The Constitutional Problems of the Civil War

In the next class, we're going to talk a little bit about sort of the sequences of what happens in the war. But i want to set this up for you by talking about four key constitutional problems that the lincoln administration and congress are dealing with during the war. So first, if a person is in rebellion and captured by authorities, what is the united states government supposed to do with that person? Let's say somebody did that to day re if they declared themselves to be in rebellion and they took up arms against the united states, what would you say they were committing? Lucas: Treason. This is generally the definition treason, maybe so article three, section three of the us