The Fate of Liberty: Abraham Lincoln and Civil Liberties PDF
Preview The Fate of Liberty: Abraham Lincoln and Civil Liberties
The Fate of Liberty This page intentionally left blank The Fate of Liberty Abraham Lincoln and Civil Liberties MARK E. NEELY, JR. New York Oxford OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS 1991 Oxford University Press Oxford New York Athens Auckland Bangkok Bombay Calcutta Cape Town Dar es Salaam Delhi Florence Hong Kong Istanbul Karachi Kuala Lumpur Madras Madrid Melbourne Mexico City Nairobi Paris Singapore Taipei Tokyo Toronto and associated companies in Berlin Ibadan Copyright © 1991 by Mark E. Neely, Jr. Published by Oxford University Press, Inc., 198 Madison Avenue, New York, New York 10016 Oxford is a registered trademark of Oxford University Press All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of Oxford University Press. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Neely, Mark E. The fate of liberty: Abraham Lincoln and civil liberties Mark E. Neely, Jr. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references. ISBN 0-19-506496-8 ISBN 0-19-508032-7 (Pbk.) 1. Lincoln, Abraham, 1809-1865—Views on civil rights. 2. Habeas corpus—United States—History—19th century. 3. Civil Rights—United States—History—19th century. 4. United States—History—Civil War, 1861-1865—Law and legislation. !. Title. E457.2.N46 1991 97}.7'092—dc20 90-31907 4 6 8 9 75 Printed in the United States of America on acid-lrec paper For Sylvia This page intentionally left blank Acknowledgments Michael Musick, of the National Archives, made this book possible by locating the arrest records on which it is based. William Gienapp, now of Harvard University, gave me my first opportunity to discuss the subject in a public forum back in 1981. Eight years later, he gave the manuscript a careful and astute reading. John Y. Simon, editor of The Papers of Ulysses S. Grant, also read the manuscript with care and offered useful suggestions. Sarah McNair Vosmeier and Matthew N. Vosmeier, now graduate students at Indiana Uni- versity, between them, read one thousand of the cases on -which the book is based. We have had numerous conversations on the subject that benefited me a great deal. Sarah also read the final manuscript. Frank J. Williams, president of the Abraham Lincoln Association, read the manuscript closely, and my frequent co-author, Harold Holzer, Executive Vice President for Public Affairs of the New York State Urban Development Corporation, offered his usual good advice. David H. Donald granted me permission to use the J. G. Randall Papers. Robert J. Chandler, of the Wells Fargo Bank's Historical Department; Richard N. Current, now of South Natick, Massachusetts; and Don E. Fehrenbacher, professor emeritus at Stanford University, offered encouragement and read parts of the manuscript.* Sylvia E. Neely read it all, over and over again, offering ten years of unstinting encouragement, clever advice, and genuine understanding. Fort Wayne, Indiana M.E.N., Jr. February 1990 *I have rendered quotations as they appeared in the original sourees with the occasional exceptions of terminal punctuation, initial capitalization, and the variant texts of Gideon Welles's diary, as edited by Howard K. Beale. Changes are for the sake of readability alone. This page intentionally left blank Contents Introduction, xi 1. Actions without Precedent, 3 2. Missouri and Martial Law, 32 3. Low Tide for Liberty, 51 4. Arrests Move South, 75 5. The Dark Side of the Civil War, 93 6. Numbers and Definitions, 113 7. The Revival of International Law, 139 8. The Irrelevance of the Milligan Decision, 160 9. The Democratic Opposition, 185 10. Lincoln and the Constitution, 210 Epilogue, 223 Notes, 237 Index of Prisoners of State, 269 Index, 273
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