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Suspension of Habeas Corpus

When: April 1861
Where: Washington, D.C.
Part of: Fort Sumter is bombarded and the American Civil War begins

President Lincoln suspended the writ of habeas corpus in April 1861.

In April 1861, President Lincoln suspended the writ of habeas corpus. This action was controversial, as Chief Justice Roger Taney ruled in Ex parte Merryman that only Congress could suspend the writ.

Sources

Abraham Lincoln Wikipedia, revision of 2026-09-27

Machine-drafted from the cited Wikipedia passages and checked by a reviewing model, not by a human editor. Every passage cites the revision it was written from; dates and places follow those passages.