On December 21, 1865, Samuel P.

Walker wrote a letter to Hugh

McCulloch, then the Secretary of the Treasury, discussing a deal he had
made with President Abraham Lincoln during the Civil War. On March 6,
1865, Lincoln purchased cotton from Walker and authorized him to
transport it to Mobile, Alabama past Army and Navy lines. On May 3,
1865, Walker purchased said cotton from a cotton agent from William
and Herring and stored it in Gainsville Sumpter County Alabama.
During this time on May 5, General Taylor surrendered confederate
forces in Alabam and Mississippi, including Mobile and Gainsville. Then
on May 10, General E. R. S.Canby ordered all cotton in his counties to
surrender all cotton and that the selling to private individuals and the
Confederate Government was prohibited. He also stated that
commanders of districts would get transcripts of records of cotton
agents who sold to treasury agents. Because of this, Walker entered
into an agreement with F. W. Kellogg, a treasury agent, on June 1st
1965, requesting the sage conduct and transportation of the cotton to
mobile. However, some time between June 30 and December 1 1865, a
treasury agent who claimed said cotton was property of the United
States Government took most of the cotton. This letter then concluded
with a petition to either retrieve this cotton or to be paid in equal
quantity of the same quality.
This petition led to the Supreme Court case Walkers Exrs v.
United States. During this case, it was revealed that John Scott, the

cotton agent for the Confederate Government, had sold cotton to a

man who then sold it to Walker on April 12, 1865, after the deal was
made with Lincoln. While the court found that Walker had no cause for
action against the government, it did raise two major questions: Did
the United States government take the cotton from Walker illegally and
could Abraham Lincoln trade with insurgents?
Samuel Walker received the order from Lincoln on March 6, 1865
for the purchase of the cotton he claimed he had owned at that point in
time. However, according to the bill of sale between Walker and the
cotton agent, the purchase of said cotton was made on April 12.
Because of this, the court found that the order given by Lincoln had no
authority. Despite this outcome, the United States government still
took Walkers property that he legally owned according to the bill of
sale. This then falls under jurisdiction of the occupational decrees
made under General Canby. The order made stated that all cotton in
east Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Florida was to be surrendered
to the United States unless a trade between treasury agents was
already being made. Since the sale was made between two people in
Alabama, Walker was forced to comply with this order, making the
confiscation of cotton legal.
To historians, this reveals how the Union army used the
occupation of Confederate territories to acquire resources. Because of
this, the Confederacy would then have lost revenue from what would

have been taxed as property. More importantly, the Confederacy lost

resources that the government would have gained through property
loans from cotton planters. Because of these losses, the Confederate
government would have taken more in property loans from the cotton
planters, aggravating the planters. This then reveals the difficulty the
Confederacy had with uniting the seceded states while still maintaining
the status of popular sovereignty within these states.
On July 4, 1861, Abraham Lincoln called a special session of
Congress discussing his suspension of the writ of habeas corpus. He
stated that in the Constitution, The privilege of the writ of habeas
corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in cases of rebellion or
invasion of public safety may require it (U.S. Constitution, Article I,
Section 9). He also defended himself by saying, Are all the laws but
one to go unexecuted and the Government itself go to pieces lest that
one be violated? (Abraham Lincoln, Message to Congress 1861). It
was on this platform of preserving the Union that Lincoln based a lot of
his executive actions on. The way Lincoln constructed the executive
power combined elements of constitutional formalism and realism, a
necessary combination for the political situation at the time (Lincolns
Construction of the Executive Power in the Secession Crisis). This
construction combined with the executive powers of Commander and
Chief allowed a certain amount of leeway to the extension of his
executive power, leading to the passage of the act on July 13, 1861. On

this day, the president was given authority by Congress to license

trade with his discretion to certain people living in states of
insurrection. By July 2, 1864, this part of the act was repealed, many
months before Lincoln made the deal with Walker.
Because the order was given after the repeal of this act,
historians can learn that Lincoln pushed boundaries to extend
executive powers. This then secures the notion of his devotion to
preserving the Union, even when he gave the Emancipation
Proclamation. Because of this, some historians have deemed Abraham
Lincoln a dictator. On the other hand, the ambiguity of the executive
powers, his role as Commander and Chief during his term, and the
overall success of these executive orders convinces other historians
that he was a progressive and just president. This document thus
shows the complexity of Lincolns presidency and the conflicting view
historians have with his extent of power.
Overall, this document revealed the complex relations the North
and the South had during the Civil War. On one hand, they were
fighting for the rights of the people, whether it be the South with
slaveholders or the North with slaves. On the other, both sides needed
each other in order to maintain the economic system that they were
accustomed to. Because of this, historians learn that the South and the
North could not exist without each other.