Question/Problem 5: What did Abraham Lincoln do to preserve the Union?

To the Commanding General of the Army of the United States:

You are engaged in repressing an insurrection against the laws of the United States. If at any point on or in the vicinity of the military line, which is now used between the City of Philadelphia and the City of Washington, via Perryville, Annapolis City, and Annapolis Junction, you find resistance which renders it necessary to suspend the writ of Habeas Corpus for the public safety, you, personally or through the officer in command at the point where the resistance occurs, are authorized to suspend that writ.

ABRAHAM LINCOLN

From Mario M. Cuomo and Harold Holzer, eds., Lincoln On Democracy, p. 214.

Meanwhile, Lincoln dealt harshly with 'the enemy in the rear -- with what he called 'a most efficient corps of spies, informers, suppliers, and aiders and abettors' of the rebellion who took advantage of 'Liberty of speech, Liberty of the press and Habeas corpus' to disrupt the Union war effort. Consequently he suspended the writ of habeas corpus and authorized army commanders to declare martial law in various areas behind the lines and to try civilians in military courts. Lincoln steadfastly defended such an invasion of civil liberties, contending that strict measures were imperative if the laws of the Union and liberty itself-- were to survive this 'clear, flagrant, and gigantic case of Rebellion...'

...Chief Justice Taney...rebuked Lincoln for usurping power in suspending the writ of habeas corpus. Only Congress could legally do that, Taney argued, and he admonished the President not to violate the very laws he had sworn to uphold. 'Are all the la ws, but one? to go unexecuted,' Lincoln replied later, in reference to habeas corpus, 'and the government itself go to pieces, lest that one be violated?' Besides, the Constitution did not specify which branch of the government could suspend the writ, so that Lincoln didn't think he had broken any laws or violated his oath of office. Therefore the government would continue to imprison people who were known disloyalists.