In spite of the inflammatory rhetoric in the opening post, the 37th Congress passed the Habeaus Corpus Act which agreed the president had acted lawfully in his prior suspension of the privilege of the Writ and even gave him more authority than he had previously used.
Vermont Senator Jacob Collamer, January 9, 1863:
We together with the House of Representatives, make the legislative department, and are in no way superior to him. Within the sphere of our jurisdiction we have the same rights as the Executive, and no more. The Executive is just as much clothed with authority, and bound in duty when called on, to give construction to the Constitution in the execution of it as we are, and his decision is just as binding as ours. I know there is a feeling—what it arises from I cannot say—that somehow or other the legislative department is superior to the other departments of the Government. I am sure, if each is kept within its regular sphere of jurisdiction, I do not know wherein; and it is not common courtesy for one department of this Government to say to another, “We say the Constitution means so and so, and we are infallible.” The judiciary, when the question arises before them in the proper form, decide the Constitution in the particular suit, and that is all there is in their decision. Now, sir, the President of the United States, in this great exigency of public affairs, in the recess of Congress, was called upon, as he viewed it, to give construction to that provision of the Constitution which declares that the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus shall not be suspended except when, in a time of rebellion or invasion, the public safety requires it. The President did give construction to that clause, because those words evidently imply that in such a contingency as rebellion or invasion, when the public safety requires it, the privilege of the habeas corpus may be suspended. It does not say so in direct terms, but that is its necessary implication. He gave construction to that clause. He had the opinion of the legal counselor of the President, agreeing with the opinion of such a man as the ex-Attorney General, Mr. Johnson, agreeing with Mr. Biñney, agreeing with Chief Justice Parker, and many others that I might mention, leading men as statesmen, as civilians, and as lawyers in the nation.
Congressional Globe 3rd Session, 37th Congress, pg. 247