As you know (because I've posted it to you before) but doubtless forgot, General Jackson said the following upon paying the fine:
Considering obedience to the laws, even when we think them unjustly applied, is the first duty of the citizen, and I do not hesitate to comply with the sentence you have heard pronounced; and I entreat you to remember the example I have given you of respectful submission to the administration of justice.
He obeyed the law. Lincoln didn't.
Your opinion only. The Supreme Court never gainsaid what President Lincoln did. And they are the only body with any standing to do so.
But consider:
“We begin our analysis with the use of martial law in contested territory, whether in the border states or the South. Such use of martial law was not unprecedented. During the American revolution, the Continental Congress reacted to threatened British attacks in Pennslvania and Delaware by authorizing a form of martial law: “[W]hereas, principles of policy and self-preservation require all persons who may be reasonably suspected of aiding or abetting the cause ofthe enemy may be presvented from pursuing measures injurious t the public weal,” Congres authorized state governors to arrest and confine disloyal residents.
Similarly, General Jackson imposed martial law in New Orleans when the city was threatened by the British during the war of 1812. He took martial law to extraordinary lengths, expelling the French consul (though France was a friendly power), aresting the author of a letter to the editor for repeating rumors that peace had arrived (wgich turned out to be true), and ultimaltely arresting a federal judge and district attorney for interferring wth these actions.
In a third pre-civil war instance of martial law, the issue ultimately reached the Supreme Court. In Luther v. Borden, the Supreme Court resoundingly upheld the use of martial law, in an opinion by none other than Chief Justice Taney. The case involved a dispute over the legitamacy of the state government in Rhode Island, a dispute that had been resolved in favor of the existing government. In putting down an effort to displace the government by a rival group, the governor had declared martial law. “[U]nquestionably,” Taney pronounced, “a State may use its military power to put down an armed insurrection, too strong to be controlled by the civil authority.” The power to do so “is essential to the existence of every government, essential to the preservation of order and free institutions, and is necessary to the State of this Union as to any other government.” “This “[I] the government of Rhode Island deemed the armed opposition so formidable, and so ramified throughout the State, as to require the use of military force and the declaration of martial law, we see no ground upon which this court cn question its authority.” The case involved “a state of war, and the established government rights and useages of war to maintain itself, and to overcome nlawful opposition.” Hence, the military could arrest suspected supporters of the insurrection and could break into houses where such individuals might be hidden, all without a warrant. Without power to do this, martial law and the military array of the government would be mere parade, and rather encourage attack rather than repel it.”
...Luther was later strongly resaffirmed in Justice Holmes’s opinion in Moyer v. Peabody. In response to a violent miner’s strike, the gvernor had declared the affectted county to be in a state of insurrection and called out the national guard. He arrested the union’s president and held him for several months without trial. Justice Holmes saw no constitutional difficulty. “Of course,” holmes said, the “plaintiff’s position is that he had been deprived of his liberty withut due process of law.” But due process depends on the circumstances. Under federal law, the governor was authorized to call out the national guard in response to invasion or insurection.”That means that he shall make the ordinary use of the soldiers to that end; that he may kill persons who resist, and, of course, that he may use the milder measure of seizing the bodies of those whome he considers to stand in the way of restoring peace.”
“In any event, if prior congresssional authorization was needed, it probably did exist. In the special secession called by Lincoln, Congress ratified all of his orders relating to the miltia or armed forces. Since Lincoln’s suspension directive took the form of an authorization to General Scott, this may well have ratified at least past suspension in cases like Merryman. But, even before the special secession, Lincoln had already probably had whatever congressional authorization he needed, at least for the initial emergency suspension in Merryman.
This source of authority was the militia act. This theory was adopted in Ex parte Field, where the federal circuit held that the statutes empowering Lincoln to call out the militia also implicitly authorized him to declare martial law and hence to suspend habeas."
--"Lincoln's Constitution" by Daniel Farber
Your opinion really doesn't matter.
Walt
A second take on your comment.
Consider what President Lincoln said in his first inaugural:
"I do not forget the position assumed by some, that constitutional questions are to be decided by the Supreme Court; nor do I deny that such decisions must be binding in any case, upon the parties to a suit; as to the object of that suit, while they are also entitled to very high respect and consideration in all parallel cases by all other departments of the government."
During the era of the Civil War, the generally accepted idea what that each branch of the government interpreted the Constitution itself. Decisions of the Supreme Court were binding only on the parties before the court. The issue of whether the president may suspend the Writ never came before the Supreme Court.
You may not like it, but that is the way it worked.
Walt