Perhaps not, but that alone does not make him a "confederate sympathizer," nor does it make every one of President Pierce's nominees evil incarnate. If you want to stand by your assault upon the person of Merrick you need to produce physical evidence and sources against him specifically. Either put up or shut up.
I based none of my previous comments from the deleted thread off of "a website,"
You gave a mini-bio of him containing details of his tenure and his home state. You then repeated an unusual typo that was unique to a single website containing the exact same information you posted about Merrick, but NOT your gratuitous charge of "confederate sympathy" against him. As to his appointment, even you should know that filling judge vacancies on the lower levels of the judiciary are for the most part non-controversial (save, of course, 2 or 3 recent high profile cases today) and usually tend to draw from qualified persons living in or near the vicinity of the given court. Merrick was a highly distinguished attorney and law prof at Georgetown University. That made him an ideal pick for the D.C. court far more than any speculated sympathies that you gratuitously suspect, although cannot demonstrate, that he had.
One rationale for the suspension (of the privilege of the writ) of habeas corpus was to prevent a disloyal judiciary from attempting to free fellow sympathizers, as Taney did with his friend and neighbor, John Merryman.
Even if it was, that simply wasn't the case with Murphy. Lincoln's henchmen were essentially using the suspension of the writ to force underage minors into the union army, one of them being Murphy.
In all likelihood Murphy went to the muster station and lied about his age thinking he would be sent off on some great military adventure as kids often do. Sure enough, he found out it wasn't all fun and games and then his father found out what he did. Historically when stuff like this happens the underage minor is either slapped on the wrist and discharged or his next of kin can go to court and get him discharged on a writ of habeas corpus. Sometimes the kid doesn't get caught and decides to stay, especially if he's only a few months short of age. But when it is discovered and the kid wants to go home they did it on a writ as the law permits. Lincoln had other plans though - he needed children like Murphy as cannon fodder in his battle lines so he wantonly impeded the judicial branch from carrying out this simple and common recourse action!
The "facts" you quote are disputed and your conclusion is baseless.
Demonstrate what is disputed. Perhaps you can dig up another left wing reparationist hack who thinks that children should be forced into military service.
After the writ was suspended, there could be no lawfully issued writ.
Two problems with that:
1. At the time of the Murphy case, Congress had not suspended the writ and all court holdings on the matter recognized that the president lacked the constitutional authority to suspend it himself.
2. As the ruling in Murphy specifically notes, Judge Merrick issued his writ to Murphy's attorney several days BEFORE Lincoln purported to extend the suspension of the writ into cases like Murphy's for the District of Columbia.
Multiple sources of information.
"Lincoln had other plans though - he needed children like Murphy as cannon fodder in his battle lines so he wantonly impeded the judicial branch from carrying out this simple and common recourse action!"
Whoosh! That's the sound of your remaining credibility going right down the toilet. You're better than cheap shots like that. You sound like John Kerry now.