{ "item_title" : "Terrorists on Trial", "item_author" : [" Brooks D. Simpson "], "item_description" : "A compelling examination of one of the Supreme Court's most consequential civil liberties cases by one of the nation's leading historians of the Civil War and Reconstruction.An antiwar Democrat who supported the Confederate states' right to secede and advocated for violent resistance to the US government, Lambdin P. Milligan and fellow members of the insurrectionist Sons of Liberty were arrested by military authorities in the fall of 1864 on charges of seditious conspiracy against the United States. Because President Lincoln had suspended habeas corpus, no formal justification for his arrest was required. Milligan and two others were convicted by military commission on December 10, 1864, and sentenced to hang. Their legal challenge ultimately reached the Supreme Court, which ruled in 1866 that the military commission lacked jurisdiction to try Milligan.In the wake of Ex parte Milligan, however, the decision took on unexpected and troubling consequences. White supremacists resisting Reconstruction in the South seized upon the ruling after being arrested by military commissions for terrorizing Black Americans. Among them was journalist William McCardle, whose inflammatory attacks on Reconstruction led to his arrest and subsequent appeal to the Supreme Court. His case threatened to undermine congressional efforts to protect the rights of formerly enslaved people--an outcome averted only when congressional Republicans moved to strip the Court of jurisdiction before it could rule.Ex parte Milligan (1866) is widely celebrated as one of the Supreme Court's landmark defenses of civil liberties, yet its legacy is far more complicated than is often acknowledged. By rejecting the use of military commissions to try civilians where civil courts remained open, the Court established important limits on how the suspension of habeas corpus could be used during times of war and domestic unrest. For generations, the decision has stood as a powerful symbol of constitutional liberty and the rule of law. As the eminent legal historian Charles Warren famously observed, it served as a bulwark of American liberty.Yet a closer examination of the decision, the circumstances surrounding it, and its long-term consequences reveals a far more nuanced story. The case raises enduring questions about the boundaries between dissent and disloyalty, the constitutional authority to suspend habeas corpus, and the proper balance between civil liberties and public order in times of crisis. Those debates remain as urgent today as they were during the Civil War and Reconstruction.Brooks D. Simpson offers a fresh, accessible, and deeply insightful account of this landmark case and its far-reaching implications. Placing Ex parte Milligan within the broader struggles of war, Reconstruction, civil liberties, and constitutional power, he reveals why this pivotal decision continues to resonate in an era marked by renewed debates over insurrection, dissent, and the limits of government authority.", "item_img_path" : "https://covers3.booksamillion.com/covers/bam/0/70/064/395/0700643958_b.jpg", "price_data" : { "retail_price" : "79.99", "online_price" : "79.99", "our_price" : "79.99", "club_price" : "79.99", "savings_pct" : "0", "savings_amt" : "0.00", "club_savings_pct" : "0", "club_savings_amt" : "0.00", "discount_pct" : "10", "store_price" : "" } }

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