Proclamation 80

Proclamation 80, titled "A Proclamation by the President of the United States, April 15, 1861," was a presidential proclamation signed by Abraham Lincoln, the 16th president of the United States. It called for 75,000 militiamen to suppress the rebellion in the states that had formed the Confederacy.

Background

In April 1861 Confederate forces attacked U.S. troops at Fort Sumter in South Carolina, plunging the country into civil war. Moving quickly against the insurrection, President Abraham Lincoln called up the militia and suspended the writ of habeas corpus—a legal order enabling an individual to seek release from unlawful detention. In suspending that privilege, he exercised an authority that Chief Justice Roger Taney then found, in ''Ex parte Merryman'', constitutionally reserved for Congress. Lincoln then called the entire Congress into extraordinary session, where he sought congressional approval of his actions.

Text

The text of the Proclamation is as follows:

Legal authority

Until the early 20th century, the United States relied on calling out militia and volunteers rather than expanding the regular army. In 1861, the law governing the use of the militia for federal purposes was the Militia Act of 1795, which provided:

This law was the basis on which Lincoln called forth the Militia, as his Proclamation 80 explicitly ordered that

With this order, it became legal for Lincoln to call forth the militia, to "suppress such combinations hich prevent the execution of the laws of the United States" as the Militia Act provided.

However, there were restrictions on the number of men and the length of time they could serve in these capacities. State governors had more authority than the President of the United States to extend their service. Section 4 of the Militia Act of 1795 provided:

On March 2, 1799, the number of militia members able to be called by the president for a provisional army was limited to 75,000 men. Prior to the Civil War, this limit had never been adjusted to reflect the growth in the nation's population, which increased from approximately 5.3 million in 1800 to more than 31 million in 1860. During that time, there had not been a domestic insurrection in the United States even on the scale of the short-lived Whiskey Rebellion of the early 1790s, and therefore little impetus for Congress to reconsider the numerical limits to the militia that had been codified in the late eighteenth century.

Implementation

CALL TO ARMS ! !

Reception

The reaction in the border states was almost entirely hostile. Governor Henry Rector of Arkansas stated, "The people of this Commonwealth are freemen, not slaves, and will defend to the last extremity their honor, lives, and property, against Northern mendacity and usurpation." Governor Beriah Magoffin of Kentucky declared that they would not send volunteers to a Northern army intent on subjugating their Southern brethren. Governor Claiborne Jackson of Missouri responded that, "Not one man will the state of Missouri furnish to carry on any such unholy crusade."

Governor John Ellis of North Carolina replied in a telegram to Secretary of War Simon Cameron, "I can be no party to this wicked violation of the laws of the country, and to this war upon the liberties of a free people. You can get no troops from North Carolina". Governor Isham Harris of Tennessee stated in a telegram to Lincoln, "Tennessee will furnish not a single man for the purpose of coercion, but fifty thousand if necessary for the defense of our rights and those of our Southern brothers." Governor John Letcher of Virginia, whose state had been requested to furnish three regiments totaling 5,340 men and officers, had stated in the past his intent for his state to remain neutral. In a letter to Lincoln, he declared that since the president had "chosen to inaugurate civil war, he would be sent no troops from the Old Dominion."

In contrast, most northern states communicated enthusiasm with states such as Indiana offering twice as many volunteers as requested. Massachusetts volunteers reached Washington D.C. as early as April 19.

References

External links

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Full text of Proclamation 80
from the National Archives and Records Administration

A draft of Proclamation 80
by President Lincoln

Militia Act of 1795
from the Library of Congress

{{Authority control

1861 documents
1861 in American politics
1861 in the American Civil War
37th United States Congress
American Civil War documents
April 1861
Habeas corpus
Militia of the United States
Politics of the American Civil War
Presidency of Abraham Lincoln
Proclamations