Francis Lieber (1798–1872) was professor at Columbia College who advised Abraham Lincoln on the law of war. G. Norman Lieber (1837–1923), Francis’s son, taught law at West Point. Will Smiley is an assistant professor of humanities at the University of New Hampshire. John Fabian Witt is the Allen H. Duffy Class of 1960 Professor of Law at Yale Law School and the Head of Yale’s Davenport College.
"When arguments for a legally unrestrained executive are again in
fashion, this retrieval of Lincoln’s lawyer’s theory of appropriate
legal restraint during wartime emergency could not be more
timely."—David Dyzenhaus, University of Toronto
"Smiley and Witt have unearthed a lost treasure. As we debate how
our constitutional democracy handles great stress, this work helps
us understand how the system has survived so far.”—Matthew C.
Waxman, Columbia University
"Through their extraordinary discovery of Francis Lieber’s
unpublished notes, Smiley and Witt not only provide a crucial new
primary source that contextualizes Lieber’s role in the development
of laws of war but also, amazingly enough, a fruitful way to
reconsider the old, vital question of what constraints law can
offer in times of war. A book every historian of the Civil War and
every scholar of laws of warfare should rush to read."—Gregory P.
Downs, author of After Appomattox: Military Occupation and the Ends
of War
"The manuscripts that Smiley and Witt have recovered should be
required reading for anyone who cares about the operation of the
Constitution in wartime and more generally about what legal limits
should—or should not—constrain the government in confronting
emergencies."—Amanda L. Tyler, University of California, Berkeley
School of Law
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