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A case before the U.S. Supreme Court. The petitioner was arrested at his home in Maryland, in 1861, for treason, by order of a major-general of the National army. He was imprisoned at Fort McHenry, Baltimore. Chief Justice Taney, of the Supreme Court of the United States, granted a writ of habeas corpus, which the officer in charge at Fort McHenry refused to execute, on the ground that the President had suspended the writ of habeas corpus. The majority of the court decided that no such power was vested in the President, Congress alone having such privilege; that a military officer has no right to arrest a person not subject to the rules and articles of war, except in the aid of judicial authority.