<P> The Act allowed the president to suspend the writ of habeas corpus so long as the Civil War was ongoing . Normally, a judge would issue a writ of habeas corpus to compel a jailer to state the reason for holding a particular prisoner and, if the judge was not satisfied that the prisoner was being held lawfully, could release him . As a result of the Act, the jailer could now reply that a prisoner was held under the authority of the president and this response would suspend further proceedings in the case until the president lifted the suspension of habeas corpus or the Civil War ended . </P> <P> The Act also provided for the release of prisoners in a section originally authored by Maryland Congressman Henry May, who had been arrested without recourse to habeas in 1861, while serving in Congress . It required the secretaries of State and War to provide the judges of the federal district and circuit courts with a list of every person who was held as a state or political prisoner and not as a prisoner of war wherever the federal courts were still operational . If the secretaries did not include a prisoner on the list, the judge was ordered to free them . If a grand jury failed to indict anyone on the list before the end of its session, that prisoner was to be released, so long as they took an oath of allegiance and swore that they would not aid the rebellion . Judges could, if they concluded that the public safety required it, set bail before releasing such unindicted prisoners . If the grand jury did indict a prisoner, that person could still be set free on bail if they were charged with a crime that in peacetime would ordinarily make them eligible for bail . These provisions for those held as "political prisoners", as Henry May felt he had been, were first proposed by Congressman May in a bill in March 1862 . </P> <P> The Act further restricted how and why military and civilian officials could be sued . Anyone acting in an official capacity could not be convicted for false arrest, false imprisonment, trespassing, or any crime related to a search and seizure; this applied to actions done under Lincoln's prior suspensions of habeas corpus as well as future ones . If anyone brought a suit against a civilian or military official in any state court, or if state prosecutors went after them, the official could request that the trial instead take place in the (friendlier) federal court system . Moreover, if the official won the case, they could collect double in damages from the plaintiff . Any case could be appealed to the United States Supreme Court on a writ of error . Any suits to be brought against civilian or military officials had to be brought within two years of the arrest or the passage of the Act, whichever was later . </P> <P> President Lincoln used the authority granted him under the Act on September 15, 1863, to suspend habeas corpus throughout the Union in any case involving prisoners of war, spies, traitors, or any member of the military . He subsequently both suspended habeas corpus and imposed martial law in Kentucky on July 5, 1864 . An objection was made to the Act that it did not itself suspend the writ of habeas corpus but instead conferred that authority upon the president, and that the Act therefore violated the nondelegation doctrine prohibiting Congress from transferring its legislative authority, but no court adopted that view . Andrew Johnson restored civilian courts to Kentucky in October, 1865, and revoked the suspension of habeas corpus in states and territories that had not joined the rebellion on December 1 later that year . At least one court had already ruled that the authority of the president to suspend the privilege of the writ had expired with the end of the rebellion a year and a half earlier . </P>

Civil rights during the war suspension of habeas corpus