The Impact of Ex Parte Milligan on Civil Liberties and African Americans

On the very finish of the Civil Warfare, a navy court docket convicted Lambdin P. Milligan and his coconspirators in Indiana of fomenting a basic revolt and sentenced them to hold. On attraction, in
Ex parte Milligan the US Supreme Court docket sided with the conspirators, ruling that it was unconstitutional to attempt Americans in navy tribunals when civilian courts have been open and functioning—as they have been in Indiana. Removed from being a relic of the Civil Warfare, the landmark 1866 choice has shocking relevance in our day, as this quantity makes clear. Cited in 4 Supreme Court docket choices arising from the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq,
Ex parte Milligan speaks to constitutional questions raised by the struggle on terror; however greater than that, the authors of Ex parte Milligan
Reconsidered contend, the case affords a possibility to reevaluate the historical past of wartime civil liberties from the Civil Warfare period to our personal.

After the Civil War, critics of Reconstruction often highlighted Milligan as an example of the Republican Party's misuse of federal power. Even historians sympathetic to Lincoln have felt compelled to address his administration's track record on civil liberties during the war. However, the authors of this work argue that this perspective distorts the nineteenth-century interpretation of the Bill of Rights, completely overlooks international law, and fails to consider the experiences of African Americans. By revisiting Milligan, the Supreme Court has indirectly framed Reconstruction as a "war on terror," where terrorist uprisings posed a threat and ultimately hindered the advancement of black freedom championed by the Republican Party, the Union Army, and African Americans themselves. By recentering African Americans in this narrative and acknowledging that Lincoln and the Republicans were often compelled to limit white civil liberties to secure black civil rights and freedoms, Ex parte Milligan Reconsidered presents a markedly different view of wartime civil liberties. This perspective carries significant implications for US racial history and constitutional law in the context of today's fight against terrorism.