Civil Liberties in Wartime.

War and the apprehension of war have tested and sharpened American ideas about free speech and the judicial process ever since the sedition controversy of 1798-1800. During the Civil War, a conflict fought to enforce allegiance to the federal government, the problem of reconciling duties of loyalty and rights of expression was particularly acute. Not surprisingly, at times the federal government significantly restricted the liberties of its citizens, especially at moments and in places of particular peril to Union authority. For the most part, however, the federal government interfered with constitutional freedoms less aggressively in the Civil War than it would in either World War I or World War II. The political leaders of the mid nineteenth century were not necessarily more libertarian than their successors, but the government machinery available to suppress dissent was much...