Lincoln unilaterally decided in April 1861 that he had the power to suspend  
the writ of habeas corpus, and ordered it.  He then had almost the entire  
Maryland legislature arrested and thrown into jail at Ft. McHenry (along with  
closing down almost 300 newspapers who criticized him).  John Merryman, one  of 
the MD legislators, filed a writ of habeas corpus with Chief Justice Roger B.  
Taney.  In Ex Parte Merryman, Taney found that Lincoln had  violated the 
Constitution since only the Congress had the power to suspend  habeas corpus.  He 
ordered Lincoln to release Merryman and sent his order  over to the White 
House.  Lincoln's response was that he didn't care what  the Supreme Court thought 
and issued an order for the arrest and  imprisonment of Chief Justice Taney 
at Ft. McHenry.  Fortunately, the  federal Marshall in DC hesitated to carry 
out the arrest order and it  was never done (the document is in the National 
Archives). Lincoln, who  swore before Taney to uphold the Constitution when 
inaugurated, had decided that  he, not the Supreme Court, was the final arbiter of 
the Constitution.  He  routinely took such actions during the war putting his 
supposed goal of "saving  the Union" ahead of his sworn oath to uphold the 
Constitution and the law of the  US.
 
After the war, in 1866, in Ex Parte Milligan, the US Supreme  Court found 
that Lincoln's military tribunals, which tried people during the war  in place of 
civil courts, were unconstitutional.  This included the court  which 
convicted the so-called assassination conspirators, who unfortunately had  already 
been hung.  The court found that Lincoln's policies, as in the case  of Ex Parte 
Merryman, had totally usurped the power given to the  judiciary under the 
Constitution.  
 
Many refer to Lincoln as the American Ceasar due to his dictatorial actions  
in these regards.
 
 

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