page_title: Habeas Corpus Suspension Act (1863)
section_title: Legislative history
hierarchical_section_title: Habeas Corpus Suspension Act (1863) / Legislative history
caption_attribution_description: Thaddeus Stevens. Library of Congress description: "Hon. Thaddeus Stevens of Penn."
context_page_description: The Habeas Corpus Suspension, 12 Stat. 755 (1863), entitled An Act relating to Habeas Corpus, and regulating Judicial Proceedings in Certain Cases, was an Act of Congress that authorized the president of the United States to suspend the right of habeas corpus in response to the American Civil War and provided for the release of political prisoners. It began in the House of Representatives as an indemnity bill, introduced on December 5, 1862, releasing the president and his subordinates from any liability for having suspended habeas corpus without congressional approval. The Senate amended the House's bill, and the compromise reported out of the conference committee altered it to qualify the indemnity and to suspend habeas corpus on Congress's own authority. Abraham Lincoln signed the bill into law on March 3, 1863, and suspended habeas corpus under the authority it granted him six months later. The suspension was partially lifted with the issuance of Proclamation 148 by Andrew Johnson, and the Act became inoperative with the end of the Civil War.
context_section_description: When the Thirty-seventh Congress of the United States opened its third session in December 1862, Representative Thaddeus Stevens introduced a bill "to indemnify the President and other persons for suspending the writ of habeas corpus, and acts done in pursuance thereof" (H.R. 591). This bill passed the House over relatively weak opposition on December 8, 1862.
  When it came time for the Senate to consider  Stevens' indemnity bill, however, the Committee on the Judiciary's amendment substituted an entirely new bill for it. The Senate version referred all suits and prosecutions regarding arrest and imprisonment to the regional federal circuit court with the stipulation that no one acting under the authority of the president could be faulted if "there was reasonable or probable cause", or if they acted "in good faith", until after the adjournment of the next session of Congress. Unlike Stevens' bill, it did not suggest that the president's suspension of habeas corpus upon his own authority had been legal.
  The Senate passed its version of the bill on January 28, 1863, and the House took it up in mid-February before voting to send the bill to a conference committee on February 19. The House appointed Thaddeus Stevens, John Bingham, and George H. Pendleton to the conference committee. The Senate agreed to a conference the following day and appointed Lyman Trumbull, Jacob Collamer, and Waitman T. Willey. Stevens, Bingham, Trumbull, and Collamer were all Republicans; Willey was a Unionist; Pendleton was the only Democrat.
  On February 27, the conference committee issued its report. The result was an entirely new bill authorizing the explicit suspension of habeas corpus.
  Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That during the present rebellion, the President of the United States, whenever in his judgment the public safety may require it, is authorized to suspend the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus in any case throughout the United States or any part thereof. And whenever and wherever the said privilege shall be suspended, as aforesaid, no military or other officer shall be compelled, in answer to any writ of habeas corpus, to return the body of any person or persons detained by him by authority of the President; but upon a certificate, under oath, of the officer having charge of any one so detained, that such person is detained by him as a prisoner under the authority of the President, further proceedings under the writ of habeas corpus shall be suspended by the judge or court having issued the writ so long as said suspension by the President shall remain in force and said rebellion continue.
  In the House, several members left, depriving the chamber of a quorum. The Sergeant-at-Arms was dispatched to compel attendance and several representatives were fined for their absence. The following Monday, March 2, the day before the Thirty-Seventh Congress had previously voted to adjourn, the House voted to accept the new bill, with 99 members voting in the affirmative and 44 against.
  The Senate spent the evening of March 2 into the early morning of the next day debating the conference committee amendments. There, several Democratic Senators attempted a filibuster. Cloture had not yet been adopted as a rule in the Senate, so there was no way to prevent a minuscule minority from holding up business by refusing to surrender the floor. First James Walter Wall of New Jersey spoke until midnight, when Willard Saulsbury, Sr., of Delaware gave Republicans an opportunity to surrender by moving to adjourn. That motion was defeated 5–31, after which Lazarus W. Powell of Kentucky began to speak, yielding for a motion to adjourn from William Alexander Richardson of Illinois forty minutes later, which was also defeated, 5–30. Powell continued to speak, entertaining some hostile questions from Edgar Cowan of Pennsylvania which provoked further discussion, but retaining control of the floor. At seven minutes past two in the morning, James A. Bayard, Jr., of Delaware motioned to
caption: Representative Thaddeus Stevens of Pennsylvania introduced the bill.
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