This little booklet is a critique of Abraham Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation written by a former Supreme Court Justice who denounced the actions of the President as those of a usurper and a military despot. This essay is especially interesting in light of the fact that, not only did Curtis view the war against the South as just, but he had also been the author of one of the two dissenting opinions in the 1857 Dred Scott v. Sandford case before resigning from the Supreme Court. Also included as an appendix is a mock trial of Lincoln for treason and war crimes, written by New York Democrat, John Mullaly.