After the court had adjourned, I went up to the bench and thanked Judge Taney for thus upholding, in its integrity, the writ of habeas corpus. He replied, “Mr. Brown, I am an old man, a very old man” (he had completed his eighty-fourth year), “but perhaps I was preserved for this occasion.” I replied, “Sir, I thank God that you were.”He then told me that he knew that his own imprisonment had been a matter of consultation, but that the danger had passed, and he warned me, from information he had received, that my time would come.
George William Brown, Baltimore and the nineteenth of April, 1861: A Study of the War, Baltimore, N. Murray, Publication Agent, Johns Hopkins University, 1887, p. 90.
In the Life of Benjamin R. Curtis [Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States], Vol. I, p. 240, his biographer says, speaking of Chief Justice Taney, with reference to the case of Merryman, "If he had never done anything else that was high, heroic and important, his noble vindication of the writ of habeas corpus and the dignity and authority of his office against a rash minister of State, who, in the pride of a fancied executive power, came near to the commission of a great crime, will command the admiration and gratitude of every lover of constitutional liberty so long as our institutions shall endure." The crime referred to was the intended imprisonment of the Chief Justice.Three justices, Taney, Brown (Chief Judge of the Supreme Bench of Baltimore, and Mayor of the City in 1861) and Curtis - thought Taney was to be arrested. So much for it being a "myth".
ibid., p. 91.
Oh, I'd say Dred Scott would be up at the top of Taney's accomplishments. After all, he had such respect for states rights and the Bill of Rights that he found that a class of people have no citizenship and no rights under any circumstances and regardless of what state laws may say. < / sarcasm >
It seems to me that Taney's integrety and love for the Constitution was highly selective.
Curtis was not a Justice. He resigned in 1857.
Even in the excerpt you provide, there is no evidence that a warrant was issued.
Lincoln didn't have to have Taney arrested. Taney was powerless, and irrelevant.
Taney was powerless in some ways simply because of the way he dscredited himself with decisions like Dred Scott, which was clearly wrong based on the record -- it was, as I have said before, as surely an attempt at judicial activism as Roe v. Wade was. And Dred Scott helped bring on the war. Thanks, Roger.
It should be noted that Merryman did actually take part in burning bridges in Maryland. The District of Columbia, or course, nestles between VA and MD. Virginia was in process of going for treason and secession. Lincoln absolutely could not wait for Congress to come into session -- that was not scheduled until September, 1861. Lincoln's actions were entirely properly and necessary. Taney was leaning towards treason himself simply by opposing Lincoln's actions. His ruling in Dred Scott shows he cared not a fig for the law.
I was thinking about something else today that I will append here.
Lincoln's extensive defense of his Habeas Corpus actions was made in June, 1863, over two years after the events in Maryland. I posted that defense on FR not long after 9/11. There was a very boistrous discussion of civil liberties during the ACW -- at least in the north. Nothing like that has really ensued since 9/11. It all blew over pretty quickly. I'm pretty sure this Juan Padilla who was arrested, is still held without access to counsel. He is an American citizen and none of the circumstances Lincoln faced then are extant now.
Walt