The DC Traveler

That’s what the newspaper headlines read across America on April 27th, 1861 when, during the Civil War, President Abraham Lincoln suspended the writ of habeas corpus.
Lincoln suspended habeas corpus in the confederate border state of Maryland (also a slave state) due to the fear that Maryland might secede from the Union.  If secession occurred, it would result in Washington DC being completely surrounded by Confederate states.
His action was challenged in the U.S. Circuit Court in Maryland and overturned, but Lincoln ignored the court’s ruling. In 1866 (5 years later), the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that it was unconstitutional to suspend …read more

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Looking up the marble spiral staircase off the Great Hall at the Supreme Court Building.
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