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To: rustbucket
I gather Lincoln didn't veto the bill expanding the court. Here's an old post about this issue (no sense retyping it).

Why should he? Supreme Court justices each had a circuit that they were responsible. Ten circuits, ten justices.

Taney thought so.

No he didn't.

In the discussion about habeas corpus that followed that post you got handed your head, two ears, and your tail by a knowledgeable poster.

Only because you never bothered to read the decision. Had you done so then you would have realized the error in your arguement. But if I got handed my head then so did the entire legal community. None of them consider it a Supreme Court case, either.

275 posted on 12/03/2007 4:01:14 AM PST by Non-Sequitur (Save Fredericksburg. Support CVBT.)
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To: Non-Sequitur
[me]: Taney thought so.

[you]: No he didn't

Carl Brent Swisher, "Roger B. Taney," The MacMillan Company, 1936 at page 551 (emphasis mine):

"An audience of some two thousand people assembled on the following day to witness the outcome of the struggle between the Chief Justice and the military authorities. Leaving the Campbell home in the company of his grandson, Taney remarked that he might be imprisoned in Fort McHenry before night, but he was going to court to do his duty. As he took his place he announced that he acted alone rather than with Judge Giles because of the fact that he was sitting not as a member of the circuit court, but as Chief Justice of the United States. "One reason for the distinction, undoubtedly, was the belief that it would lent added weight to the decision."

That is consistent with newspaper accounts. From the Baltimore Sun, May 29, 1861:

"Chief Justice Taney, upon taking his seat on the bench, said that he desired to state that his associate, Judge Giles, of the Circuit Court, was present with him yesterday by his invitation, because he desired to avail himself of his counsel and advice in so important a case. The writ of habeas corpus was ordered by him as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, consequently Judge Giles could not act with him in the case."

Then there is the matter of Taney posting the decision as an "at Chambers" decision. Means it is a decision of a Supreme Court justice. Here's what he posted:

"Decision. Ex parte John Merryman. Before the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States at Chambers."

Some time ago I checked with poster Congressman Billy Bob, who has argued many cases before the Supreme Court. He said that his first Supreme Court win came from a ruling made by a single justice. You don't have to have the full court.

276 posted on 12/03/2007 6:53:48 AM PST by rustbucket
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