From the American Revolution to the Bush administration's 'war on terrorism' and the invasion of Iraq, this volume examines how, and under what circumstances, the United States has decided to wage war. Four narrative chapters introduce readers to the history and impact of the legal issues involved in waging war, and examine the social, legal, and political forces that have shaped wartime policies at crucial moments in US history. An extensive collection of important documents is provided, along with a glossary of key people, events, and concepts; a chronology; a table of cases cited; an annotated bibliography; and a comprehensive index.

Abraham Lincoln: the Great Emancipator, savior of the Union, and revered national hero. Jefferson Davis: defender of slavery, leader of a lost cause, and forlorn object of scorn. Both Lincoln and Davis remain locked in the American psyche as iconic symbols of victory and defeat. They presided over a terrible war that decided the fate of slavery and severely tested each man's resolve and potential for greatness. But, as Brian Dirck shows, such images tend to obscure the larger visions that compelled both men to pursue policies and actions that resulted in such a devastating national tragedy.

Going well beyond most conventional accounts, Dirck examines Lincoln's and Davis's respective ideas concerning national identity, highlighting the strengths and shortcomings of each leader's worldview. By focusing on issues that have often been overlooked in previous studies of Lincoln and Davis -- and of the war in general -- he reveals the ways in which these two leaders viewed that imagined community called the American nation.

The first comprehensive and detailed study to compare the two men's national imaginations, Dirck's study provides a provocative analysis of how their everyday lives -- the influence of fathers and friends, jobs and homes -- worked in complex ways to shape Lincoln's and Davis's perceptions of what the American nation was supposed to be and could become and how those images could reject or accommodate the institution of slavery.

Dirck contends that Lincoln subscribed to the notion of a "nation of strangers" in which people never really knew one another's hearts, reflecting his wariness of sentimental attachment, while Davis held to a "community of sentiment" based onhonor and comradeship that depended a great deal on emotional bonding. As Dirck shows, these two ideals are very much a part of the current national conversation -- among citizens, scholars, and politicians -- that has brought Davis back into the fold of great Americans while challenging many of the cliches that surround the Lincoln myth.

Ultimately, Dirck argues, the imagined communities of these two remarkable men transcend the experience of war to illuminate the ongoing debates over what it means to be an American. Through this engaging and original work, he urges a restoration of balance to our understanding -- not only of Lincoln and Davis, but also of the contributions made by North and South alike to those debates.

From multiple personal tragedies to the terrible carnage of the Civil War, death might be alongside emancipation of the slaves and restoration of the Union as one of the great central truths of Abraham Lincoln's life. Yet what little has been written specifically about Lincoln and death is insufficient, sentimentalized, or devoid of the rich historical literature about death and mourning during the nineteenth century. The Black Heavens: Abraham Lincoln and Death is the first in-depth account of how the sixteenth president responded to the riddles of mortality, undertook personal mourning, and coped with the extraordinary burden of sending hundreds of thousands of soldiers to be killed on battlefields. Going beyond the characterization of Lincoln as a melancholy, tragic figure, Brian R. Dirck investigates Lincoln's frequent encounters with bereavement and sets his response to death and mourning within the social, cultural, and political context of his times. At a young age Lincoln saw the grim reality of lives cut short when he lost his mother and sister. Later, he was deeply affected by the deaths of two of his sons, three-year-old Eddy in 1850 and eleven-year-old Willie in 1862, as well as the combat deaths of close friends early in the war. Despite his own losses, Lincoln learned how to approach death in an emotionally detached manner, a survival skill he needed to cope with the reality of his presidency. Dirck shows how Lincoln gradually turned to his particular understanding of God's will in his attempts to articulate the meaning of the atrocities of war to the American public, as showcased in his allusions to religious ideas in the Gettysburg Address and the Second Inaugural. Lincoln formed a unique approach to death: both intellectual and emotional, typical and yet atypical of his times. In showing how Lincoln understood and responded to death, both privately and publicly, Dirck paints a compelling portrait of a commander in chief who buried two sons and gave the orders that sent an unprecedented number of Americans to their deaths.

As ""Savior of the Union"" and the ""Great Emancipator,"" Abraham Lincoln has been lauded for his courage, wisdom, and moral fiber. Yet Frederick Douglass's assertion that Lincoln was the ""white man's president"" has been used by some detractors as proof of his fundamentally racist character. Viewed objectively, Lincoln was a white man's president by virtue of his own whiteness and that of the culture that produced him. Until now, however, historians have rarely explored just what this means for our understanding of the man and his actions. Writing at the vanguard of ""whiteness studies,"" Brian Dirck considers Lincoln as a typical American white man of his time who bore the multiple assumptions, prejudices, and limitations of his own racial identity. He shows us a Lincoln less willing or able to transcend those limitations than his more heroic persona might suggest but also contends that Lincoln's understanding and approach to racial bigotry was more enlightened than those of most of his white contemporaries. Blazing a new trail in Lincoln studies, Dirck reveals that Lincoln was well aware of and sympathetic to white fears, especially that of descending into ""white trash,"" a notion that gnawed at a man eager to distance himself from his own coarse origins. But he also shows that after Lincoln crossed the Rubicon of black emancipation, he continued to grow beyond such cultural constraints, as seen in his seven recorded encounters with nonwhites. Dirck probes more deeply into what ""white"" meant in Lincoln's time and what it meant to Lincoln himself, and from this perspective he proposes a new understanding of how Lincoln viewed whiteness as a distinct racial category that influenced his policies. As Dirck ably demonstrates, Lincoln rose far enough above the confines of his culture to accomplish deeds still worthy of our admiration, and he calls for a more critically informed admiration of Lincoln that allows us to celebrate his considerable accomplishments while simultaneously recognizing his limitations. When Douglass observed that Lincoln was the white man's president, he may not have intended it as a serious analytical category. But, as Dirck shows, perhaps we should do so-the better to understand not just the Lincoln presidency, but the man himself.

This volume gives students, professors, and the general public a single, comprehensive source on the key themes in the historical development of the presidency from America's founding era through the presidency of George W. Bush. How has the role of the president changed since George Washington? How does the president interact with Congress? The courts? The states? Other nations? These are just a few of the overarching questions addressed in this volume in ABC-CLIO's About Federal Government set devoted to the president and the executive branch he manages. The Executive Branch of the Federal Government provides a brief history of the presidency, then looks at the constitutional powers of the office, the day-to-day functions of the federal bureaucracy, general elections, and presidential relationships with Congress and the courts. But perhaps most compelling are the insights into the officeholders themselves, the individuals who have served as president, each fashioning a term reflective of his own personality. Special features include edited and annotated texts of the presidents' inaugural addresses, a timeline of presidential elections and terms of office, and insightful portraits of all the major presidents A reference section includes lists of executive branch personnel and legislation aimed at granting or curtailing presidential power

A thought-provoking and engaging guide to the legal, moral, and political issues that arise when the United States goes to war. From the American Revolution to the Bush administration's new type of war on terror, Waging War on Trial views warfare from a legal, social, cultural, and political standpoint. Included are homefront debates during major hostilities, "brushfire" incidents, and how the events of September 11th have shaped our domestic wartime policy. The battle continues today as the President and Congress debate over who begins and ends military operations. Concerns about civil liberties, the draft, and internal security are as relevant today as during the Civil War. Questions arise on how dissenters and minorities are treated and if America can legally control the behavior of our soldiers. It's an intricate interplay between war and America's institutions. A-Z entries on key people such as Oliver Wendell Holmes and Senator Lee Overman, court decisions such as Abrams v. United States and Schenck v. United States, events such as the Gulf War, and issues such as the suspension of the writ of habeas corpus A chronology spanning the history of waging war from 1792, which saw the formation of the Society of Cincinnatus, through 2002, with the United States contemplating war with Iraq

Abraham Lincoln: the Great Emancipator, savior of the Union, and revered national hero. Jefferson Davis: defender of slavery, leader of a lost cause, and forlorn object of scorn. Both Lincoln and Davis remain locked in the American psyche as iconic symbols of victory and defeat. They presided over a terrible war that decided the fate of slavery and severely tested each man's resolve and potential for greatness. But, as Brian Dirck shows, such images tend to obscure the larger visions that compelled both men to pursue policies and actions that resulted in such a devastating national tragedy.
Going well beyond most conventional accounts, Dirck examines Lincoln's and Davis's respective ideas concerning national identity, highlighting the strengths and shortcomings of each leader's worldview. By focusing on issues that have often been overlooked in previous studies of Lincoln and Davis-and of the war in general-he reveals the ways in which these two leaders viewed that imagined community called the American nation.
The first comprehensive and detailed study to compare the two men's national imaginations, Dirck's study provides a provocative analysis of how their everyday lives-the influence of fathers and friends, jobs and homes-worked in complex ways to shape Lincoln's and Davis's perceptions of what the American nation was supposed to be and could become and how those images could reject or accommodate the institution of slavery.
Dirck contends that Lincoln subscribed to the notion of a "nation of strangers" in which people never really knew one another's hearts, reflecting his wariness of sentimental attachment, while Davis held to a "community of sentiment" based on honor and comradeship that depended a great deal on emotional bonding. As Dirck shows, these two ideals are very much a part of the current national conversation-among citizens, scholars, and politicians-that has brought Davis back into the fold of great Americans while challenging many of the clichs that surround the Lincoln myth.
Ultimately, Dirck argues, the imagined communities of these two remarkable men transcend the experience of war to illuminate the ongoing debates over what it means to be an American. Through this engaging and original work, he urges a restoration of balance to our understanding-not only of Lincoln and Davis, but also of the contributions made by North and South alike to those debates.