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. Missouri inserted in her Constitution of 1865 a provision similar to the Act of Congress. This, of course, so far as that State could do it, abrogated any rule of law to the contrary, and it was held not to contravene any provision of the Federal Constitution.[Footnote: Drehman _v._ Stifle, 8 Wallace's Reports, 595.] The transaction in controversy, however, was before the adoption of the fourteenth amendment, and had the prohibition in that been then in existence, a different result would probably have been reached. The Governor of North Carolina (William W. Holden) in 1870 declared two counties in a state of insurrection. The militia were called out and a number of citizens arrested. Writs of _habeas corpus_ in their favor were issued by Chief Justice Pearson of the Supreme Court of the State against the military officers.[Footnote: _Ex parte_ Moore, 64 North Carolina Reports, 802; 65 North Carolina Reports, Appendix, 349.] They at first refused, by the Governor's authority, to obey them. Similar writs were then obtained from the District Judge of the United States, upon which the petitioners were, by the Governor's orders, produced before the State judge. The result was the impeachment of Governor Holden and his removal from office.[Footnote: S. S. Cox, "Three Decades of Federal Legislation," 458.]