I just finished reading a book called “The Broken Constitution” by Noah Feldman, a lawyer who, unlike most constitutional commentators, actually knows what he’s talking about. The book is about the evolution of Lincoln’s view of the Constitution, from his early days as a minor Whig politician to his advocacy for the Thirteenth Amendment. It provides a lot of useful detail regarding Lincoln’s suppression of constitutional rights during the Civil War, and the adequacy of his arguments supporting his actions. It is well worth reading.
The book was written in 2021. I don’t think Trump appears in its pages, but he haunts it nonetheless; I suspect he is the reason it was written. Would a newly elected Trump conflate the issue at the border, or urban demonstrations against his policies, or something else with the Civil War in order to justify using emergency powers against blue Americans? Would the judiciary accept his actions? Would he ignore court orders against him, as Lincoln clearly did, for the satisfaction of keeping us under his thumb?
These are not idle questions. Nobody can say with certainty that Trump doesn’t aspire to completely wreck liberal democracy in America using Civil War precedents, or, if you’re a real antiquarian, the decision for Charles I in the ship money case. That’s the risk we will be running if we elect him.