Lincoln's Code

by John Fabian Witt

  14 “There is nothing more unworthy”: Duquesne to Contrecoeur, September 8, 1754, in PGW, Colonial Series, vol. 1, pp. 172–73.

  14 his long and storied career: I have been influenced by Ron Chernow, Washington: A Life (New York: Penguin, 2010), and Joseph Ellis, His Excellency: George Washington (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2004).

  15 “plundered our Seas” . . . “an undistinguished Destruction”: Declaration of Independence, http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/charters/declaration_transcript.html.

  15 “You are to regulate”: JCC, 2: 96. In so instructing Washington, Congress undoubtedly intended for him to follow the Articles of War that it had just enacted. But those Articles picked up some features of the international laws of war. Moreover, if the Congress had wanted to limit the legal constraints on Washington to those Articles and exclude the international laws of war, it could easily have done so by limiting its instructions to the Articles.

  15 denouncing General Thomas Gage: JCC, 2: 152 (July 6, 1775).

  15 “the happiness of modern times” . . . “in arms and in the field”: JCC, 4: 22 (Jan. 2, 1776).

  15–16 “execrable barbarity” . . . “Christianity may condemn”: JCC, 4: 21.

  16 exhausted and depopulated: See, e.g., Peter H. Wilson, The Thirty Years War: Europe’s Tragedy (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2009); Geoffrey Parker, “Early Modern Europe,” in Michael Howard, George J. Andreopulos, and Mark R. Shulman, eds., The Laws of War (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1994), 53–55.

  16 elaborate (if deadly) games: Michael Howard, War in European History (New York: Oxford University Press, 1976), 56–73; John Keegan, A History of Warfare (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1993), 342–45; Armstrong Starkey, War in the Age of Enlightenment (Westport, CT: Praeger, 2003).

  16 analogized war to chess: Benjamin Franklin, Franklin: The Autobiography and Other Writings on Politics, Economics, and Virtue, ed. Alan Houston (1747; New York: Cambridge University Press, 2004).

  16 the metaphor of the gamble: Matthew Smith Anderson, War and Society in Europe of the Old Regime (Buffalo: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1988), 189; see also Geoffrey Best, Humanity in Warfare (New York: Columbia University Press, 1980), 36.

  16 fancied himself a poet: Coleman Phillipson, “Emerich De Vattel,” in Great Jurists of the World, ed. John & Edward Manson MacDonell (Boston: Little, Brown, 1914), 479.

  16 most widely read: Francis Stephen Ruddy, International Law in the Enlightenment: The Background of Emmerich de Vattel’s Le Droit des Gens (New York: Oceana, 1975), 281–307.

  16 “The humanity”: Emmerich de Vattel, Law of Nations, ed. Joseph Chitty (Philadelphia: T & J. W. Johnson & Co., 1883), bk 2, §140, at 348.

  17 “with great moderation” . . . “extreme of politeness”: Ibid., bk 2, §158, at 363.

  17 St. Augustine: Augustine, Concerning the City of God Against the Pagans, trans. Henry Bettenson (Harmondsworth, UK: Penguin Books, 1972), bk 1, ch. 21, & bk 19, chs. 7 & 12 (Bettenson trans., 1972); see also James Turner Johnson, Ideology, Reason, and the Limitation of War: Religious and Secular Concepts, 1200–1740 (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1975), 8–80; M. H. Keen, The Laws of War in the Late Middle Ages (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1965), 63–81; Stephen C. Neff, War and the Law of Nations: A General History (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005).

  17 “A prince may do everything”: Francisco Vitoria, Vitoria: Political Writings, ed. Anthony Pagden & Jeremy Lawrance (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1991), 305.

  17 Such armies could lawfully: Ibid., 317–18.

  17 sack entire cities: Ibid., 322–23.

  17 to execute prisoners: Ibid., 320–21.

  17 the grave passages of Deuteronomy: See, esp., chap. 20, verses 12–20; also Vitoria, Vitoria: Political Writings, 316.

  17–18 “the first rule . . . on both sides” and “If people wish . . . return of peace”: Vattel, Law of Nations, bk 2, §189, 382.

  18 “quarter is to be given”: Ibid., bk 2, §140, 347–48.

  18 “Women, children”: Ibid., bk 2, §145, 351.

  18 “and other persons”: Ibid., 2, §146, 351.

  18 “to fear from”: Ibid., bk 2, §147, 352.

  18 “treacherous murder”: Ibid., bk 2, §155, 360.

  18 Even firing on an enemy’s headquarters: Ibid., bk 2, §158–59, 362–64.

  18 “to prefer the gentlest methods”: Ibid., bk 2, §178, 373.

  18 chivalric codes: See Keen, Laws of War in the Late Middle Ages; Matthew Strickland, War and Chivalry (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996).

  18 Vitoria reasoned: Vitoria, Vitoria: Political Writings, 237.

  18 Hugo Grotius had responded: Hugo Grotius, The Rights of War and Peace, ed. Richard Tuck (Indianapolis, IN: Liberty Fund, 2005), bk 3, ch. 10, §1–3, 1411–13.

  19 “civilized powers” . . . “horrors of war”: G. F. Von Martens, The Law of Nations: Being the Science of National Law . . . Founded Upon the Treaties and Customs of Modern Nations in Europe 1788 and 1829, trans. William Cobbett (London: William Cobbett, 1829, 4th ed.), ch. 3, §1, 284.

  19 “an unjust enemy” . . . “a vast graveyard”: Immanuel Kant, Kant: Political Writings, ed. Hans Reiss (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), 96.

  19 the balance of power: Neff, War and the Law of Nations, 114.

  19 changes in military technology: Keegan, History of Warfare, 342.

  19 newly professionalizing armies: Howard, War in European History, 70–73.

  19 victory in pitched battle: James Q. Whitman, The Verdict of Battle: The Law of Victory and the Making of Modern War (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2012).

  19 “civility and decent behaviour”: Ellis, His Excellency: George Washington, 9.

  19 “I have a Gallows near 40 feet high”: Ibid., 27.

  20 rigid insistence on contract terms: Ibid., 46–47.

  20 “from the noblest of all Principles” . . . “the rights of humanity”: GW to Lt. Gen. Thomas Gage, August 11, 1775, PGW, Rev. War Series, 1: 289–91.

  20 sign a copy of rules: General Orders, August 9, 1775, ibid., 1: 278–79; GW to John Hancock, September 21, 1775, ibid., 2: 24.

  20 “be abused”: Instructions to Col. Benedict Arnold, September 14, 1775, ibid., 1: 458–60.

  20 He forbade pillage: Ibid., 7: 458 (Boston, March 13, 1776); 7: 126 (New York, Aug. 25, 1776).

  20 “any person whatsoever” . . . “infamous mercenary ravagers”: General Orders, January 1, 1777, ibid., 7: 499.

  21 not prisoners of war: Catherine M. Prelinger, “Benjamin Franklin and the American Prisoners of War,” William & Mary Quarterly (3d series) 32, no. 2 (April 1975): 263–67.

  21 High-profile prisoners: David Duncan Wallace, The Life of Henry Laurens (New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1915).

  21 Ethan Allen: Ethan Allen, A Narrative of Colonel Ethan Allen’s Captivity (Philadelphia: Robert Bell, 1779).

  21 that 8,500 . . . died in captivity: John E. Ferling, Almost a Miracle: The American Victory in the War of Independence (New York: Oxford University Press, 2007), 428. Edwin G. Burrows’s Forgotten Patriots: The Untold Story of American Prisoners During the Revolutionary War (New York: Basic Books, 2008) argues that the number of deaths was far higher than even this, but I am skeptical of his reasoning. See my review in the online magazine Slate, December 9, 2008, http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/history_lesson/2008/12/ye_olde_gitmo.single.html.

  21 The grim prison ships: Burrows, Forgotten Patriots, 53–65; Larry G. Bowman, Captive Americans: Prisoners During the American Revolution (Athens: Ohio University Press, 1976), 40–42.

  21 The smallpox epidemic: Elizabeth A. Fenn, Pox Americana: The Great Smallpox Epidemic of 1775–82 (New York: Hill & Wang, 2001), pp. 120–21, 267; Bowman, Captive Americans, 42–49.

  21 logistical shortcomings: Charles H. Metzger, The Prisoner in the American Revolution (Chicago: Loyola University Press, 1971); Bowman, Captive Americans, 49; Richard
H. Amerman, “Treatment of American Prisoners During the American Revolution,” Proceedings of the New Jersey Historical Society 78 (1960).

  21 French prisoners were treated: Olive Anderson, “The Treatment of Prisoners of War in Britain During the American War for Independence,” Bulletin of the Institute for Historical Research 28 (1955), 72; Bowman, Captive Americans, 53–54; Prelinger, “Benjamin Franklin and the American Prisoners of War,” 268 n. 23.

  21 the same medical attention: Bowman, Captive Americans, 20–21.

  21 jails, old sugar warehouses: David L. Sterling, “American Prisoners of War in New York: A Report,” William & Mary Quarterly (3d series) 13 (1956), 380; Larry G. Bowman, “Military Parolees on Long Island, 1777–1782,” Journal of Long Island History 18 (1982): 22.

  21 British officers extended: Bowman, “Military Parolees on Long Island.”

  21 privates were released on parole: Bowman, Captive Americans, 12.

  21 prisoners were exchanged: Paul J. Springer, America’s Captives: Treatment of POWs from the Revolutionary War to the War on Terror (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2010), 18–25.

  22 “Painful as it may be”: GW to Lt. Gen. Thomas Gage, August 11, 1775, PGW, Rev. War Series, 1: 289–91.

  22 “the unworthy Example”: GW to Maj. Christopher French, September 26, 1775, ibid., 2: 47–48.

  22 “his Excellency would rather”: Stephen Moylan to William Watson, November 16, 1775, ibid., 2: 322–23.

  22 refused to grant quarter . . . “rage and fury”: Harold E. Selesky, “Colonial America,” in Howard et al., eds., The Laws of War, 84.

  22 convicted 194 soldiers for plundering: James C. Neagles, Summer Soldiers: A Survey and Index of Revolutionary War Courts-Martial (Salt Lake City: Ancestry Inc., 1996), 34.

  22 “motives of . . . humanity”: Betsy Knight, “Prisoner Exchange and Parole in the American Revolution,” William & Mary Quarterly (3d series) 48 (1991): 209.

  22 the Congress undermined: Larry G. Bowman, “The Pennsylvania Prisoner Exchange Conferences,” Pennsylvania History 45 (July 1978): 257–69.

  23 “motives of policy”: GW to the President of Congress, July 10, 1780, WGW, 19: 147–48.

  23 conspired to find trumped-up reasons: William M. Dabney, After Saratoga: The Story of the Convention Army (Albuquerque, NM: University of New Mexico Press, 1954), 16–25; Janet Beroth, “The Convention of Saratoga,” New York State Historical Association Quarterly Journal 8 (1927): 257.

  23 He returned to British lines: Knight, “Prisoner Exchange and Parole,” 100–01.

  23 He released vessels: Reginald Stuart, War and American Thought (Kent, OH: Kent State University Press, 1982), 32.

  23 ordered the humane treatment: Stephen Moylan to William Bartlett, December 10, 1775, PGW, Rev. War Series, 2: 521–22; GW to John Hancock, November 8, 1775, ibid., 2: 330–33; Instructions to Col. Benedict Arnold, September 14, 1775, ibid., 1: 458–60.

  23 “I shall hold myself”: GW to Gov. William Livingston, May 6, 1782, WGW, 24: 226–27.

  24 “Mercy! Mercy!”: Ferling, Almost a Miracle, ch. 14.

  24 took 543 prisoners: Armstrong Starkey, “Paoli to Stony Point: Military Ethics and Weaponry During the American Revolution,” Journal of Military History 58 (1994), 22.

  24 “generosity and clemency”: Ibid., 23.

  24 “You have established”: Ibid., 20.

  24 “a man of real merit”: Alexander Hamilton to John Laurens, October 11, 1780, PAH, 2: 467; see Sarah Knott, “Sensibility and the American War for Independence,” American Historical Review 109 (2004): 19–40.

  24 “modesty and gentleness”: Richard D. Loewenberg, “A Letter on Major John André in Germany,” American Historical Review 49 (1944): 261.

  25 truce flag plan: Robert Hatch, Major John André: A Gallant in Spy’s Clothing (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1986), 259–63; Winthrop Sargent, The Life and Career of Major John André, Adjutant-General of the British Army in America (New York: William Abbat, 1902), 400–10.

  25 condemned the use of spies: Vattel, Law of Nations, bk 2, §179, 375.

  25 executed a number of British spies: Ex parte Quirin, 317 U.S. 1, 42 n. 14 (1942); John Marshall, The Life of George Washington (Philadelphia: C. P. Wayne, 1805), 4: 403; see also Roger Kaplan, “The Hidden War: British Intelligence Operations During the American Revolution,” William & Mary Quarterly (3d series) 47 (1990): 131 & n. 44; Louis Fisher, “Military Commissions: Problems of Authority and Practice,” Boston University International Law Journal 24 (2006): 19.

  25 Board of General Officers: John Evangelist Walsh, The Execution of Major André (New York: Palgrave / St. Martin’s Press, 2001), 16–18; Detlev Vagts, “Military Commissions: A Concise History,” American Journal of International Law 101 (January 2007): 35, 37.

  25 condemned him as a spy: Sargent, Life and Career, 400, 410.

  25 appealed for mercy . . . men of sensibility: Knott, “Sensibility and the American War for Independence.”

  25 “practice and usage of war”: WGW, 8: 473.

  25 “Never . . . did any man suffer death”: Hamilton to Laurens, 9/1780, in Minutes of a Court of Inquiry, upon the Case of Major John André, with Accompanying Documents, Published in 1780 by Order of Congress (Albany, NY: J. Munsell, 1865), 55.

  25 “more unfortunate than criminal”: WGW, 7: 241.

  26 Mason Weems: Lewis Leary, The Book-Peddling Parson: An Account of the Life and Works of Mason Locke Weems, Patriot, Pitchman, Author and Purveyor of Morality to the Citizenry of the Early United States of America (Chapel Hill, NC: Algonquin Books, 1984).

  26 “humanity, of zeal, interest and of honor”: See, e.g., General Orders, September 4, 1777 (Wilmington, DE), PGW, Rev. War Series, 11: 141–43. Two contemporary orderly books recorded the order as referring not merely to “interest but to real interest.”

  27 “wanton Cruelty” . . . “all good men”: GW to Maj. Gen. Adam Stephen, April 20, 1777, PGW, Rev. War Series, 9: 223. Washington commended to Stephen the confluence of “Humanity & Policy.”

  27 “open the eyes”: Fischer, Washington’s Crossing, 276.

  27 “No fact can be clearer”: Paul H. Smith et al., eds., Letters of Delegates to Congress, 1774–1789 (Washington, DC: Library of Congress), 9: 244.

  27 “the authorized maxims”: Alexander Hamilton to Col. John Laurens, October 11, 1780, in PAH, 2: 460, 467–68.

  27 “little favourable to” . . . “usages of nations”: PGW, Presidential Series, 6: 441 (1790).

  28 alleged British atrocities: Jefferson’s preamble for the June 1776 Virginia Constitution is worth quoting at length. He accused the king of imposing tyranny

  by plundering our seas, ravaging our coasts, burning our towns and destroying the lives of our people;

  by inciting insurrections of our fellow subjects with the allurements of forfeiture & confiscation;

  by prompting our negroes to rise in arms among us; those very negroes whom, by an inhuman use of his negative, he hath refused permission to exclude by law;

  by endeavoring to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers the merciless Indian savages, whose known rule of warfare is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes, & conditions of existence;

  by transporting at this time a large army of foreign mercenaries to complete the works of death, desolation & tyranny already begun with circumstances of cruelty & perfidy so unworthy the head of a civilized nation. . . .

  See Draft Constitution for Virginia 1776, at http://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/jeffcons.asp.

  28 quoted Grotius: E.g., TJ to George Hammond, May 29, 1792, PTJ, 23: 541.

  28 references to the Swiss-born diplomat Vattel: E.g., TJ to James Madison, April 28, 1793, ibid., 25: 691.

  28 between noon and 2 p.m.: TJ to John Garland Jefferson, June 11, 1790, ibid., 16: 481.

  28 van Bynkershoek . . . Burlamaqui: Sowerby, Catalogue of the Library of Thomas Jefferson, 2: 67ff.; J. J. Burlamaqui, The Principles of Natural and Politic Law, trans. Thomas Nuge
nt (Philadelphia: H. C. Carey & I. Lea, 1823), 2: 191.

  28 “opened his doors to them”: Merrill D. Peterson, Thomas Jefferson and the New Nation: A Biography (New York: Oxford University Press, 1970), 164.

  28 “great cause” . . . “individual animosities”: Ibid., 165.

  29 “to mitigate the horrors” . . . “foes and neutrals”: TJ to Patrick Henry, March 27, 1779, PTJ, 2: 237, 242.

  29 “other ordinary vocations” . . . “did not exist”: TJ to Thomas Pinkney, September 7, 1793, ibid., 27: 55, 56.

  29 Dunmore . . . threatened to free the slaves: Maya Jasanoff, Liberty’s Exiles: American Loyalists in the Revolutionary World (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2011), 48–49; Sylvia R. Frey, Water from the Rock (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1991), 55; Simon Schama, Rough Crossings: Britain, the Slaves, and the American Revolution (New York: Ecco, 2006), 67.

  29 “All indentured Servants”: [Proclamation, Nov. 7, 1775], By His Excellency the Right Honourable John Earl of Dunmore, Evans Early American Imprint no. 14592.

  29 expanded Dunmore’s proclamation: Frey, Water from the Rock, 113; Schama, Rough Crossings, 100.

  29 some 20,000 slaves . . . twenty-three of Jefferson’s two hundred: Cassandra Pybus, “Jefferson’s Faulty Math: The Question of Slave Defections in the American Revolution,” William & Mary Quarterly (3d series) 62, no. 2 (2005): 243, 246. Pybus’s article is an important revision downward of earlier estimates that were closer to 100,000. See, e.g., Schama, Rough Crossings, 8.

  29 partisan war against their former masters: Schama, Rough Crossings, 125.

  30 A passage in Vattel’s: Vattel, Law of Nations, bk 2, §209, 394.

  30 Grotius observed that: Grotius, Rights of War and Peace, bk 3, ch. 15, 1510.

  30 “nothing else but the state of war continued”: Quoted in David Brion Davis, Introduction to Arming Slaves: From Classical Times to the Modern Age, ed. Christopher Leslie & Philip D. Morgan Brown (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2006), 3.