Existing comment:
Merryman Case
Early in the American Civil War, President Abraham Lincoln authorized the commander in chief of the U.S. Army to suspend the writ of habeas corpus in response to riots in the state of Maryland. Ex Parte Merryman, a case before Maryland's federal district court, argued that only Congress, not the president, had the authority to suspend the writ of habeas corpus. Supreme Court Chief Justice Roger B. Taney wrote in his decision for the Maryland court, that if "[t]hese great and fundamental laws . . . . have been disregarded and suspended, like the writ of habeas corpus, by a military order," then "the people of the United States are no longer living under a government of laws, but every citizen holds life, liberty and property at the will and pleasure of the army officer in whose military district he may happen to be found." |