Americas Two Constitutions: A Study of the Treatment of Dissenters in Time of War [Hardcover]

Americas Two Constitutions explores the history of the treatment of dissenters in time of war, beginning with the treatment of Tories during the Revolution, followed by description and analysis of the Lincoln administrations treatment of disloyal persons during the Civil War, President Wilsons organized plan to curb anti-war, anti-draft groups including the Socialist party during World War I, President Roosevelts handling of the Japanese internment program and trial of U.S. citizens by military commission during World War II, the cold war campaign against Communists in government and in the entertainment field, the FBI spying program COINTELL and other means to curb draft resisters and anti-war groups during the Viet Nam war followed by a chapter on the post 9-11 treatment of suspected terrorists including surreptitious interception of electronic traffic and trial of U.S. citizens and foreign nationals by military commission. The final chapter concludes that the United States has two constitutions: the written constitution in peacetime and a special unwritten constitution in time of war or national emergency.Thomas J. Reed is professor emeritus of law, Widener University School of Law.

This book is a careful and thoughtful analysis of the tension between the written, formal US Constitution of 1787 and what Reed (emer., law, Widener Univ.) calls the living constitution of the US as it has evolved in practice and through judicial review over the centuries since ratification. The author focuses on the inherent tension between the presidential power to make war and the individual liberties guaranteed to US citizens in the Bill of Rights and elsewhere. The larger problem, as Reed sees it, is whether moral consequentialism (utilitarian ethics) authorizes the president and the federal government to do just about anything they think necessary to protect the state in time of war, and in so doing violate the historic rights of individuals. Reed surveys all of US consló’