Post-Lincoln America: Re-Invigorization of Liberal Ideals and the
... representative rights (something the founding fathers lacked in 1776), they would argue that their rights were beginning to be infringed by the Northern states and that the Constitution was, at its base, an agreement between states. To this Lincoln argues, again employing logic, that the Union pred ...
... representative rights (something the founding fathers lacked in 1776), they would argue that their rights were beginning to be infringed by the Northern states and that the Constitution was, at its base, an agreement between states. To this Lincoln argues, again employing logic, that the Union pred ...
Ex parte Merryman
Ex parte Merryman, 17 F. Cas. 144 (C.C.D. Md. 1861) (No. 9487), is a well-known and controversial U.S. federal court case which arose out of the American Civil War. It was a test of the authority of the President to suspend ""the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus"" under the Constitution's Suspension Clause, when Congress was in recess and therefore unavailable to do so itself. U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice Roger Taney, sitting as a federal circuit court judge, ruled that the authority to suspend habeas corpus lay exclusively with Congress. Saying that Taney's orders were unconstitutional, President Abraham Lincoln defied them, as did the Army under Lincoln's orders, and John Merryman remained inaccessible to the judiciary while Congress remained in recess.