After secessionists destroyed important bridges and telegraph lines in the border state of Maryland, Lincoln suspended the writ of "habeas corpus" in much of the state. That suspension allowed military officials to arrest and imprison suspected secessionists for an indefinite period and without a judicial hearing. After the Baltimore riot of 1861, Union officials arrested state legislator John Merryman, whom they suspected of having destroyed Union infrastructure. Union officials allowed Merryman access to his lawyers, who delivered a petition of habeas corpus to the federal circuit court for Maryland. In his role as the head of that circuit court, Taney presided over the case of "Ex parte Merryman". Taney held that only Congress had the power to suspend the writ of habeas corpus, and he ordered the release of Merryman. Lincoln invoked nonacquiescence in response to Taney's order as well as subsequent Taney orders. He later argued that the Constitution did in fact give the president the power to suspend the writ of habeas corpus saying “Now it is insisted that Congress, and not the Executive, is vested with this power; but the Constitution itself is silent as to which or who is to exercise the power; and as the provision was plainly made for a dangerous emergency, it can not be believed the framers of the instrument intended that in every case the danger should run its course until Congress could be called together, the very assembling of which might be prevented, as was intended in this case, by the rebellion.” Nonetheless, when Lincoln suspended habeas corpus at a far larger scale, he did so only after requesting that Congress authorize him to suspend the writ, which they did by passing the Habeas Corpus Suspension Act of 1863.