Muscatine weekly journal. [volume] (Muscatine, Iowa) 185?-1890, 1861-06-21
BY JOHN MAHIN.
The Baltimore Habcas Corpus
Ease

Our readers have been apprised by meagre
telegraph reports of the existence of habe's
corpus case before Judge fancy, at Baltimore,
in which there is conflict of military and ju-
dicial authority The facts are briefly as fol-
lows:
On the Goth day of May, John Merryman,
Of Baltimore, notorious secessionist and
commander of rebel company of soldiers,
was arrested by L. S. troops under Col. lohs
and the late Major General Keim. His friends
immediately applied to Chief Justice Taney
for writ of habeds corpus, which was grant
ed, commanding Gen. Cadwallader, command
ant Of Fort McHenry, to appear before the
Chief Justice on the 9th day Of May, and to
have with him the body of the said John
Merryman.
. The Marshal served the writ in due form
and made his returns. On the 9th, the
Court being in session. Col. Lee, aid to Gen.
Cadwallader, appeared in Court and presented
communication from Gen. Cadwallader, re-
spectfully declining to comply with the writ,
and requesting that further action in the case
should be postponed until instructions could
be received from the President.
Chief Justice Taney then issued an attach
ment against Gen. Cadwallader. The Mar
shal proceeded to the Fort and was refused
admittance. And thus the matter stands
The Chief Justice will forward his written
opinion to the President, and, it is said, will
demand the enforcement of the Judicial au-
thority. Gen. Cadwallader has submitted the
case to the President, whose decision is looked
for with much interest.
There is strong reason to believe that in
this affair Judge fancy is actngas the instru-
ment of secession traitors. Having been made
the tool of the Slave power in other things, it
is not a matter of surprise that he is made
their tool in this.
The following extract from the opinion of
the Supreme Court in 1s43, in the Dorr re-
bellion case, delivered by Judge Taney, seems
to show conclusively that if he was a just
Judge then, he is very like traitor now, both
to the government and to his own decisions.
He then said:
Unquestionably State may use its military
power to put down an armed insurrection, too
strong to be controlled by the civil authority.
The power is essential to the existence of ev-
cry government, essential to the preservation
of order and free institutions, and is as neces-
sary to the States Of this Union as to any
other government If the government deem
ed the armed opposition so formidable, and SO
ramifed throughout the State as to require the
use of its military force and the declaration of
martial law, we see no ground upon which
this court can question its auth rity. 1t was
a state of war, and the established govern
ment resorted to the rights and usages of war
to maintain itself, and to overcome the unlaw
full opposition And in that state of things
the officers engaged in the military service
might lawfully arrest any one who, from the
information before them, they had reasonable
grounds to believe was engaged in the insur-
rection, and might order house to be forcibly
entered and searched, when there was reason
able grounds for supposing he might be there
concealed Without the power to do this
martial law and the military array of the gov
ernment would be mere parade, and rather en-
courage attack than repel it.
If State can do this how much the ma
tional government, which is supreme over the
StateS9