I found a Civil War history written in 1917 at the Internet Public Library. I like old histories because 1) they're often very well-written, in clear (if not always concise), straight-ahead, active prose 2) there is often an emphasis on actions and events that we don't pay that much attention to today; for example, most of today's histories of the Civil War focus on the combat and the sociological aspects of the war, to the exclusion of economic, diplomatic, and especially political events 3) you can learn as much or more about society at the time the book was written due to the attitudes expressed as you learn about the historical events treated.

An excellent example is the book from the 20s I found about the Spanish-American war, which makes a big deal about battallions of immune soldiers. I'd never thought about it, but, of course, you're going to want to send guys who are immune to yellow fever to the Caribbean in the pre-sulfa-and-antibiotic age. They were really afraid of disease back then. Another is in the book I found on American diplomatic history, which lays a great deal of emphasis on diplomatic insults and how grievously they were once taken, and on the fact that the United States until the aftermath of the First World War had a significant and quite rabid war'n'imperialism sector of opinion; there were a bunch of morons called the War Hawks in the 1830s and 40s who wanted to go to war with Britain and were looking for any possible excuse to do so. There was always an important party who wanted to annex Cuba, and Grant wanted to annex the Dominican Republic, of all places; Congress voted it down. Another thing that's kind of sad is the always-underlying racism; all writers on the Civil War before the 50s and several later writers simply assume "negroes" are inferior. They also all assume that separation of the races is part of the natural order of things.

Anyway, here's an excerpt about the suspension of civil liberties during the Civil War. It's from History of the Civil War, 1861-1865, by James Ford Rhodes.





In the practical application of the clause of the Constitution, “The privilege of the writ of habeas corpus shall not be suspended unless when in cases of rebellion or invasion the public safety may require it,” the Confederate government exhibited the greater regard for the liberty of the individual, and the Southern citizen the greater jealousy of the use of arbitrary power. Lincoln from the first assumed the right to suspend the writ by Executive decree, a right never claimed by Davis. It was generally conceded at the South that Congress alone possessed this power and the privilege was available to the citizens of the Confederacy except when curtailed by express statute. And the Confederate Congress asserted its rights boldly enough, declaring in the Act of February 15, 1864, that “the power of suspending the privilege of said writ … is vested solely in the Congress which is the exclusive judge of the necessity of such suspension.” The war may be said to have lasted four years: the periods of suspension of the writ in the Confederacy amounted in the aggregate to one year, five months and two days, less than one-half of the war’s duration. In the Union the writ was suspended or disregarded at any time and in any place where the Executive, or those to whom he delegated this power, deemed such action necessary. For anyone who in any manner or degree took an unfriendly attitude toward the recruitment of the army, for political prisoners, for persons suspected of “any disloyal practice,” the privilege did not exist. It was suspended for one year, ten months and twenty-one days by Executive assumption and for the rest of the period by the authorization of Congress. 33
The provocation for the use of arbitrary power was, all things considered, about equal in the Confederacy and the Union. In the Union the “disloyal” secret societies were larger and more dangerous, and the public criticism of the administration more copious and bitter. There was, too, the organized political party which made a focus for the opposition and developed Vallandigham, who had no counterpart at the South. But these considerations are balanced by the circumstance that in the South was the seat of war which was never but for brief periods moved north of Mason and Dixon’s line and the Ohio river. “Civil administration is everywhere relaxed,” wrote Judge Campbell as early as October, 1862, “and has lost much of its energy, and our entire Confederacy is like a city in a state of siege, cut off from all intercourse with foreign nations and invaded by a superior force at every assailable point.” Where armies stand in opposition disloyalty may give the enemy aid and comfort so substantial as to decide an impending battle; far from the front it is apt to spend itself in bluster, threats and secret midnight oaths. In the Confederacy there was practically no important place east of the Mississippi river which was not at one time or another invaded or threatened by the invader. The courts, it is true, were open in the South, but, owing to the disorganized state of society, the interruption of trade and the passage of stay laws by the States, they tried few commercial cases but confined themselves to criminal jurisdiction and to decisions sustaining the acts of Congress; or on the other hand to issuing writs of habeas corpus in favor of those who desired to escape military service. 34
The press was essentially free at the North, entirely so at the South, where no journals were suppressed as some had been in the Union. As the Southern papers had little news-gathering enterprise and borrowed a large part of their news from the Northern press, they did not offend the Confederate generals as the Union generals were offended by the publication of estimates of the strength of armies or shrewd guesses of projected movements. Sometimes the Richmond journals, upon request of General Lee or of the Secretary of War, refrained from publishing intelligence that might benefit the enemy, but no compulsion was employed. The right of public meeting was fully exercised in both sections, but the gatherings for free discussion were much more common at the North. 35
Southerners believed that the Federal government had degenerated into a military despotism. At the same time the general belief at the North was that the Confederate government was a tyranny which crushed all opposition. The bases for both these beliefs are apparent. Theoretically liberty seemed surer at the South than at the North, but practically the reverse was true. Few men either in the Union or in the Confederacy had actual need of the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus; but all able-bodied men at the South, who were not too old, were touched by the universal exaction of military service and all who had property were affected by the impressment of it at an arbitrary price fixed by the government. The Federal government may be called a dictatorship. Congress and the people surrendered certain of their powers and rights to a trusted man. The Confederacy was a grand socialized state in which the government did everything. It levied directly on the produce of the land and fixed prices; it managed the railroads; operated manufacturing establishments, owned merchant vessels and carried on a foreign commerce. It did all this by common consent and the public desired it to absorb even more activities. Frequent requests to extend the province of the general government, of the States and of the municipalities may be read in the newspapers and in the public and private letters of the time. The operations seemed too large for individual initiative and the sovereign power of the State came to be invoked.