By U.S. Sen. Chuck Grassley

Eight score and two years ago, President Abraham Lincoln signed the False Claims Act into federal law. The anti-fraud tool, enacted March 2, 1863, became known as Lincoln’s Law. Our 16th president embraced meatier measures to go after fraudsters bilking the U.S. Treasury during the Civil War. Contractors were selling inferior supplies to the Union Army, outfitting the troops with poor quality uniforms and boots, mixing sawdust with gunpowder and even selling blind horses to the Union cavalry.

Back then, Congress resurrected the legal principle known as qui tam – part of a Latin phrase that translates to “in the name of the king” – with origins from the 13th century England in which citizens could bring lawsuits on behalf of the king.

Lincoln’s Law gave workers a financial incentive to blow the whistle on their employer’s wrongdoing, rewarding them with a share of fines collected through litigation. This common sense, patriotic solution put more eyes and ears on the ground to save tax dollars and ensure Union soldiers were getting high-quality supplies the federal government purchased.

The principle also was anchored in the merits of our nation’s first whistleblower law enacted on July 30, 1778. The Continental Congress sided with naval informants who reported abuses by their supervisor. Since the earliest days of our republic, our nation’s leaders affirmed it is the duty of every American to report wrongdoing “in service to the United States.”

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