Lincoln and the Constitution: The Dictatorship Question Reconsidered

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Over the past one hundred years historians and political scientists have established the convention that Abraham Lincoln felt justified in exercising dictatorial powers in order to save the union. This understanding distorts American constitutional history and is inaccurate about Lincoln in particular. Lincoln always claimed to be acting within constitutional constraints, justifying his actions both with legalistic arguments based on constitutional texts and with more general arguments about the fundamental nature of American constitutional government.