Lincoln and the “Writ of Liberty”
It is 2:30 a.m., and everyone in the darkened house is asleep. Suddenly, there are loud voices outside the house and a heavy banging at the door.
A man opens an upstairs window and looks down on the scene unfolding in his front yard. Unbelieving, he sees soldiers carrying rifles with fixed bayonets surrounding his house and an army officer at his door, shouting that he is under arrest.
The shocked citizen refuses to admit the soldiers into his home. The officer orders his men to break down the door. After forcing their way into the house, the soldiers rush upstairs and break apart two bedroom doors before finding the man they have come to arrest.
The arrested man is secretly taken aboard a special train and transported to another city where he is locked up in a military barracks. The prisoner never sees a judge and is not even formally charged with a crime. Instead, within 24 hours after his arrest, he is brought before eight army officers who put him on trial for making disloyal speeches against the government.
This incident sounds like it might have happened in Nazi Germany But it occurred in the United States and involved a former Ohio congressman named Clement L. Vallandigham. Even more surprising, the army men who arrested Vallandigham and put him on trial were given the authority to do so by one of Americas greatest presidents: Abraham Lincoln.
Ah, so when you said “sitting congressmen” you meant “former congressman.”
Now, about that Taney claim?
Vallandingham’s arrest was perfectly legal. Congress suspended the writ of Habeas Corpus by law in March of 1863.
Vallandingham was arrested in May of 1863. Congress has the right to suspend the writ of Habeas Corpus under Article 1 Section 9 of the Constitution of the United States.