What does this Lincoln quote mean???

Question

Ok I'm supposed to be "dissecting" one of Abe Lincoln's letters, so here is part of it:
"Nor am I able to appreciate the danger apprehended by the meeting, that the American people will, by means of military arrests during the rebellion, lose the right of public discussion, the liberty of speech and the press, the law of evidence, trial by jury, and habeas corpus, throughout the indefinite peaceful future, which I trust lies before them, any more than I am able to believe that a man could contract so strong an appetite for emetics, during temporary illness, as to persist in feeding upon them during the remainder of his healthful life"

-When talking about the right for him whether or not he can take certain rights away during the Civil War.

What exactly does this quote mean?? The way it's written really is messing with me..

Answer 1

He's saying that in the state of emergency during the Civil War, he could justifiably and quite reasonably and morally invoke martial law. He was being challenged at the time as a tyrant, and he was defending his decision to suspend certain civil liberties, basically by saying that when the emergency of the war was ended, he would gladly reinstate the civil liberties and reinstate the normal system of checks and balances of an effective democracy.

Another way of thinking about it is that he is rebutting the argument that absolute power corrupts by saying, "Don't worry, I won't be corrupted." And mostly he was right. He did reinstate those liberties.

He is comparing the threat of corruption to the threat that a person will continue to take a emetics (substances that make you vomit) after they are no longer needed. In other words, the suspension of civil liberties is so abhorrent to him (like making yourself vomit) that he would only suspend them when absolutely necessary, and would (I think he probably would have argued) be the first to advocate for their reinstatement because of the discomfort he felt in their absence.

Answer 2

Lincoln was an optimist and he was indicating that any constitutional rights would be restored after the Civil war as a people would not be so vindictive to retain laws that pre-empted certain rights under the constitution for those Americans we fought! Once the war was over he thought it be as insulting to maintain the non recourse and it wouldn't happene as it would be foreign to them to even try! We had not been that far removed from gaining most of those rights by fighting England!

Unfortunately we live in an opposite age where a few would love to limit the rights of others, and we are not in a declared war like the Civil War! We are not at war at all yet your rights as Americans are systematically being trampled by the current administration! He has not declared Martial Law, has no reason to, and would be kicked out of office if he did!

Answer 3

When Lincoln suspended habeas corpus during the Civil war he was expecting that war, and therefore the suspension to be of similarly limited duration, which they were. Some others at the time feared that the war and\or the suspension might go on indefinitely and that habeas corpus, once suspended, might be difficult to reestablish. In an open-ended war like, for instance, a war on terror. That might be true.

Answer 4

That during the Civil War, the rights of the people must be limited in order that peace will be reached. Those that are violative of the laws must be arrested and the writ of habeas corpus will be suspended in order that peace will prevail.

Answer 5

I'd need to know where it was written (context) and to read the rest of the speech. It was obviously taken out of a larger body.

Answer 6

The issue was debated with 13 of his advisors. After all was said a secret ballot was taken. After he counted the votes he announced "Thirteen yeas. One nay. The nays have it".