I wonder about the extra hours he was putting in while we all went to be interviewed. That may have been a major part of his ire.

My main point is this: the language of classification in Social Services is not empowering. It is a language that documents our weaknesses and not our strengths. How could it be otherwise, if they are addressing  social gaps? We aren't planning to give assistance to the able-bodied that don't need it (except, well, 7-11?). The only way to avoid this weakening language is to use number categories, which are even more dehumanizing, and--always come with a verbal explanation anyway.

Somehow I fit that description, and though I was insulted by it, it wasn't wrong. If major disaster had struck (as it did, a year after) I had no cushion.  Yet I found the process demeaning, dismissive of my humanity, and onerous. If a "disadvantaged youth's" parents learn to operate under this demeaning, dismissive, and onerous categorization, what does he or she learn? They are more disadvantaged than me, have more to overcome. We talk about generations of people on Welfare, but we don't see how the system itself can be weakening to its participants from the get. And yet starvation and joblessness are far more weakening still.

There must be a way to involve the language and actions of strength in the public assistance process. If we can do that, we can probably get people out of the bottom of the barrel and into a better world. By doing this, we strengthen our citizenry, and our efforts are more likely to gain us a win-win outcome.

Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679 ) from Leviathan (1651)

Image via Wikipedia

Thomas Hobbes explains the reasons for nations, governments, and war, and even police departments (which did not show up for another two hundred years) in Leviathan, Part I: Of Man. Chapter 13: Of the Natural Condition of Mankind, as concerning their Felicity, and Misery, pp. 73-74. You can read it in full in Google books, in his own language and spelling. (It's not hard, but it's not a beach read, either.) It won't cut and paste, worse luck. I am going to type parts of it in modernized form.

It is so relevant.

In the nature of man, we find three principal causes of quarrel. First, competition: secondly, diffidence: thirdly, glory. 

The first, maketh men invade for gain: the second, for safety: and the third, for reputation. The first use violence, to make themselves masters of other men's persons, wives, chilcren, and cattle; the second, to defend them; the third, for trifles, as a word, a smile, a different opinion, and any other sign of undervalue, either direct in their persons, or by reflection in their kindred, their friends, their nation, their profession, or their name.

WARRE
In the next paragraph, Hobbes notes that WAR is a period of both violence and potential violence. One can live in a state of war even when they are not being robbed, invaded, killed, or beaten--if they know it could happen any minute. His example is weather. It doesn't have to be raining twenty-four hours to be a rainy day. It's a matter of environment, and what one must do to survive it (carry an umbrella, go out only in armed company, stay under the awning or inside the fort. THEN he writes (I have divided the paragraph):

Whatsoever therefore is consequent to a time of war, where every man is enemy to every man; the same is consequent to the time, wherein men live without other security than what their own strength and their own invention shall furnish them withal. 

Anarchy
This is Hobbes' famous "war of all against all" or anarchy. It is Road Warrior the movie (no old people or young ones, only predators and prey), only ten times worse; infighting and genocide between the Serbs and Croats and why gangs spring up in part. A strong man with good luck can live long enough to do--what? Steal and sneak and kill to gain what's needed in life, or to keep the bone he's got.

In such condition, there is no place for industry; because the fruit thereof is uncertain; and consequently no culture of earth; no navigation, nor use of the commodities that may be imported by sea; no commodious building; no instruments of moving, and removing, such things as require much force; no knowledge of the face of the earth; no account of time; no arts; no letters; no society; 

and which is worst of all, continual fear and danger of violent death; and the life of man, solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.

Government
Hobbes goes on to say that Kings (read: warlords, band Chieftains, or hey, our own government)  have these same qualities: a military for gain, or for defense, or stuck in pride and invasive for that reason.  But what a government does is displace this anarchic war of "All against All" to the limits of territory. Thus farmers may "till the soil" and builders may "build cities". Trade may take place under the protection of the state (flagships, caravans, trains, etc). The "movement of large things" might be Treasuries or even a load of lumber, impossible when people are hanging onto every part of it to make it booty or spoils of war.

Safety
It's not that Hobbes didn't lock his door or hide his money. However, once he did that, he could sleep at night, and wake up to study and write his famous work. Band chieftans and kings also held their own territory with domestic troops--if for no other reason than to execute murderers and gather tax money. But without a King or Chieftan or Police Force, in Hobbes words, there is no justice. Nor is their injustice. Because anything goes. Any strong person or lucky person can do whatever they want, and everybody else either has to kill him or suck it up.

Police
Our police force did not give us life, or air, or buy our food. They are the facilitators of our own ability to "know the face of the earth" or at least our part of it; to "plan our time" and expect that the plan will be fulfilled; to enjoy arts, letters, society and contribute to them in our own way..

Right now, many cities are giving up their police forces--contracting city services to the county sheriff as a cost-saving measure. In so doing, they may very well be contributing through economic choice to a more streamlined effort in county-wide protection. They have also given up their first reason to be a government, the only reason they are a government. Therefore, they are not really a government at all.

If you can, read some of Hobbes. The link and pages are above.
Last comment: isn't it funny that Hobbes also links politics to having an economy? I'm telling you, political economy is the way to know government the best. There will be another post on an economist this week.

In the meantime, appreciate your police force! They make it happen for you.

Lincoln, the Domestic Diplomat

In the three posts about "Lincoln's Political Economy," I tried to show that Foreign Powers were constrained from acknowledging the CSA. First, they did not want to back the wrong side. Second, in the community of nations, sovereignty counts. To assist in a domestic insurrection is the same as waging war on the legitimate government of that country. For this reason among many, Lincoln did not acknowledge, and could not afford to acknowledge, the new nation of the Confederate States of America.
To Lincoln, the federal government retained authority over all thirty-plus states were under his jurisdiction. By holding to the belief of a rightful Union, he continued to exercise some level of authority over all them, even if it was only blockade south of the Mason-Dixon line.

More than once he corrected General Henry Halleck for using phraseology that did not conform to a usage of  a United States: "You know I did not like the phrase, in Orders, No. 68 I believe, "Drive the invaders from our soil." (Letter, July 6, 1863). They were not invaders--they were fellow citizens of the U.S.

The suspension of the writ of habeas corpus in Maryland, April 1861 to 1862, is an early exercise in Lincoln's assumption of that authority, backed up by force. But Lincoln also had to practice diplomacy within his community of individual states: they were turning on each other. And governors frequently wrote Lincoln, telling him exactly how little support they would give for [x] or how much support they needed for [y].

Even More Complicated 

In most formulations of Civil War America, the U.S. map is divided into three useful categories: North, South, and border states. The border states were mostly slave-holding states that held with the Union.

The question of slavery was united with many other issues, red herrings or not. Popular sovereignty and states' rights was a rallying cry in pockets of nearly every state of the Union. The Democratic party was a major party in every state, not just Southern ones; they might decry any Republican measure. Some were anti-war, or at least, anti-Civil War: the Peace Democrats, and more flagrantly in opposition, the "Copperheads". The famous habeas corpus Valladigham Case was in Ohio, a Union state with Clement Valladigham potentially a Copperhead governor. Ultimately, Lincoln declined to hold Mr. Valladigham. Instead, he was allowed to go South, into sympathetic territory.

Local Terrain and Cooperation
With the blue states and the light blue ones above, Lincoln had to work with the Governors and officials that would let him, and make war on those who would not. He needed political and military forecasts, a way to bolster pro-Union officials and to cajole or contain those who would let Union break to pieces.  For every suspension of habeas corpus, there were hundreds, even thousands of efforts to  hold Union together without playing hardball--or, by granting exceptions to hard rules in the name of decency, mercy, or even expediency. 

An Early Diplomacy: Stay on Point. Do Not Speculate.
During the 1859 presidential election, Lincoln wrote constantly to delegates and campaigners about staying 'on message'. The message without variation was contentious enough. He also stayed aloof from personal attacks, devising tactics for countering smear campaigns that left him carefully above. Post-election, the calls for further explanation of his policies continued. Lincoln stayed low-key in Illinois, generally providing only references to his previous record. Along with this demand for explanations, he had to field the calls of patronage. On December 15, 1860, he partly broke his silence to answer a letter containing rumors about "stacking the deck" using patronage:

"As to the use of patronage in the slave states, where there are few or no Republicans, I do not expect to inquire for the politics of the appointee, or whether he does or not own slaves. I intend in that matter to accommodate the people in the several localities, if they themselves will allow me to accommodate them."

This letter came before the second wave of secession or even before Lincoln's inauguration ceremony. He was already attempting to hold onto everyone who would stay. As reported in a  previous post, the attack on Fort Sumter caused Lincoln to break his silence. By calling for militia to defend the Union, he may have precipitated the second wave of secession. Such perilous outcomes only made Lincoln more determined to hang on to what he could. Another look at the map's light-blue states shows you how much strategic territory he was trying to hold.

Under Suspension of Habeas Corpus: Limiting Military Rule
This letter to General John M. Schofield, local commander of Union forces in St. Louis, Missouri
July 13, 1863

I regret to learn of the arrest of the Democrat editor. I fear this loses you the middle position I desired you to occupy.  . . .  Please spare me the trouble this is likely to bring   [.]

A translation: you stupid jerk. Let him go. Another one, a few months later, to the same man:
October 1, 1863

"Your immediate duty, in regard to Missouri, now is to advance the efficiency of that establishment, and to so use it, as far as practicable, to compel the excited people there to leave one another alone."

In other words, Schofield was to let the state take the lead whenever possible in local police matters. Not that there was a police. There was only military and home guard. Lincoln's instructions are explicitly to keep the peace:

 ". . . you will only arrest individuals, and suppress assemblies, or newspapers, when they may be working palpable injury to the Military in your charge; and in no other case will you interfere with the expression of opinion in any form, or allow it to be interfered with violently by others."

This instruction shows that Lincoln did not want to deny Missourians their civil rights, even under the suspension of the writ.  Also important to Lincoln's concerns, however, is a strong with not to alienate state voters used to considering liberty their birthright. Lincoln was constantly on watch to make sure that his local militaries were secure. The civil rights were to be left alone--unless necessary for military security. It also shows that his military, then as ever, were expected to be, partly, diplomats.

There are hundreds of letter where Lincoln listens to personal appeals from the parents of deserters, the wives of fallen Confederate heroes, mothers in poverty whose sons are in stockade for some infraction were not paid, former Senator's sons in Federal prison, et cetera. Each one of these letters, whether giving way or not, is calculated to offer a mercy when it did not interfere with a rational military principle.

These are efforts at diplomacy, to right wrongs and keep state officials happy, newspapers a little more quiet, and citizens calm. But the best example of Lincoln's domestic diplomacy especially concerning the Border States brings us where we started.

The Emancipation Proclamation
My first post on Lincoln was about this important document. There, above, and elsewhere, I said Lincoln did insist he had jurisdiction over all states. With the Emancipation Proclamation, Lincoln paid the secessionist states an economic ultimatum for a political one. For the border states, it is different. It required diplomacy, or, not giving the first ultimatum that would get him an answering one back. Insisting on emancipation there would lose him whatever shred of political or military support he had.

Though Lincoln wrote some adamant letters to Tennessee's governor, and allowed some punitive regimes in Kentucky, et cetera, he was nevertheless at least partly sympathetic to their plight. Missouri's, Tennessee's and Kentucky 's economies were closely tied to other slave states, particularly in regard to shipping their cash crops downriver via the Mississippi. Their existing commerce was essentially ruined by staying in the Union. To take away the last prop of their economy, however heinous that prop might be, would be to lose them forever--and maybe the war.

All states paid heavily in the Civil War. Lincoln's soft-pedal on slavery in the border States via the Emancipation Proclamation acknowledges their particular economic hardship, their uneasy (and sometimes enforced) yet ultimate loyalty. These border states took the brunt in most of the battles of the Civil War: militarily, politically, and economically.

Today, Lincoln's detractors have revived old tired arguments against this great, beleaguered, and frequently unpopular leader. They have counted on our failure to examine Lincoln's historical context in full.  But Lincoln's words reveal the great care he took in his leadership, in both big and small matters. His milieu was one of cantankerous states used to deciding for themselves. The Union was ripping at every seam.  Lincoln had a stiff spine but also a compassionate view. His letters and speeches reveal his profound understanding of lasting and humane principles, military leadership, economic necessity, diplomacy, and the context of his age.

---
I hope you have enjoyed this (12 part) series, which was originally intended to be three posts. :-)
Thanks to Slamdunk for suggesting it! What an adventure!  And especially thank you to all who commented along the way. You kept me going, through many lamps of midnight oil.

References:
Abraham Lincoln, Speeches and Writings, 1859-1865. The Library of America. Available.
The American Civil War: Habeas Corpus, at etym online, especially useful and linked above, here
Shelby Foote, The Civil War, Volume I. Random House. Available.
A fine paper written by C.R. Smith, posted here.
US Government Info at About.com, with Lincoln's 1862 Proclamation suspending the writ of habeus corpus, here. This is short.
Wikipedia, Border States. From that Wikipedia page you can access pages such as "Kentucky in the Civil War" that give more details to what I have quickly glossed. Kentucky is particularly interesting in that it was under a very tough general and under conditions of guerilla war.

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Lincoln, the Constitution, and Habeus Corpus, part 2

The suspension of habeas corpus was an untested measure in Constitutional history. As such, Lincoln had to decide how, in the division of powers, he could ease through the Constitutional question.  This involved either soothing, or ignoring, calls to account from the legislative and judicial branches of government.

Lincoln's circumstances might justly be called an emergency, and I think fit the definition of the stakes required for suspending habeas corpus. His response to the emergency waited neither for Congress nor the federal courts in a. calling for militia without a declaration of war from Congress, and b. the suspension of habeas corpus. Lincoln made them both an Executive function, but not without dissent.

On the same day that Lincoln called for militia, he called for special session:

Congress Convenes its Special Session, July 4, 1861

Lincoln's Special Message to Congress is long. (Sixteen pages worth in my book, too long to summarize in full.) In it, Lincoln refers to the extraordinary measures he has taken, explaining his reasoning and asking for their approval. In today's parlance, we might say he presented it to them as a colleague, alone on watch, who had done what he thought they would do.

As to habeas corpus specifically, and the stretching of Executive Powers in general, he first gives his reasoning for taking that power as President. Then he asks:

  . . .. are all the laws, but one, to go unexecuted, and the government itself go to pieces, lest that one be violated?

In Lincoln's mind, the answer was no. His purpose then, as always, was preservation of the Union in full.

"Our popular government has often been called an experiment. Two points in it, our people have already settled--the successful establishing, and the successful administering of it. One still remains--its successful maintenance against a formidable internal attempt to overthrow it.

Then he gives assurances:

"Lest there be some uneasiness in the minds of candid men as to what is to be the course of the government, towards Southern states, after the rebellion shall have been suppressed, the Executive deems it proper to say, it will be his purpose then, as ever,  to be guided by the Constitution . . . 

But the Courts did not see it this way. Or perhaps it would be more accurate to say that judges were individuals, with individual opinions as to the question of slavery, secession, and executive power. Any one of those three might garner opposition to Lincoln's assumption of authority.

Ex parte Merryman

What followed, most famously, was Lincoln's complete and total disregard of judicial orders to free prisoners, a legal suit called ex parte Merryman. In this suit, Judge Taney ordered that Mr. Merryman, a Baltimore citizen taken up by General Winfield Scott, be released. This was on the grounds that Congress was the proper party to issue writs of suspension of habeas corpus. Taney was afraid of military rule:

"I can only say that if the authority under which the constitution has confided to the judicial department and judicial officers, may thus, upon any pretext or under any circumstances, be usurped by the military power, at its discretion, the people of the United States are no longer living under a government of laws but every citizen holds life, liberty and property at the will and pleasure of the army officer in whose military district he may happen to be found."

In a letter (June 12, 1861)  48 days after Lincoln bestowed this power on Scott,  Taney wrote: 

"The paroxism of passion into which the country has suddenly been thrown -- appears to me to amount almost to delirium. I hope that it is too violent to last long -- and that calmer and more sober thoughts will soon take its place -- and that the north as well as the south will see that a peaceful separation with free institutions in each section -- is far better -- than the union of all the present states under a military government & a reign of terror -- preceded too by a civil war with all its horror & which[,] end as it may[,] will prove ruinous to the victors as well as the vanquished."

Lincoln ignored Taney's order. All of this was, in insurrectionist circles and to Jefferson Davis' government, a rallying cry against that monster in the White House. 

Finally, in November 1862, Congress passed a law indemnifying Lincoln in the matter. It passed both houses in early 1863. With the legislative body giving Lincoln permission, it tended to take the Constitutional question of who could issue such a writ, off the table. Lincoln lifted the suspension and granted amnesty on February 12, 1862.

But on and off, Lincoln would suspend the writ of habeas corpus in the war, when things were going badly in particular areas. He had promised Congress a limited application of suspension, and a fidelity to the Constitutional measure: rebellion, insurrection, and public safety. Nevertheless, to constitutional scholars or those who remained concerned over human rights, this on-and-off application was still a measure of grave concern.  Lincoln may have been a stickler to the criteria, but he, and military officers, were the ones to decide. It lends itself to the charge of capricious measures. And we were hell-bent to avoid capricious dictators when we made this country.

The Valladigham Case

Clement Valladigham was running for the office of  Ohio governor. He had outsized Southern sympathies, and his campaign could be a huge rally for anti-Union activity. He was incarcerated. Upon applying for a writ of habeas corpus, the local judge declined, saying that he was not empowered to overthrow decisions made by military tribunals.

On June 12, 1863, Lincoln wrote to a Committee of Unionists who decried the suspension of civil liberties, especially in regard to Valladigham. The letter is another long one, (almost ten pages in my book). I think Lincoln wished to carefully explain, and make them realize, every point at which he was beset. He could not trust a jury, with possible confederate sympathizers, for one thing. Moreover:

. . .in [the insurgent's] own unrestricted efforts to destroy Union, Constitution, and law, all together, the Government would, in great degree, be restrained by the same Constitution and law from  arresting their progress. Their sympathizers pervaded all departments of the Government and nearly all communities of the people. From this material, under cover of "liberty of speech" "liberty of the press", and "habeus corpus", they hoped to keep on foot among us a most efficient corps of spies, informers, suppliers, and aiders and abettors of their cause in a thousand ways. (p. 456).

He also wrote:

"Must I shoot a simple-minded soldier boy who deserts, while I must not touch a hair of a wily agitator who induces him to desert? . . . I think that in such a case, to silence the agitator, and save the boy, is not only constitutional, but, withal, a great mercy."

First Conclusion 

Suspending habeas corpus interfered with freedom of speech and freedom of association, freedom of movement--and maybe even who had the right to bear arms. Where on this list of priorities comes national security? Lincoln said it came first: would you have every other law broken save this one? 

He did not make this opinion from nothing. Thomas Hobbes wrote, early in the philosophy of political science, that the function of a state is to create security within, displacing anarchy to its borders. Before that, Thucydides wrote in the Melian Dialogue that loss and occupation are the miserable fates for nations that do not defend themselves. Lincoln was already aware that the confederacy was seeking outside help. In a worst-case scenario, the United States could have been rent to pieces, not just by inside agitation but interference by foreign powers. The first defense against this was organized force against insurrection and interference.

It is important to view Lincoln's circumstances, and his thinking, before passing judgement one way or the other. I believe Lincoln considered this measure as one specialized power among those he had to preserve the Union. This means he was careful but not reluctant. I do think he was a stickler for applying the Constitutional imperative. So caprice does not apply, nor does dictatorship. He built his reasoning on philosophical antecedents, Constitutional prescription, and practical concern, and he made those part of public record.

Letters such as these may have changed nothing about the Constitutional question. They did tend to reinforce that Lincoln was a careful man, thoughtful but adamant. Such a letter would have been, very quickly, a public property, an open letter to the public. By explaining his reasoning, he made what you might call a personal guarantee that dictatorship was not about to ensue. 

Next I am going to take on how habeas corpus was a weapon for diplomacy and moderation in Lincoln's consistent and agonizing diplomacy with individual states.

Lincoln, the Constitution, and Habeus Corpus, part 1, Revised.

One of the charges against Lincoln, today and in his time, was that he was a rampant believer in big government. Those that say this point to his suspension of the writ of Habeus Corpus.

What is habeas corpus?

Suspending habeas corpus compromises human rights and civil rights. According to Wikipedia, it is a way that prisoners may seek to end an imprisonment for which there is no corpus, or body, of evidence. It is not a way to stop a false arrest, but a way to nullify an imprisonment that has become a kind of warehousing, where accusers have time to find elusive evidence or forget the prisoner altogether.

Article I, Section 9, clause 2 of the U.S. Constitution states "The privilege of the writ of habeas corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in cases of rebellion or invasion the public safety may require it."

In this post, I concentrate more on Lincoln and his rationales or defenses against his accusers and detractors. In the meantime, I think I found that Lincoln's suspension of habeas corpus marks an early determination to be the Commander-in-Chief that a military could actually function under.

Many of Lincoln's letters to generals have suggestions. Others have direct orders. In every case, it seems that Lincoln is determined to assure his military command that he supported them. That he knew life was difficult on the ground. It is a conducted military diplomacy, designed to ensure that his thinking was understood and carried out with regard to the war. It was calculated to the single purpose of preserving Union, through military and non-military means. These first months show his first steps toward that end.

A Short, Eventful Timeline:
In April of 1861, Abraham Lincoln had been president less than two months. The 'First Wave' of states had already seceded from the Union.
April 15:  Lincoln called Congress back in session. He also called for 75,000 militia from the states. This turned out to be, at least in Shelby Foote's estimation, a grand mistake. The call for militia led to the secession of the second wave of states, including Virginia--right next door.

April 18: The first soldiers show up: 500 untrained and unarmed men from Pennsylvania arrive from Maryland. They report a cold reception, but no incidents.
April 19:  The 6th Massachusetts showed up with 21 less able-bodied than when they started. In Baltimore, while on the train, they had been stoned and shot at by Marylanders. Four died; 17 wounded. They had returned fire, killing twelve and wounding more.

On the 19th of April, Lincoln ordered the blockade against the rebellious states.

April 22: a delegation of Marylanders came to Lincoln, protesting the "pollution" of Union soldiers crossing their state. Lincoln told them this would be impossible to prevent. In response, Maryland citizens tore up their railways, cut telegraph lines, and wrecked bridges. Washington was now cut off on all sides. (Foote, I, pp. 52-53).

Popular sentiment in Maryland--a slave state--was running high against Lincoln and for secession. People high in government, such as Baltimore's mayor, were pro-secession.  Governor Thomas Hicks was pro-Union, but sympathetic to slavery; the Legislature was not so inclined. If Maryland had seceded from the United States, the District of Columbia would be completely surrounded on all sides by insurrection.

April 24: Lincoln writes Maryland State Legislator Reverdy Johnson (a Union sympathizer): "I do say the sole purpose of bringing troops here is to defend this capital. I do say I have no purpose to invade Virginia . . ."

Mostly Lincoln is trying to avoid writing people. He wants to avoid making promises that he might break, or saying something else that upsets people all over again. He wants to avoid rumors.

Because Maryland was on the brink.

Fort Stevens on Map shows the site of the District of Columbia.

The situation continued to deteriorate.  Lincoln sent two letters to Lieutenant-General Winfield Scott, the head of the U.S. Army:

April 25, 1861

My Dear Sir: The Maryland Legislature assembles tomorrow at Anapolis; and, not improbably, will take action to arm the people of that State against the United States. The question has been submitted to, and considered by me, whether it would or would not be justifiable , upon the grounds of necessary defence, for you, as commander in Chief of the United States Army, to arrest, or disperse the members of that body. I think it would not be justifiable; nor, efficient for the desired object.

First, they have a clearly legal right to assemble; and, we can  not know in advance, that their action will not be lawful and peaceful. And if we wait until they shall have acted, their arrest, or dispersion, will not lessen the effect of their action.

Secondly, we can not permanently prevent their action. If we arrest them, we can not long hold them as prisoners; and when liberated, they will immediately re-assemble, and take their action. And, precisely the same if we simply disperse them. They will immediately re-assemble in some other place. 

I therefore conclude that it is only left to the commanding General to watch, and await their action, which, if it shall be to arm their people against the United States, he is to adopt the most prompt, and efficient means to counteract, even, if necessary, to the bombardment of their cities--and in the extremest necessity, the suspension of the writ of habeas corpus. 

Your Obedient Servant

Lincoln was faced with a dilemma between national security and civil liberty. He explained his reasoning to Scott. Rather than arrest anyone on mere suspicion, or drive them to conspire in secrecy, Lincoln instructed Scott to wait and find out what the Legislature actually did, first. If events were not favorable, then Scott was empowered for the drastic.

It was an early taste of what Civil War really was: to fire on neighboring cities. To know that people were committed to destroying government, in secret, in public, by harassment and by battle.

Two days later, Lincoln completed the instructions: the last step required for Winfield Scott. And perhaps, a significant step in Lincoln's understanding of his role as Commander-in-Chief of his nation's military. With this letter, Lincoln took the responsibility for suspending habeas corpus:

April 27 1861

To the Commanding General of the Army of the United States

You are engaged in repressing an insurrection against the laws of the United States. If at any point on or in the vicinity of the military line, which is now between the City of Philadelphia and the City of Washington, via Perryville, Annapolis City, and Annapolis Junction, you find resistance which renders it necessary to suspend the Writ of Habeas Corpus for the public safety, you, personally, or through the officer in command at the point where the resistance occurs, are authorized to suspend that writ.

You might note there is no "Obedient Servant" at the end of this letter. Lincoln is taking charge with no ambivalence.

Of the 85,000 Maryland volunteers to soldier in the Civil War, nearly 25% fought for the Confederate side. Maryland, standing so to speak at our capital's back, was a place of unrest and perhaps insurrection. The situation was well within the definition of need specified by the Constitution. Lincoln therefore believed he could suspend habeas corpus.

Or somebody could. The next post is about Lincoln's maneuvers to get the constitutional question out of the way, or, answered, at least in part.

References:
Abraham Lincoln, Speeches and Writings, 1859-1865. The Library of America. Available.
The American Civil War: Habeas Corpus, at etym online, especially useful and linked above, here.
Shelby Foote, The Civil War, Volume I. Random House. Available.
A fine paper written by C.R. Smith, posted here. It pointed the way to things I looked up in Lincoln's letter in re: Valladigham.
US Government Info at About.com, with Lincoln's 1862 Proclamation suspending the writ of habeus corpus, here. This is short.
Wikipedia, Maryland in the Civil War
Wikipedia, also on Habeus Corpus, linked above.