Constitutional Problems under Lincoln / J. G. Randall.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Randall, J. G. (James Garfield), 1881-1953, author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Constitutional law--United States.

Constitutional history--United States.

United States--Politics and government--1861-1865.

Lincoln, Abraham, 1809-1865.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (xxxiii, 596 pages)

Edition:

Revised edition.

Other Title:

Constitutional Problems under Lincoln

Place of Publication:

Urbana : University of Illinois Press, 1951.

Summary:

The purpose of this volume is to examine those measures of the Lincoln government which involved significant constitutional issues. While Lincoln spoke of the cause for which he contended as no less than the maintenance of democracy in the world, such a man as Wendell Phillips denounced Lincoln's government as a "fearful peril to democratic institutions" and characterized the President as an "unlimited despot." In the doubtful struggle to preserve the Union, the war Congress and the war Cabinet had many a hard choice to make when measures out of harmony with American notions of civil liberty seemed the only alternative to defeat and disintegration. "Must a government, of necessity, be too strong for the liberties of its own people, or too weak to maintain its own existence?" was the question Lincoln propounded when making one of his difficult decisions, and this question embodied a real dilemma which his government continually confronted. To study in some detail, both historically and legally, the manner in which these constitutional problems of the Civil War presented themselves, to note the measures taken in solving them, and to offer such an appraisal of these measures as historical research may justify, is our task. - Introduction.

Contents:

Introduction

The Constitution and the war powers

The legal nature of the Civil War

The law of treason

The treatment of Confederate leaders

The power to suspend the habeas corpus privilege

Military rule and arbitrary arrests

Martial law and military commissions

The Indemnity Act of 1863

The regime of conquest in occupied districts of the South

Legal and Constitutional bearings of conscription

The policy of confiscation

The right of confiscation

Restoration of captured and confiscated property

Steps toward emancipation

Emancipation completed

State and federal relations during the Civil War

The partition of Virginia

The relation of the government to the press

Summary and conclusion.

Notes:

Description based on: online resource; title from PDF information screen (Worldcat, viewed June 13, 2023).