Abraham Lincoln

Emergency powers in their sharpest form. Lincoln suspended habeas corpus without Congress in 1861, ignored Chief Justice Taney's ruling against it in Ex parte Merryman, and allowed military trials of civilians, later condemned by the Supreme Court in Ex parte Milligan; thousands were detained and opposition newspapers were closed. He argued the Constitution could not survive if the Union did not. Against this stands the Emancipation Proclamation and the Thirteenth Amendment, the greatest expansion of liberty in American history.