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"Lincoln did arrest, I think, several Maryland state legislators on other occasions, but for specific pro-rebels acts.
President George W. Bush would have done the same."

He also had several newspaper editors arrested by the military and their presses destroyed after he suspended Habeus Corpus. I'm sure GWB would love to do that also.

lincoln, the TYRANT & WAR CRIMINAL, had NUMEROUS press personnel & MD legislators arrested W/O warrant OR charges & placed in a dungeon at Ft McHenry. they were NEVER CHARGED with ANY crime OR TRIED.

fwiw, i have been INSIDE that underground dungeon & it is NOT a NICE PLACE to visit.

He also had several newspaper editors arrested by the military and their presses destroyed after he suspended Habeus Corpus. I'm sure GWB would love to do that also.

Like who?

Those Maryland state legiskators were arrested for specific pro-rebel activities. If some Maryland state legislators today were working for, say, al-Queda terrorists, you can bet that President George W. Bush would have them arrested.

The Lincoln administration did not destroy any presses, but some editors were arrested for conspiring with the Confederates, appealing for desertions from the U.S. Army and for draft-evasion, and other acts of sedition. President Bush would today deal the same way with traitors.

Lincoln either directly closed the newspapers, or instructed the US Mail not to deliver the papers of the establishments he personally opposed.

"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.

There are some on this thread that will take immediate offense to the term "dictatorship". To make all of a group (editors, proprietors, publishers) criminally responsible for the constitutionally guaranteed right of free speech of a few is nothing less than dictatorial.