known, though not officially proclaimed, that a formal treaty of
peace had been signed between the United States and Great
Britain. The courts were open; his court was open; and the
General should have respected the process which issued from
it.[Footnote: Johnson _v._ Duncan, 3 Martin's La. Reports,
O. S., 530. See opinion of Mr. Justice Miller in Dow _v._
Johnson, 100 U. S. Reports, 158, 193; _Ex parte_ Milligan, 4
Wallace's Reports, 2, 127.]

During the Civil War, President Lincoln was responsible for many
arrests by military officers of citizens of States remote from
the seat of actual hostilities, and in which the courts were
open. At its first outbreak he entirely suspended the privilege
of the writ of _habeas corpus_, and one issued by the Chief
Justice of the United States was disobeyed.[Footnote: _Ex
parte_ Merryman, Taney's Decisions, 246.] Congress in 1863
enacted that any order of the President, or under his authority,
in the course of the war, should be a defense to any action in
any court for what was done by virtue of it. The State courts
disregarded the statute. If, they said, either the common law or
martial law justified the order, it justified the act; if neither
did, the fiat of Congress cannot make the act a lawful
one.[Footnote: Griffin _v._ Wilcox, 21 Indiana Reports,
370.] The Supreme Court of the United States had this question
before them, but did not find it necessary to decide
it.[Footnote: Bean _v._ Beckwith, 18 Wallace's Reports, 510;
Beckwith _v._ Bean, 98 U. S. Reports, 266. (See the
dissenting opinion of two justices in the last report, p. 292.)]
Had they done so, it would probably have been answered in the
same way.