Quote from jonbig04:
Not a big fan on lincoln are you? 
Really are these the main reasons for voting mccain?
Lincoln launched the single worst assault on the Constitution in U.S. history. Protest of the Civil War was punishable
by arrest.
The actual right of habeas corpus is not stated anywhere in the Constitution or the Bill of Rights. The authors of these documents apparently believed that habeas corpus was such a fundamental liberty that it needed no further guarantee in writing. The only mention of the writ of habeas corpus in the Constitution relates to when it can be taken away from judges. In a section limiting the powers of Congress (Art. I, Sec. 9), the Constitution states: "The privilege of the writ of habeas corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in causes of rebellion or invasion of the public safety may require it."
This suspension clause was never activated through the terms of the first 15 presidents. Then during the Civil War, President Lincoln suspended the writ of habeas corpus without consulting Congress. In doing so, Lincoln enabled the military to arrest and imprison thousands of civilians, including Clement L. Vallandigham.
Lincolns first order suspending the writ of liberty applied only to Maryland, a border state sympathetic to the South that virtually surrounded Washington, D.C. Shortly after, Lincoln issued this suspension order, Union troops arrested a Maryland man for helping to organize a pro-Confederate militia. Following his arrest, he was imprisoned at Fort McHenry. Trying to gain his freedom, the prisoner appealed to a federal court in Baltimore for a writ of habeas corpus. But when a federal judge issued the writ, the military officers at Fort McHenry refused to obey it. They said Lincolns suspension order made the writ worthless.
On September 24, 1862, Lincoln issued a proclamation unprecedented in American history. He suspended the writ of liberty everywhere in the United States. The suspension applied to Confederate spies or to those who aided the rebel cause, interfered with military enlistments,
resisted the draft, or were "guilty of any disloyal practice." This last offense
allowed the military to arrest newspaper editors and speakers critical of the Union war effort. Lincoln further ordered that persons arrested under his proclamation were subject to martial law, which meant they would be tried and punished by military courts.
http://www.crf-usa.org/terror/Lincoln.htm
