Customer Reviews

The Fate of Liberty: Abraham Lincoln and Civil Liberties

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
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Neely gives an excellent and detailed review of how civil liberties suffered during the War Between the States. The right of habeas corpus is Neely's main concern, but trials by military commissons and international law are covered among other topics.

If you're not a Civil War buff, this book may seem pretty dry. For example, a lot of space is devoted to evaluating the various claims of how many military prisoners there were. While this is important historical data, it made my eyes glaze over and prompted me to skim several sections of the book.

Given the post-9/11 discussions of military tribunals and other curtailments of the Bill of Rights, this book is more relevant than ever.

This book gives an excellent look into the policies of the Lincoln administration and the effects of these policies on civil liberties in the United States. A common misconception regarding this subject is that the majority of those arrested as a result of the suspension of habeas corpus were political enemies of Lincoln. This book, however, demonstrates how many of the arrests were not based upon politics, but upon how the crimes committed affected the war effort. Most attention in the past has focused on a few famous cases such as Clement Vallandingham, but this book shows that this case was an exception to the rule.

A must-read for anyone interested in the Civil War or Abraham Lincoln. Neely also writes in a clear prose that clearly explains his points and allows the reader to understand what he is talking about even without having an extensive knowledge of Lincoln or the Civil War.

I gobbled up this book, but then, it falls right into my current research topic. Others who found it dull have a point if they are not into this era or the topic, but I loved reading it. I might have given it 4 1/2 stars because occasionally Neely's liberal side sneaks through, as when he deemed the military draft of 1862 an odious event. That's a personal value judgment, not a fact. That it was PERCEIVED by many Northerners as odious, is a fact. But that is a tiny, tiny flaw, and the book is definitely deserving of the Pulitzer it received. (And I suspect those occasional liberal slips were vital to winning the Pulitzer.) Neely's marvelous academic study contradicts with extensively researched facts (the man read 137 rolls of microfilm searching for arrest records) the rantings of the Lincoln-was-a-despot Libertarians such as Thomas DiLorenzo. Not light reading but highly recommended for scholars.

This is a very worthy and scholarly work with more detail than you could ask for on the subject. My problem with it is that is is a difficult read that is best taken in small doses. No doubt Neely is the award winning expert, it shows.