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
Consider that Lincoln just made that claptrap up. Cite your source supporting your assertion that this claptrap was the generally accepted idea.
Here is my source to the contrary. It is a source you, yourself, have quoted on many occasions.
Consider Lincoln's Constitution by Daniel Farber, pp. 188-9
Lincoln's action might suggest that he thought he had the general power to second-gues judicial orders. The argument in favor of such a presidential power has been pressed with great ingenuity, relying on the postulate that each coordinate branch of government is independent within its own ralm. thus, if the president may interpret the Constitution independently when he is considering whether to veto a bill, he should have the power to interpret the Constitution independently when he is exercising this duty to execute the laws. Judicial decrees azre not self-executing; they often require the intervention of an executive officer such as a marshall. The president, then, must have the power to determine whether it is part of the law he must "faithfully execute" or contrary to that law.This argument for executive nullification has not been well received, even among scholars generally hostile to judicial supremacy. Critics point out that Merryman is the only known instance where the president has actually disobeyed a court order merely because he disagreed with it. They also argue that "the available historical materials ... at least suggest that judgments are absolutely binding. . . . [J]udgments have always been thought of as final between the judicial department and the political departments." A contrary view would undermine the judiciary's position as a coordinate department, effectively reducing it to a mere adviser to the president, would would have the final say about the disposition of lawsuits. The "judicial power" would not amount to much if judgments could be overruled at will by the other branches. And the practical consequences are at least potentially chaotic, threatening a constitutional crisis any time the Court rules against the government in litigation. In this respect, executive nullification has similar vices to Calhoun's theory of state nullification.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought that Jackson had done it, with respect to the removal of the Cherokees from Georgia, with his defi against Chief Justice Marshall.