Lieber Code: Difference between revisions

The '''Lieber Code''' of April 24, 1863, issued as '''General Orders No. 100''', Adjutant General's Office, 1863,<ref>{{cite book |year=1863 |title=Instructions for the Government of the Armies of the United States in the Field, Prepared by Francis Lieber, LL.D. and Revised by a Board of Officers |edition= 1|publisher=D.Van Nostrand |publication-date=1863 |publication-place=New York |url=https://archive.org/details/governarmies00unitrich|access-date=23 August 2015 |via= Internet Archive}}</ref><ref>The Lieber Code can also be found in U.S. War Department, ''The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies,'' (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1899), Series III, '''3''', pp. 148–164.</ref> was an instruction signed by U.S. President [[Abraham Lincoln]] to the [[Union (American Civil War)|Union]] forces of the United States during the [[American Civil War]] that dictated how [[soldier]]s should conduct themselves in [[war]]time. Its name reflects its author, the German–American legal scholar and political philosopher [[Francis Lieber|Franz Lieber]].

 

Franz Lieber had fought for [[Prussia]] in the [[Napoleonic Wars]] and in the [[Greek War of Independence]]. He denied being an [[abolitionist]], but he was very anti-slavery. He became well-acquainted with Southern culture during the two decades he spent teaching in [[South Carolina]], where he was exposed to the horrors and inhumanities of the [[Slavery in the United States|institution of slavery in the United States]].<ref>{{cite book|last=Carnahan|first=Burrus M. |title=Lincoln on Trial: Southern Civilians and the Law of War |date=2010|publisher=The University Press of Kentucky |location=United States |page=30}}</ref> Beginning in October 1861, as professor of history and political science in New York at what became [[Columbia University]], Lieber delivered a series of lectures at its new [[Columbia Law School|Law School]] titled "The Laws and Usages of War". He believed the methods used in war needed to align with its goals and that the ends must justify the means.

 

By year's end, Halleck and Stanton invited Lieber to Washington to revise the [[Uniform Code of Military Justice|1806 Articles of War]]. Other members of the revision committee included Major Generals [[Ethan A. Hitchcock (general)|Ethan Allen Hitchcock]], [[George Cadwalader]], and [[George L. Hartsuff]], and Brigadier General [[John Henry Martindale]], but essentially Lieber was left to draft instructions for Union soldiers facing these situations. Halleck edited them to ensure nothing conflicted with Lincoln's [[Emancipation Proclamation]]. Then Lincoln issued them in April 1863.<ref name="NY" />

 

 

The military law of the Lieber Code required the humane, ethical treatment of civil populations in areas occupied by the Union Army, and forbade the [[No Quarter]] policy of killing prisoners of war, except in cases when taking prisoners endangered the survival of the capturing unit. Forbade the use of poisons, because the army who use poison as warfare thus place themselves outside the practises of civilized warfare. Forbade [[torture]] to obtain military information, defined and described the rights and duties of prisoners of war and of the captor army.

 

Moreover, the Lieber Code also prohibited [[rape]] as a means of warfare; paragraphs 44 and 47 prohibit various war crimes, such as ‘all rape . . . by an American soldier in a hostile country against its inhabitants . . . under the penalty of death, or such other severe punishment as may seem adequate for the gravity of the offense.’ <ref>{{Cite web |url=http://www.civilwarhome.com/liebercode.htm |title=The Lieber Code of 1863 |author=Francis Lieber |display-authors=etal |publisher=United States War Department |date=24 April 1863 |access-date=10 March 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20010407120840/http://www.civilwarhome.com/liebercode.htm |archive-date=2001-04-07 }}</ref> The enforcement of the Lieber Code was at the discretion of the unit commander, including the right to order the [[summary execution]] of war-criminal soldiers.<ref name="Kuo 2002 306">{{cite journal|last=Kuo|first=Peggy|url=https://scholarlycommons.law.case.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1467&context=jil|title=Prosecuting Crimes of Sexual Violence in an International Tribunal|journal=Case Western Reserve Journal of International Law|year=2002|volume=34|page=306–307}}</ref>

 

President Lincoln commissioned the military law of the Lieber Code to provide a legal basis for dealing with Confederate [[guerrilla warfare]] that violated the customary rules of warfare.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Swenson |first=Benjamin J. |date=October 2022 |title=“‘Measures of Conciliation’: Winfield Scott, Henry Halleck, and the Origins of US Army Counterinsurgency Doctrine.” |url=https://web.s.ebscohost.com/abstract?direct=true&profile=ehost&scope=site&authtype=crawler&jrnl=08993718&AN=159388531&h=1sCF5exxMSpxC%2f0X8L7XPE07YTIKLLvZtNWaebDenx%2fjiUr5Gk4VpwZQmShixSPs9RR8YF9GpvDRm6%2bNqyDpXA%3d%3d&crl=c&resultNs=AdminWebAuth&resultLocal=ErrCrlNotAuth&crlhashurl=login.aspx%3fdirect%3dtrue%26profile%3dehost%26scope%3dsite%26authtype%3dcrawler%26jrnl%3d08993718%26AN%3d159388531 |journal=The Journal of Military History |volume=86 |issue=4 |pages=859-881|via=ebscohost.com}}</ref> Moreover, concerning captured black soldiers of the Union Army, the president of the Confederacy, [[Jefferson Davis]] officially announced that the Confederacy would treat black Union soldiers as escaped slaves, not as soldiers; as such, black soldiers were subject to summary execution or to re-enslavement in the Confederacy.<ref>{{cite news|url=https://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/04/24/the-lieber-codes/|title=The Lieber Codes|date=April 24, 2013|newspaper=The New York Times}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://opil.ouplaw.com/view/10.1093/law:epil/9780199231690/law-9780199231690-e2126|title=Lieber Code|publisher=Oxford Public International Law|access-date=November 9, 2017}}</ref>

 

The Lieber Code defended the legal legitimacy of the [[Emancipation Proclamation]] (1863) and prohibited racist discrimination on the basis of the skin colour of a combatant soldier.<ref name="documents.law.yale.edu">{{cite web|url=http://documents.law.yale.edu/lincolns-code|title=Lincoln's Code – Document Collection Center|website=documents.law.yale.edu}}</ref>

 

 

 

 

{{quote|14. Military necessity, as understood by modern civilized nations, consists in the necessity of those measures which are indispensable for securing the ends of the war, and which are lawful according to the modern law and usages of war.