ABSTRACT
President Abraham Lincoln's proclamations, and other public documents referring to military necessity, were undoubtedly among the resources he used in defining the doctrine of military necessity. The principle of military necessity remains an important source of the contemporary law of war, even though many of the issues faced by Lincoln and his commanders are now governed by specific treaty rules. From the US War Department's point of view, the Lieber Code was primarily a response to the expansion of the United States Army during the Civil War. Arguing that, under the laws of war, the federal Government could accord individual Confederates the privileges of belligerency for humanitarian reasons, without in any way recognizing the legitimacy of their government, Dr. Francis Lieber solved a difficult political problem for the Lincoln administration. Unfortunately, the Confederate authorities did not welcome the Lieber Code as a favorable development. To the contrary, they used it for propaganda against the Lincoln administration.
