# Ex parte Merryman **Status: stub — expand.** Vote counts to be verified against Oyez before they are stated here. Chief Justice **[[Roger Taney]]**, sitting as a circuit judge, held that the President has no power to suspend the writ of habeas corpus — the [[Suspension Clause]] sits in Article I and the power belongs to **Congress alone**. John Merryman, a Maryland secessionist, was held by military order at Fort McHenry after [[Abraham Lincoln]] suspended the writ along the Philadelphia–Washington line on **April 27, 1861**. Gen. George Cadwalader refused to produce him, citing the President's suspension. Taney issued the writ, was defied, and could do nothing about it. **Why it matters:** the case is the origin of the American pattern in which the *legal* answer and the *operative* answer diverge. Lincoln ignored the opinion and continued the suspension; Congress cured the constitutional defect retroactively with the **Habeas Corpus Suspension Act of 1863**. A ruling nobody enforces still becomes the doctrine everyone cites. ## See Also - [[Habeas Corpus Timeline]] · [[Habeas Corpus]] · [[Suspension Clause]]