A statute of 1867 extended the writ of habeas corpus to anyone deprived of his or her liberty in violation of the Constitution, laws, or treaties of the United States. In 1868, the Supreme Court heard the case of ex parte McCardle, an appeal under the 1867 law by a Mississippi newspaper editor detained by military authorities for publishing anti-government editorials.  After the case was argued but before the Court issued a decision, the Republican majority in Congress repealed the Court’s appellate jurisdiction over cases brought under the 1867 act, which included McCardle, for fear that the Court would use that case as an opportunity to declare the Reconstruction laws unconstitutional. The Court issued an opinion upholding the withdrawal of jurisdiction based on the clause in Article III, section 2 of the Constitution providing Congress with the authority to make exceptions to the Court’s jurisdiction. Shortly thereafter, however, the Court held in ex parte Yerger that it retained the jurisdiction over habeas corpus appeals it had been granted from the Constitution and the Judiciary Act of 1789. In 1885, Congress restored the right of appeal to the act of 1867.

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