President Lincoln’s record of suspending habeas corpus and imprisoning disloyal citizens is well known and controversial. White will discuss several key cases from the time period, shedding light on a number of perennially controversial legal and constitutional issues in American history, including the nature and extent of presidential war powers, the development of national policies for dealing with disloyalty and treason and the protection of civil liberties in wartime.
White is the author of several highly regarded books about Lincoln, including Abraham Lincoln and Treason in the Civil War: The Trials of John Merryman and Emancipation, the Union Army and the Reelection of Abraham Lincoln, which was selected by The Civil War Monitor as one of the best books of 2014. He writes extensively, including for such popular publications as The New York Times Civil War “Disunion” blog.
White is an assistant professor of American studies and a fellow in the Center for American Studies at Christopher Newport University.
The lecture is free and open to the public. The Amicus Curiae Lecture Series is sponsored by the Simon Perry Center for Constitutional Democracy with support from the West Virginia Humanities Council.