Aside from an end to slavery and a patching up of our national identity, another thing to come out of the Civil War, at least on the legislative front, was the passage of the False Claims Act.

The measure was enacted with the goal of fighting profiteering by those who supplied the Union Army with things such as weapons and ammunition.

The measure, also referred to as "Lincoln's Law," allowed the government to hold contractors liable for bad faith dealings.

The False Claims Act came about during a time when contractors took advantage of wartime dependence to defraud the U.S. Government by dealing faulty ammunition and weaponry, sick live stock and tainted food rations, according to a summary of the statute on the website of the law firm Messa & Associates.

Today, however, court reform advocates maintain that the statute is being overused, and at times misused, by both the federal government and those who sue on behalf of the government.