Not really an history question but the ethics/philosophy question came about while thinking of history.
Lincoln violated the constitution a few times and although he's universally recognized as a moral leader, was it a good thing? Was it not designed to provide checks and balances on power? The argument I got when discussing this today was "he was in uncharted waters and did what was necessary". So the more general question is, when and how does one deem it necessary to break the rules.
Rules are in place for those who aren't capable of being good citizens without some sort of consequence. An example of this would be someone who robs and steals during riots in a moment of weakness in law enforcement or someone who murders because he thinks he can get away with it.
In fact, there's no reason to assume there's any higher moral basis for rules and laws, because if there were, there would be no such thing as conflicting laws in different countries yet there are. It might be illegal to smoke marijuana in one country and it might be perfectly legal in another, for instance. Therefore, they're put in place to maintain order, nothing more.
Of course, the catch 22 is, how do you know when you're doing the right thing then? If you break the law to do what, according to you, is the right thing, then there would be many others who would argue the opposite despite any attempts to prove them wrong. Someone might think killing the guy that slept with his wife as perfectly normal and sane, for instance. Yet, we know that laws themselves don't always uphold higher moral ground. Taxing a family out of their last dime is far from morally correct, yet it gets enforced for the simple reason that laws must apply to all.
Abraham Lincoln was paraded as a hero, though in not even such different circumstances, he would have been considered one of the worst presidents America had ever known. It might have been enough that the south had won the war, for instance. Therefore, as trivial as it sounds, whether it is right to break the rules is entirely dependent upon which moral compass you're holding at the time.
There is the smell of a paradox lurking here.
Let us assume that there is some system of rules that codify what is the right thing to do. (I am attempting to formulate things so that this applies equally to the question as restricted to political philosophy as well as to the more general moral philosophy reading of it.)
Let us assume further that there are indeed circumstances where the right thing to do would be to violate the rules that the first assumption posits.
If the circumstances in which it would be right to violate the rules were able to be sharply delineated, then such a sharp delineation would actually serve as a source of further (implicit) rules.
So, while it may well be that there are rules and that it is sometimes right to violate them, the question as put invites a further expansion of the rules to encompass the circumstances under which the violation of the rules would be right. Hence, if the the question is answerable in a sharp sense, it is mis-posed.
Lincoln violated the constitution a few times and although he's universally recognized as a moral leader, was it a good thing?
I very much disagree with this premise. He did not free the slaves that existed in states that remained in the Union. He was responsible for the single greatest power grab by the federal government in history. And he was responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Americans much of which could have been avoided had Lincoln been willing to allow reunification once it was clear that the south was defeated. Instead he chose a path of conquest. Many people who were pro-Union and anti-slavery in the south suffered and lost as a result of the land they owned being in a slave state.
Was it not designed to provide checks and balances on power?
Yes. As far as I am concerned this was the most egregious violation of basic human rights, and to the rights of the states to be soveriegn entities as well.
The argument I got when discussing this today was "he was in uncharted waters and did what was necessary". So the more general question is, when and how does one deem it necessary to break the rules.
There were other options. Slavery was near its end because of the industrial revolution. It was a flash point political issue of the time. There was never any intention to treat the slaves as actual people. In fact the union was very much against that in the first place.
Lincoln was essentially beatified in US Culture after his death because of the need of the symbol. Our christan roots elevated martyrdom despite any shortcomings or actual achievements. It is indeed possible that the victory of the Union held back both persons of color and women from full acceptance as persons of equal value to while males. The liberated slaves no longer had work or anyone to provide for their families. Many were allowed to starve to death after all they were not human beings what did it matter? The labor that the slaves provided was replaced by machines. Most of them run by white men.
A person can choose to break the rules knowing that there will be consequenses. It is never ok for a government to break the rules on those they govern's behalf. There are methods to change the rules. There are instances of specific exceptions (See the 14th amendment) to rules that exist. To me any blatent violation of the constitution, reguardless of the reason, is Treason pure and simple. I dont care if it is authorizing the abduction and torture of terror suspects, or using power to coverup and facilitate violations of the constitution.
Governments that are created to be bound by rules set in place, have a covenent with the people to operate under prescribed conditions. When the governement or a member of the government acting as an agent of the government they are breaking that covnent with the people. This is at its worst treason. The governement has the power to destroy and cause the deaths of millions of not just its own citizens. This power is granted with the limitations imposed. The usurping of power not granted and especially that which is expressly forbidden to it, is a form of the highest crime against those it governs. It risks the very legitimacy of the nation and its government when it does so.
Seems like Lincoln is still without controversy, but maybe going a little further back we can find an action against a government that is less controversial. In addition, perhaps we can find the germ of Lincoln's justification (and the outrage of those who have opposed his justification) in the words that launched the United State of America as a nation:
When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.
What this remarkable statement says is that the British government systematically and sustainedly denied the people of the colonies to what it calls "unalienable Rights" endowed by man's Creator. Because the previous Government was not constructive, but "destructive of these ends", it became necessary for the colonies "to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with [Britain]". It's not explicitly stated here, but the colonies did not have the power to alter the previous Government and therefore was left only with the power to abolish it.
It appears that the Southern states saw the US Government in much the same light as the Founding Fathers saw the British Government. It seems that Lincoln did not see things that way. His most well-known, and perhaps best, statement of his position on the war comes from his Gettysburg Address:
Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.
Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.
But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate -- we can not consecrate -- we can not hallow -- this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us -- that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion -- that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain -- that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom -- and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.
Here, Lincoln seems to justify the civil war as necessary on the same grounds as the Revolutionary War was necessary. He seems to take the earlier Declaration of Independence as higher priority than the Constitution, which came later. He certainly played hard and fast with the rules, if he didn't violate his constitutional powers outright. He justified himself (whether rightly or wrongly) by appealing to a higher rule: "that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth."
So I think a legitimate grounds for violating a rule is in the service of a greater rule. That's why the police are allowed to speed and double-park when pursuing criminals.
Right and worng are subjective. In fact, some of the eastern philosophies like 'Advaita' does not even differentiate them.
Usually we reason out that the act of violation if resulted in something much better from the overall moral aspects, compared to the harm it caused, you are morally right to break it.
Eg:Getting down to a railway track to save a child fallen there.
But one of the many possible exceptions to the above is :'killing one innocent person to save thousands'. Because here the one who chooses the decision has no right (as we generally assume it to be) to kill somebody(has no way to assertain that he is ethically right).
We need to find out the root cause for laws to be there; Usually it is to overcome chaos and anarchism. And if the violation does not deviate much from that cause, you can do it.
Mahathma Gandhi violated law for a cause during his non violence movement and that caused his peole to step closer to 'their dream' of being independent.
"I would rather prefer to be ethically right than legally right". But then the question goes to what ethics is. It is paradoxical to a greater extent-you can't break a law until you are 100% sure you are ethically right and there is no absolute system to verify that you are 100% right But at the same time you know that not breaking it will be right neither.
In some cases we can easily reason out but it is tough to assertain in certain other cases.
This is apparent and that is why we call this universe full of 'imperfections' and 'uncertainities' for human cognition.
This depends entirely on your moral framework; as a moral objectivist, the particular moment "when" it is OK to "break the rules" is arbitrary, based on each person's own moral viewpoint. I.E. there is no universal "it is always OK to break the rules if X happens". We determine when it is OK for each of ourselves and this "breaking point" will inevitably vary from person to person.
When the outcome is greater and outweighs the evil of breaking the rules. Goes back to the origins of, doing a bad thing for a good cause.
For example to avoid damage you may tell a lie. You should not lie but it is OK to tell a lie being asked by a bank robber whether you know the combination to the vault.
