On this day in 1861

LINCOLN SUSPENDS HABEAS CORPUS

Following his election in the face of Southern opposition, Abraham Lincoln had to travel through Baltimore by train secretly under threat of assassination to take office as president in a badly divided county in 1861. Following the firing on Fort Sumter on April 12, 1861 and the secession of Virginia on April 17, he faced the possibility of the nation’s capital being isolated from the North if the neighboring border state of Maryland would secede and join the Confederacy. Given the small size and scattered location of the United State army, Lincoln called for help from Northern governors to defend Washington, D.C. 

On April 19, when the 6th Massachusetts regiment took to the streets of Baltimore (known as “Mob City” and home to many secession sympathizers) to switch trains enroute to Washington City, a mob attacked it. In the ensuing fracas known as the “Pratt Street riot”, four soldiers were killed and 36 wounded and 12 civilians died. In the wake of this bloodshed, Baltimore Mayor George Brown and Maryland Governor Thomas Hicks requested that Lincoln send no more Northern troops by train through Baltimore. Lincoln responded: “Union soldiers are neither birds to fly over Maryland nor moles to burrow under it”. While Hicks was pro-Union, he authorized Maryland militia to prevent the passage of more Union troop trains by disabling railroad bridges and cutting telegraph wires. Answering the call was the Baltimore County Horse Guards, including Lieutenant John Merryman, a farmer.  

Its origins in the Magna Carta, the Founding Fathers in the Constitution enshrined the right to a Writ of Habeas Corpus to ensure that Americans who were arrested by the government had the right to go before judges to be informed of the charges against them. Article I, Section 9, Clause 2 of the Constitution states in what is called the suspension clause: “The Privilege of Writ of Habeas Corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in Cases of Rebellion or Invasion the public Safety may require it”. With a rebellion underway and Washington threatened by the formation of a Confederate army across the Potomac river and with Congress not in session, on April 27 Lincoln authorized Winfield Scott, commander of the army, to suspend Habeas Corpus if necessary to ensure the safety of the military supply lines between Philadelphia and Washington. Before Congress convened on July 4, Lincoln would also suspend the writ on the Florida coast and between Philadelphia and New York.

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