No, it just renders it of little weight, as does Taney's well known pro-slavery inclinations.
I'd direct your attention to John Marshall's majority opinion for the supreme court in Ex parte Bollman & Swartwout:
You're late for class. I've already explained in Post #60 that your Marshall quote was mere dictum.
Such a limitation is inherent to Article I itself: "All legislative Powers," meaning that which is specified, "herein granted," meaning in Article I, "shall be vested in a Congress of the United States," meaning the legislative branch of the government.
There are legislative powers specified in Articles II, III, IV, and V. Art. I deals mostly but not exclusively with legislative powers. Things aren't as cut and dried as you and 4Con would have us believe.
Restrictions contained throughout that section [9] are oriented to the national legislative branch alone...
So you and 4Con would have us presume. I was wisely taught in law school to never make presumptions regarding the law. If Section 9 is only intended to apply to Congress, why does the last paragraph state "No Title of Nobility shall be granted by the United States" instead of "by the Congress"?
I ask you then how so [it is clear that Taney either lacked the courage of his convictions...]? I further question based upon your assertion of this to be the case, your familiarity with the constitutional history of the court itself. It was recognized dating back to marbury that the court itself had only its own authority and word. Enforcement came elsewhere. Taney was simply reasserting this principle, and correctly so.
Federal Courts (including Taney's Circuit Court) have the power to enforce their habeas corpus orders with U.S. Marshals, who are at their disposal pursuant to the Judiciary Act of 1789. Taney could have asked the Marshals to use whatever force was necessary to free Merryman from military control. He did not.
You are attacking Taney's decision not on its intrinsic merits or legal scholarship, but rather on an unsubstantiated appeal to vaguely asserted and presumed external motives.
I'm not "attacking" anyone or anything. I'm simply pointing out the facts and speculating on why Taney didn't make more of an effort to have his order enforced. Do you deny that Taney was a friend of the Confederates?
As a side note, one could easily make and document the argument that Lincoln had a grudge against the Taney court as exhibited during his senate debates and presidential campaign speeches, thereby making him less inclined to abide by any ruling by Taney.
I strongly agree.
Your argument is akin to the president deciding all of a sudden he wants to hike the income tax by 10%, instructing the IRS to make it so, and then after the fact recieving a simple congressional acknowledgement that states "yeah, we agree with you" and fails to legislate by statute that decision to be so.
No, because hiking the income tax could not reasonably be said to fall within the scope of being "commander in chief" of the armed forces, whereas suspending habeas corpus to protect the public during an invasion or rebellion arguably could.
The "rebellion" broke out in an isolated event on the coast of South Carolina and proceded slowly from there.
Hardly. Plans by Maryland secessionists to invade and/or cut off Washington, D.C. from nonslave states were quickly being implemented. Mobs in Baltimore attacked the 6th Mass. Infantry on April 19th, and the mayor and chief of police ordered the cutting of telegraph wires and the destruction of bridges on the main railroad connecting Washington to the North (which Merryman participated in). Virginia was seceding and capturing Harper's Ferry and Norfolk. The War Department under Buchanan had treacherously transfered many armaments to Southern forts and armories, so the Confederate operatives were working fast and furiously to undermine the Union even before Lincoln assumed office. You're way out in fantasyland with 4Con and the other Confederate glorifiers.
Yes, it does. But in consistency with other rulings on legislative authority, that does not become an issue.
as does Taney's well known pro-slavery inclinations.
Not really beyond the circumstantial attempts to discredit him that you make, which as I noted are irrational. Taney's opinion on habeas corpus is not the same thing as his opinion on slavery, making it absurd to discredit one based upon the other.
You're late for class. I've already explained in Post #60 that your Marshall quote was mere dictum.
No. You simply asserted it to be so, used your own assertion as grounds to ignore it, and left it at that.
There are legislative powers specified in Articles II, III, IV, and V. Art.
But all in relation to the primary functions of their respective articles. The legislature itself is established in Article I where its functions are described and where all pertains to either the legislature directly or a direct and immediate situation in which the legislature interacts with another branch on a matter of legislative issues (i.e. signing of bills into law)
I deals mostly but not exclusively with legislative powers.
It is exclusive in the sense that all within Article I directly pertains to the legislature itself or a direct relationship between it and another branch in a legislative funtion.
Things aren't as cut and dried as you and 4Con would have us believe.
They certainly are for any direct and strict reading of the Constitution. In fact, I would venture to say that the ONLY way you can make the argument you do is to exercise what may be, by all reasonable means, characterized as an extremely tortured and intentionally loose reading of the document. That much is evidenced in the great degree of bending you have gone through to simply reach your basic argument, much less defend it.
Restrictions contained throughout that section [9] are oriented to the national legislative branch alone...
So you and 4Con would have us presume.
No. So I assert to be so in any reasonable direct reading of the document.
I was wisely taught in law school to never make presumptions regarding the law.
If that is so, why do you do just that?
If Section 9 is only intended to apply to Congress, why does the last paragraph state "No Title of Nobility shall be granted by the United States" instead of "by the Congress"?
Because you intentionally truncated the last paragraph, which continues to read in full "And no Person holding any Office of Profit or Trust under them, shall, without the Consent of the Congress, accept of any present, Emolument, Office, or Title, of any kind whatever, from any King, Prince, or foreign State."
Federal Courts (including Taney's Circuit Court) have the power to enforce their habeas corpus orders with U.S. Marshals
Yet need not necessarily do so if the circumstances do not permit it. There was more than enough tension at the time for Taney to know that he himself was not immune to Lincoln's wrath. It is documented historical fact that Taney made sure Lincoln recieved a copy of his opinion in Merryman, which would have had definate relevance to acts being undertaken by Lincoln, and Lincoln basically ignored it. You figure out the rest.
I'm not "attacking" anyone or anything.
Indeed you are. You are drawing into question the validity of Taney's opinion by posing what you presume to be arguments against its validity.
I'm simply pointing out the facts
And I am pointing out that your "facts" are riddled with circumstance, subjectivity, and questionable presumptions.
and speculating on why Taney didn't make more of an effort to have his order enforced.
And again, I am pointing out that you made your speculation with the express purpose of attempting to discredit the intrinsic merits of Taney's argument. I am also pointing out that your speculation is just that and nothing more.
Do you deny that Taney was a friend of the Confederates?
It is admissable that Taney's own beliefs were shared more so among the southern and border states than the north, but that in itself ammounts to little substantive in weighing the merits of his opinion beyond your admitted speculation. Therefore I question what your purpose of debating it is.
I strongly agree.
Good! There's one matter of agreement then.
No, because hiking the income tax could not reasonably be said to fall within the scope of being "commander in chief"
If one were to torture the language of the constitution enough, he could arrive at that conclusion. i.e. The commander in chief needs an army to exercise his authority and needs to pay that army, and in the absence of congress to appropriate funds to that army or raise such funds due to session being out and the inconvenience of calling it in. Therefore could one not suppose on the same ground that the president could raise the funds to appropriate for that legislative act of raising an army under his function as CoC, just as your argument says he may do under the legislative act of suspending habeas corpus?
Hardly. Plans by Maryland secessionists to invade and/or cut off Washington, D.C. from nonslave states were quickly being implemented.
And you are saying none of these incidents could have been thwarted by simple military force rather than the suspension of habeas corpus by one without the authority to make that suspension?