The Taney Arrest Warrant is a conjectural controversy in
Abraham Lincoln
Abraham Lincoln ( ; February 12, 1809 – April 15, 1865) was an American lawyer, politician, and statesman who served as the 16th president of the United States from 1861 until his assassination in 1865. Lincoln led the nation thro ...
scholarship. The argument is that in late May or early June 1861, President Lincoln secretly ordered an
arrest warrant
An arrest warrant is a warrant issued by a judge or magistrate on behalf of the state, which authorizes the arrest and detention of an individual, or the search and seizure of an individual's property.
Canada
Arrest warrants are issued by a j ...
for
Roger B. Taney
Roger Brooke Taney (; March 17, 1777 – October 12, 1864) was the fifth chief justice of the United States, holding that office from 1836 until his death in 1864. Although an opponent of slavery, believing it to be an evil practice, Taney belie ...
, the
Chief Justice of the
United States Supreme Court
The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is the highest court in the federal judiciary of the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all U.S. federal court cases, and over state court cases that involve a point o ...
, but abandoned the proposal. The arrest order is said to have been in response to Taney's Circuit Judge ruling in ''
Ex parte Merryman
''Ex parte Merryman'', 17 F. Cas. 144 (C.C.D. Md. 1861) (No. 9487), is a well-known and controversial U.S. federal court case that arose out of the American Civil War. It was a test of the authority of the President to suspend "t ...
,'' which found Lincoln's suspension of the writ of
habeas corpus
''Habeas corpus'' (; from Medieval Latin, ) is a recourse in law through which a person can report an unlawful detention or imprisonment to a court and request that the court order the custodian of the person, usually a prison official, t ...
to be
unconstitutional
Constitutionality is said to be the condition of acting in accordance with an applicable constitution; "Webster On Line" the status of a law, a procedure, or an act's accordance with the laws or set forth in the applicable constitution. When l ...
.
As historian Brian McGinty concludes, if there was such a plan to arrest Taney it would have been both reckless and inflammatory on Lincoln's part, for it would have dramatically escalated political tensions. McGinty, like all of Lincoln's major biographers, concludes there never was any arrest warrant.
[{{cite book, author=Brian McGinty
, title=Lincoln and the Court, year=2008, publisher=Harvard University Press
, url=https://archive.org/details/lincolncourt00mcgi_0
, url-access=registration
, oclc=154669158, isbn=978-0-674-02655-1]p.76-77
History and evidence
The single primary source document is a manuscript written in the 1880s by
Ward Hill Lamon
Ward Hill Lamon (January 6, 1828 – May 7, 1893) was a personal friend and self-appointed bodyguard of U.S. President Abraham Lincoln. Lamon was famously absent the night Lincoln was assassinated at Ford's Theatre on April 14, 1865, having bee ...
, Lincoln's friend, bodyguard, and
United States Marshal
The United States Marshals Service (USMS) is a federal law enforcement agency in the United States. The USMS is a bureau within the U.S. Department of Justice, operating under the direction of the Attorney General, but serves as the enforcem ...
for the District of Columbia during his administration. According to the manuscript, which is a brief history of ''Ex Parte Merryman'' by Lamon:
:After due consideration the administration determined upon the arrest of the Chief Justice. A warrant or order was issued for his arrest. Then arose the question of service. Who should make the arrest and where should the imprisonment be? This was done by the President with instructions to use his own discretion about making the arrest unless he should receive further orders from him.
The warrant was never served, according to Lamon, for reasons that are not given. The manuscript dates from the 1880s and resides in the collection of Lamon papers at the
Huntington Library
The Huntington Library, Art Museum and Botanical Gardens, known as The Huntington, is a collections-based educational and research institution established by Henry E. Huntington (1850–1927) and Arabella Huntington (c.1851–1924) in San Mar ...
.
Taney's own memoir, completed from his unfinished autobiography by
Samuel Tyler in 1872, refers to the Chief Justice's fears of arrest. According to Tyler, as Taney "left the house of his son-in-law, Mr. Campbell" ''en route'' to his courtroom "remarked that it was likely he should be imprisoned in Fort McHenry before night, but that he was going to Court to do his duty."
[p. 74
Lamon's story emerged during the early 1970s in ''A More Perfect Union'' by ]Harold Hyman
Harold Melvin Hyman (born July 24, 1924) is an historian of the American Civil War and the Reconstruction Era at Rice University. He is emeritus William P. Hobby professor at Rice.
Hyman has a bachelor's degree from the University of California ...
. Some recent writers have accepted the story as credible including Jeffrey Rogers Hummel
Jeffrey may refer to:
* Jeffrey (name), including a list of people with the name
* ''Jeffrey'' (1995 film), a 1995 film by Paul Rudnick, based on Rudnick's play of the same name
* ''Jeffrey'' (2016 film), a 2016 Dominican Republic documentary film
...
in ''Emancipating Slaves, Enslaving Free Men''. For a time in the 1980s and 1990s, it was believed that a second corroborating document by Francis Lieber
Francis Lieber (March 18, 1798 or 1800 – October 2, 1872), known as Franz Lieber in Germany, was a German-American jurist, gymnast and political philosopher. He edited an ''Encyclopaedia Americana''. He was the author of the Lieber Code during ...
referred to the warrant. This was the result of a mistaken numerical citation in an earlier work. The error was discovered by John Rodehamel, a manuscripts librarian at the Huntington Library
The Huntington Library, Art Museum and Botanical Gardens, known as The Huntington, is a collections-based educational and research institution established by Henry E. Huntington (1850–1927) and Arabella Huntington (c.1851–1924) in San Mar ...
. Once informed of this error, Jeffrey Hummel described Lamon's unsupported account as "not credible." That President Lincoln considered, and then rejected, the possibility of arresting Taney is briefly mentioned in '' The Civil War'' produced by Ken Burns
Kenneth Lauren Burns (born July 29, 1953) is an American filmmaker known for his documentary film, documentary films and television series, many of which chronicle United States, American History of the United States, history and Culture of the ...
and aired on Public Broadcasting Service
The Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) is an American public broadcaster and non-commercial, free-to-air television network based in Arlington, Virginia. PBS is a publicly funded nonprofit organization and the most prominent provider of educati ...
(PBS) public television
Public broadcasting involves radio, television and other electronic media outlets whose primary mission is public service. Public broadcasters receive funding from diverse sources including license fees, individual contributions, public financing ...
stations.
Controversy
One criticism is that Lamon is an unreliable source, remembered for lending his name to a ghost-written 1872 biography of Lincoln by Chauncey Black
Chauncey Forward Black (November 24, 1839 – December 2, 1904) was the third lieutenant governor of Pennsylvania from 1883 to 1887. He was an unsuccessful candidate for Governor of Pennsylvania in 1886.
Biography
Born in Glades, Pennsylvania ...
. The biography was received unfavorably by Robert Todd Lincoln
Robert Todd Lincoln (August 1, 1843 – July 26, 1926) was an American lawyer, businessman, and politician. He was the eldest son of President Abraham Lincoln and Mary Todd Lincoln. Robert Lincoln became a business lawyer and company presid ...
, the president's son, and was denounced for a lack of discretion. On the other hand, the habeas corpus manuscript was written in the mid-1880s, around the time Lamon was working on his second book, ''Recollections of Abraham Lincoln,'' which was incomplete when he died (Lamon's daughter edited the completed portions of it for posthumous publication). This second book is highly regarded among Lincoln scholars and is the main source for many well-known Lincoln anecdotes and quotes. The Taney warrant story does not appear in this second book.
Another criticism is that no copy of the warrant or other documentation has been found to support Lamon's story.
During Lincoln's administration several prominent political adversaries were arrested, including Congressman Clement Vallandigham
Clement Laird Vallandigham ( ; July 29, 1820 – June 17, 1871) was an American politician and leader of the Copperhead faction of anti-war Democrats during the American Civil War. He served two terms for Ohio's 3rd congressional district in the ...
, a leading Copperhead
Copperhead may refer to:
Snakes
* ''Agkistrodon contortrix'', or copperhead, a venomous pit viper species found in parts of North America
* '' Austrelaps'', or Australian copperhead, a genus of venomous elapids found in southern Australia and Ta ...
, and at least one other federal judge – William Matthew Merrick
William Matthews Merrick (September 1, 1818 – February 4, 1889) was a United States circuit judge of the United States Circuit Court of the District of Columbia, a United States representative from Maryland and an associate justice of the Supr ...
of the United States Circuit Court
The United States circuit courts were the original intermediate level courts of the United States federal court system. They were established by the Judiciary Act of 1789. They had trial court jurisdiction over civil suits of diversity jurisdict ...
for the District of Columbia – was placed under house arrest for defying the suspension. Several northern newspapers also publicly called for Taney's arrest after the Merryman ruling.
Notes
References
* Brandt, Dennis W. ''Shattering the Truth: The Slandering of Abraham Lincoln'' (2009)
* McGinty, Brian. ''Lincoln and the Court'' (2008)
Presidency of Abraham Lincoln