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| Book Reviews | The Body of John Merryman: through their state, Lincoln replied: not give the Supreme Court original ju- Abraham Lincoln and the Sus- risdiction to issue writs of habeas cor- pension of Habeas Corpus I must have troops to defend this pus, but section 14 of the Judiciary Act Capital. Geographically it lies sur- of 1789 gave this power to both indi- By Brian McGinty rounded by the soil of Maryland; vidual justices and district court judges; Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA, and mathematically the neces- therefore, in either event, Taney was 2011. 253 pages, $29.95 sity exists that they should come acting legally when he ordered General over her territory. Our men are George Cadwalader, the military com- Abraham Lincoln and Treason in not moles, and can’t dig under mander of Fort McHenry, to “have the the Civil War: The Trials of John the earth; they are not birds, and body of John Merryman” brought to his Merryman can’t fly through the air. There is courtroom. no way but to march across, and Cadwalader declined Taney’s order, By Jonathan W. White that they must do. But in doing citing President Lincoln’s suspension of Louisiana State University Press, Baton Rouge, this there is no need of collision. the writ of habeas corpus as his justi- LA, 2011. 191 pages, $49.95 (cloth), $18.95 Keep your rowdies in Baltimore, fication. For, on April 27, Lincoln had (paper) and there will be no bloodshed. written to General Winfield Scott: “If Go home and tell your people at any point or in the vicinity of the REVIEWED BY HEN R Y CO H EN that if they will not attack us, we military line” between Philadelphia and will not attack them; but if they Washington, “you find resistance which On April 12, 1861, the South fired on do attack us, we will return it, renders it necessary to suspend the writ Fort Sumter and the Civil War began.
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