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Lincoln's early efforts to stymie the American Press have been overlooked by many historians. He began in New York because the New York City newspapers had always dominated much of the nation’s news.

Although papers like Horace Greeley’s New York Tribune supported the war, others, such as the Journal of Commerce and the New York Daily News did not. These two papers were the opposition press in the North, and important because their articles were reprinted in many other papers that were also critical of Lincoln’s war policies.

"In May 1861 the Journal of Commerce had published a list of more than a hundred Northern newspapers that had editorialized against going to war. The Lincoln administration responded by ordering the Postmaster General to deny these papers mail delivery".

At that time, nearly all newspaper deliveries were made by mail, so this action put every one of the papers out of circulation.

"Some of them resumed publication after promising not to criticize the Lincoln government. For example, the founder of the Journal of Commerce, Gerard Hallock, ”brought the wrath of government down on his head” with his “peace editorials”--appeals not to treason or even secession, but to peace.

"Hallock had spent thirty years of his life building the paper to its position as one of the most prominent in America, and rather than see it become extinct, he obeyed the government’s demand that he sell his ownership in the paper and withdraw from its management. With the paper’s peace editorials censored, the paper was permitted to use the mails once again.

The same technique--denying the use of the mails--was used by the Lincoln administration against the New Your Daily News, The Daybook, Brooklyn Eagle, Freeman’s Journal, and several other smaller New York newspapers.

The editor of the Daily News was Ben Wood, the brother of New York City Mayor Fernando Wood, who had denounced Lincoln as an “unscrupulous Chief magistrate” whose recent message to Congress was “an ocean of falsehood and deceit.” After being denied the use of the mails, Wood hired private express couriers and delivery boys to deliver his papers. The administration responded by ordering Federal marshals to confiscate the paper in cites throughout the Northern states. The paper then went into bankruptcy.

"The Brooklyn Eagle promised not to write any more anti-Lincoln editorials and was therefore permitted to resume publication, but the Freeman’s Appeal was censored after Lincoln ordered the arrest of the editor, James McMasters, who was sent to Fort Lafayette.

By September of 1861, all of the opposition press in New York City was censored with the help of military force.

Fort Lafayette was filled with newspaper editors from all over the country who had questioned the wisdom of Lincoln’s military invasion and war of conquest. Seward and his Federal officers scoured the countryside for the editors of any newspapers, large and small that did not support the Lincoln administration’s war policy and had them arrested and imprisoned.

Although the military presence was pervasive in Northern cities in order to implement the Lincoln/Seward censorship policy, it looked the other way when mobs—at times mobs of Federal soldiers—ransacked the offices and destroyed the property of newspapers that were critical of Lincoln.

A mob of Federal soldiers demolished the offices of the Democratic Standard in Washington, DC, after it editorialized about military blunders during the Battle of First Manassas. This same thing happened to the Bangor Democrat when a Unionist mob completely destroyed the Maine paper’s printing facilities and demanded the hanging of the editor.

In many cases, these editors were simply editorializing in favor of avoiding the bloodshed of war, and working out some kind of peaceful solution to the crisis, including compensated emancipation.

Lincoln would have none of these suggestions, and so he allowed his military and his supporters to destroy paper after paper in the North.

The Northern peace movement was intimidated, physically assaulted, and destroyed.

To those that were keen observers of Lincoln, it became apparent that he had rebuffed the numerous peace efforts of key leaders in both the Southern Confederacy, as well as his own party and the concerned citizens of the North and West.

The deeper implications of Lincoln’s suppression of free speech were rarely noticed.

The need for widespread suppression suggested that Lincoln’s war was not part of the electoral majority mandate that he claimed to be vindicating by invading the South.

As time passed, eventually Lincoln wrote:

"You will take possession by military force, of the printing establishments of the New York World and Journal of Commerce... and prohibit any further publication thereof... you are therefore commanded forthwith to arrest and imprison in any fort or military prison in your command, the editors, proprietors and publishers of the aforesaid newspapers... and you will hold the persons so arrested in close custody until they can be brought to trial before a military commission."

Order from Lincoln to General John A. Dix, May 18, 1864, on the establishment of his military dictatorship over the First Amendment.

Order from Lincoln to General John A. Dix, May 18, 1864, on the establishment of his military dictatorship over the First Amendment.

Pea you are as full of crap as the proverbial Thanksgiving turkey.

"In May 1864, Joseph Howard, fomer New York Times reporter, gadfly, and journalistic hack fallen on hard times, hoped to make a killing on the gold market with a phony presidential proclamation. He teamed with another out-of-favor journalist and drafted a text disguised as an Associated Press dispatch that acknowledged recent military failures, called for a day of national fasting, humiliation and prayer, and announced a draft call for 400,000 more men. Copies were sent to the New York papers about three o'clock in the morning, after the close of the normal business day and while the final type forms were being locked up. There were, however, enough errors in style and presentation that most papers were at least skeptical and at best conviced it was a hoax. Most, that is, except for the World and the Journal of Commerce.

The bogus story appeared in the editions of May 8, 1864, and in the normal course of business, was picked up and put on the wire by the New York headquarters of the Associated Press. In the normal course of business, gold rose by 10 percent. Also, in the normal course of business, New York military commander Gen. John Dix asked Washington for verification and the Associated Press general agent in New York sent a query to the Washington bureau: How had they missed such an important story. Quick action by the government blocked transport of the papers on a ship just about to sail for Europe, and timely bulletins published in most papers knocked the story back down, along with the price of gold.

On the presumption that the World and the Journal were responsible for the fraud, General Dix was sent to sieze the offenders...The source of the hoax was soon tracked to Howard and his friend, who each spent a few months in jail as a consequence."

That's from Blue & Gray in Black & White: Newspapers in the Civil War by Brayton Harris, pp 106-107. So please point out where the First Amendment gives a paper the right to commit financial fraud?