Article/interview on Lincoln and war powers

The Chronicle of Higher Education this week carries an interesting interview with a scholar named Benjamin A. Kleinerman, Assistant Professor at VMI, who has written an article on Lincoln's use of presidential war powers. The article appears here, in the December issue of Perspectives on Politics. The article is fully accessible online; the interview in the CHE, unfortunately, is password protected.

The gist of Kleinerman's argument is that Lincoln established a sort of middle ground between "constitutional dictatorship" and more libertarian ("Jeffersonian," in Kleinerman's words) conceptualization of executive authority. He based his actions on a doctrine of necessity that would greatly expand executive power temporarily, but called for an immediate return to normalcy as soon the emergency ceased. Kleinerman therefore argues that Lincoln provides a poor means by which to defend the current administration's expansion of power during the War on Terror.

I'm still digesting these arguments, myself, but in general they sound interesting and plausible.
If anyone else cares to read and comment on this, please do so.