The American Gulag by Thomas DiLorenzo

The American Gulag by Thomas DiLorenzo:

"Madison (the 'father of the Constitution') was president during the War of 1812, which coincided with a very serious New England secession movement led by Massachusetts Senator Timothy Pickering.

It culminated with the Hartford Secession Convention of 1814, yet Madison never implemented any such repression, nor is there evidence that he even considered it. Lincoln, on the other hand, adopted such repressive policies almost from his very first day in office.

The opposition press was mostly shut down by the Lincoln administration and many editors and owners imprisoned (see James Randall, Constitutional Problems under Lincoln). The remaining press was affiliated with the Republican Party, much like today's media, and it served as a spy network for Lincoln's secret police force, headed up by William Seward. As Dean Sprague writes in Freedom Under Lincoln (p. 178):
'When an editor of a newspaper wished to attack a Peace man [i.e., a critic of the Lincoln administration] he would suggest him as a candidate for Fort Lafayette. When a Union man heard a Peace speech, he knew it was not necessary to interfere.

He would simply pass by with the remark that the speaker had better watch out or he would end up in Fort Lafayette.' That, presumably, would intimidate the peace advocate sufficiently to shut him up for good."