ABSTRACT
In Ex parte Milligan, 71 US 2, the US Supreme Court ruled that so long as the courts were open and operative, a civilian could not be tried in a military tribunal. The importance of Milligan is that it placed important limits upon the power of the president's military authority over civilians in times of emergency. In 1864, President Abraham Lincoln issued a proclamation ordering that individuals sympathetic to the Confederacy be tried in military instead of civilian courts. Lambdin Milligan, a civilian, and several others in Indiana were charged with conspiracy to seize munitions and to attempt to free Confederate solders from the North's prison camps. Ex parte Milligan is an important case drawing limits upon presidential war powers and it is also an affirmative defense of the federal courts as having primary jurisdiction over individuals who are charged with crimes or who wish to contest the grounds of their detainment.
