Book Description

Whiting, William. War Powers under the Constitution of the United States. Military Arrests, Reconstruction & Military Government. Also, Now First Published, War Claims of Aliens with Notes on the Acts of the Executives & Legislative Departments During Our Civil War & a Collection of Cases Decided in the National Courts. 1864. Tenth edition. Boston: Little, Brown, and Company, 1864. xvii, 342 pp. Reprinted 2002 by The Lawbook Exchange, Ltd. LCCN 99-049360. ISBN 1-58477-055-4. Cloth. $80. * Whiting's writings are widely believed to have profoundly affected President Lincoln's war actions. In Whiting's legal theories regarding war powers and the abolition of slavery espoused here Lincoln found justification for the Emancipation Proclamation, and the constitutional authority to abolish slavery. Simply stated, Whiting held that the abolition of slavery is constitutionally appropriate when viewed not as the objective end of the war, but as a means to end the rebellion in order to save the republic. His writing style was geared to the average reader, and this popular style, along with the tremendous influence of his writings led to the work going through 43 editions in less than a decade. This, the tenth edition is based on his earlier work, The War Powers of the President and the Legislative Powers of Congress, in Relation to Rebellion, Treason and Slavery (1862) which is thought to have been the work that originally brought Whiting to Lincoln's attention and led to his appointment as Solicitor of the War Department. This edition includes various unpublished sensitive documents that he handled in the course of that position.