Editing Ex parte Merryman (section)

===Congressional response===
After reconvening in July, Congress failed to pass a bill favored by Lincoln to explicitly approve his ''habeas corpus'' suspensions and to authorize the administration to continue them.<ref>George Clarke Sellery, [https://books.google.com/books?id=rQfnAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA11 "Lincoln's suspension of ''habeas corpus'' as viewed by Congress"] (Ph.D. Dissertation, University of Wisconsin—Madison, 1907), pp. 11–26.</ref> The administration would continue the arrests, regardless, with a new wave of arrests beginning in Maryland in September 1861.  However, in the summer of 1861, Congress did adopt more general retroactive language rendering Lincoln's previous actions during the spring "in all respects legalized".<ref name=McGinty />

In March 1862 [[Henry May (Maryland)|U.S. Congressman Henry May (D-Maryland)]], who had been imprisoned in the new wave of arrests and held without charges from September&nbsp;1861 to December&nbsp;1861, introduced a bill requiring the federal government either to indict by grand jury or release all other "political prisoners" still held without ''habeas corpus''.<ref name="p. 106">White, Jonathan. ''Abraham Lincoln and Treason in the Civil War: The Trials of John Merryman'', LSU Press, 2011. [https://books.google.com/books?id=pNKB7PjdBl8C&pg=PT106 p. 106]</ref> May's bill passed the House in summer 1862, and its position would later be included in the [[Habeas Corpus Suspension Act 1863]], which would require actual indictments for suspected traitors.<ref name="p. 107">White, [https://books.google.com/books?id=pNKB7PjdBl8C&pg=PT107 p.&nbsp;107]</ref>

Several months later, faced with opposition to his calling up of the militia, Lincoln again suspended ''habeas corpus'' in the entire country and made anyone charged with interfering with the draft, discouraging enlistments, or aiding the Confederacy subject to [[martial law]].<ref>[[wikisource:Proclamation 94|Proclamation&nbsp;94]].</ref> In the interim, the controversy continued with several calls made for prosecution of those who acted under Lincoln's suspension of ''habeas corpus''. Former [[United States Secretary of War|Secretary of War]] [[Simon Cameron]] had even been arrested in connection with a suit for [[vi et armis|trespass ''vi et armis'']], assault and battery, and false imprisonment.<ref name=sellery3>Sellery, pp.&nbsp;34–51.</ref>

In February 1863, former Maryland Governor Hicks who had requested that Lincoln not transport troops through the state was now a U.S. Senator, and claimed: "I believe that arrests and arrests alone saved the State of Maryland not only from greater degradation than she suffered, but from everlasting destruction. ... I approved them [the arrests] then, and I approve them now; and the only thing for which I condemn the Administration in regard to that matter is that they let some of these men out."<ref>[[Bruce Catton]] (1961), ''The Coming Fury'', 1967 reprint, New York:  Pocket Books, Ch.&nbsp;6, "The Way of Revolution", Sec.&nbsp;2, "Arrests and Arrests Alone", p. 360, {{ISBN|0-671-46989-4}}; ''Congressional Globe'', 37th Congress, Third Session, Part&nbsp;2, pp.&nbsp;1372–1373, 1376 (February 1863).</ref>

The passage of the Habeas Corpus Suspension Act in March 1863 finally ended the controversy, at least temporarily, by authorizing presidential suspension of the writ, but requiring indictment by grand jury (or release) of political prisoners, and by indemnifying federal officials who had arrested citizens in the previous two years. It has been argued that after this act was passed, Lincoln and his administration continued to arrest and hold prisoners without giving such prisoners the procedural protections mandated by the Act. In doing so, Lincoln and his administration relied wholly on presidential power claims.