Supreme Court Decisions: Ex Parte Mccardle 1869

Facts of the Case:
The facts of the case centered around a period in time in American history during reconstruction movement after the end of the civil war in the U.S. William McCardle was a white southerner who lived in Mississippi who published editorials in his newspaper that were against and very critical of the government’s reconstructionist movement. He was arrested and jailed in 1867 by a military officer for going against the Reconstruction laws. In the Southern district of Mississippi in the Circuit court, the judge sent him back into military custody. McCardle sought a writ of habeas corpus on the grounds that the Reconstrcution Acts were unconstitutional. An appeal was heard by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1867. After arguments were heard by the Supreme Court, Congress withdrew its Reconstruction Acts, two weeks after arguments were first heard in March of 1868. before the court had a chance to rule on it.

Question: Does Congress have the right to withdraw its jurisdiction from the court after that jusrisdiction has been made? Also, did McCardle’s imprisonment violate the 5th amendment of the Constitution?

Decision: The Supreme Court ruled in 1869 that Congress can in fact withdraw jurisdiction from the court. Article 3 section 2 was used to jsutify the decision which is known as the exceptions clause in the constitution.
A previous court decision used as a basis for the case was Durousseau v. U.S. in whichg the court found that Congress’ description of judicial powers allowed it to to negate other powers as well.

Answer/Quote: The Supreme Court’s famous quote from this decision is “sorry that the man was mistreated but there’s nothing we can do about it.”

Another important decision in the case was ex parte Milligan in which the court limited the jurisdiction of military tribunals. The Republican Congress feared that the court would declare the Reconstruction Acts unconstitutional so they passed a law striping the court of its power to review decisions on the reconstruction acts. This factored into the ex parte McCardle decision because the court stated it had no power in this matter

Citation: Encyclopedia Britanica online. 2006. 6 March 2006.