On September 17, 1861, President Lincoln imprisoned one third of the Maryland General Assembly

[steve2470]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Habeas_corpus_in_the_United_States#Congressional_suspension_of_habeas_corpus

On April 27, 1861, the right of habeas corpus was unilaterally suspended by President Abraham Lincoln in Maryland during the American Civil War. Lincoln had received word that anti-war Maryland officials intended to destroy the railroad tracks between Annapolis and Philadelphia, which was a vital supply line for the army preparing to fight the south. (Indeed, soon after, the Maryland legislature would simultaneously vote to stay in the Union and to close these rail lines, in an apparent effort to prevent war between its northern and southern neighbors.[9]) Lincoln did not issue a sweeping order; it only applied to the Maryland route.[10] Lincoln chose to suspend the writ over a proposal to bombard Baltimore, favored by his General-in-Chief Winfield Scott.[11] Lincoln was also motivated by requests by generals to set up military courts to rein in his political opponents, "Copperheads," or Peace Democrats, so named because they did not want to resort to war to force the southern states back into the Union, as well as to intimidate those in the Union who supported the Confederate cause. Congress was not yet in session to consider a suspension of the writs; however, when it came into session it failed to pass a bill favored by Lincoln to sanction his suspensions.[12] During this period one sitting U.S. Congressman from the opposing party, as well the mayor, police chief, entire Board of Police, and the city council of Baltimore were arrested without charge and imprisoned indefinitely without trial.[13]

Lincoln's action was rapidly challenged in court and overturned by the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Maryland (led by the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, Roger B. Taney) in Ex Parte Merryman. Chief Justice Taney ruled the suspension unconstitutional, stating that only Congress could suspend habeas corpus.[14] Lincoln and his Attorney General Edward Bates not only ignored the Chief Justice's order,[15] but when Lincoln's dismissal of the ruling was criticized in an editorial by prominent Baltimore newspaper editor Frank Key Howard, they had the editor also arrested by federal troops without charge or trial. Ironically, the troops imprisoned Howard, who was Francis Scott Key's grandson, in Fort McHenry, which, as he noted, was the same fort where the Star Spangled Banner had been waving "o'er the land of the free" in his grandfather's song.[16] (In 1863 Howard wrote about his experience as a "political prisoner" at Fort McHenry in the book Fourteen Months in the American Bastille;[16] two of the publishers selling the book were then arrested.[13])

When Congress convened in July 1861 it failed to support Lincoln's unilateral suspension of habeas corpus. A joint resolution was introduced into the Senate to approve of the president's suspension of the writ of habeas corpus, but filibustering by Senate Democrats, who did not support it, and opposition to its imprecise wording by Sen. Lyman Trumbull prevented a vote on the resolution before the end of the first session, and the resolution was not taken up again.[17] Sen. Trumbull himself introduced a bill to suspend habeas corpus, but failed on getting a vote before the end of the first session.[18]

Shortly thereafter, on September 17, 1861, the day the Maryland legislature was to reconvene, Lincoln imprisoned one third of the members of the Maryland General Assembly without charges or hearings in further defiance of the Chief Justice's ruling. [19] Thus, the legislative session had to be cancelled.[9]

Sorry for the extremely long excerpt but my subject line didn't make sense without context. I had no idea Lincoln had to resort to that kind of measure in the Civil War.

[Fast Walker 52]

1. I've heard Lincoln suspended habeus corpus during the Civil War but didn't know this story

it's crazy, and rather extreme. But a civil war is about as bad as it gets.

[dixiegrrrrl]

2. This is a fantastic and important story.....K & R n/t