{"product_id":"9780199923489","title":"The Fate of Liberty: Abraham Lincoln and Civil Liberties","description":"If Abraham Lincoln was known as the Great Emancipator, he was also the only  \u003cbr\u003e                president to suspend the writ of habeas corpus. Indeed, Lincoln's record on the  \u003cbr\u003e                Constitution and individual rights has fueled a century of debate, from charges that  \u003cbr\u003e                Democrats were singled out for harrassment to Gore Vidal's depiction of Lincoln as  \u003cbr\u003e                an \"absolute dictator.\" Now, in the Pulitzer Prize-winning The Fate of Liberty, one  \u003cbr\u003e                of America's leading authorities on Lincoln wades straight into this controversy,  \u003cbr\u003e                showing just who was jailed and why, even as he explores the whole range of  \u003cbr\u003e                Lincoln's constitutional policies.Mark Neely depicts Lincoln's suspension of habeas  \u003cbr\u003e                corpus as a well-intentioned attempt to deal with a floodtide of unforeseen events:  \u003cbr\u003e                the threat to Washington as Maryland flirted with secession, disintegrating public  \u003cbr\u003e                order in the border states, corruption among military contractors, the occupation of  \u003cbr\u003e                hostile Confederate territory, contraband trade with the South, and the outcry  \u003cbr\u003e                against the first draft in U.S. history. Drawing on letters from prisoners, records  \u003cbr\u003e                of military courts and federal prisons, memoirs, and federal archives, he paints a  \u003cbr\u003e                vivid picture of how Lincoln responded to these problems, how his policies were  \u003cbr\u003e                actually executed, and the virulent political debates that followed. Lincoln emerges  \u003cbr\u003e                from this account with this legendary statesmanship intact--mindful of political  \u003cbr\u003e                realities and prone to temper the sentences of military courts, concerned not with  \u003cbr\u003e                persecuting his opponents but with prosecuting the war efficiently. In addition,  \u003cbr\u003e                Neely explores the abuses of power under the regime of martial law: the routine  \u003cbr\u003e                torture of suspected deserters, widespread antisemitism among Union generals and  \u003cbr\u003e                officials, the common practice of seizing civilian hostages. He finds that though  \u003cbr\u003e                the system of military justice was flawed, it suffered less from merciless zeal, or  \u003cbr\u003e                political partisanship, than from inefficiency and the friction and complexities of  \u003cbr\u003e                modern war.Informed by a deep understanding of a unique period in American history,  \u003cbr\u003e                this incisive book takes a comprehensive look at the issues of civil liberties  \u003cbr\u003e                during Lincoln's administration, placing them firmly in the political context of the  \u003cbr\u003e                time. Written with keen insight and an intimate grasp of the original sources, The  \u003cbr\u003e                Fate of Liberty offers a vivid picture of the crises and chaos of a nation at war  \u003cbr\u003e                with itself, changing our understanding of this president and his most controversial  \u003cbr\u003e                policies.","brand":"Oxford University Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47119916695792,"sku":"9780199923489","price":32.49,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0737\/7593\/9824\/files\/9780199923489_p0.jpg?v=1763673938","url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/9780199923489","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}