Comment Re:Why be paranoid about laws (Score 1) 853
Well, in Ex parte Merryman, Lincoln was ordered by a federal court to stop the suspension of habeas corpus and he did ignore it. I assume this is the case to which you are referring, as it affirmed that a president does not have the power to unilaterally suspend habeas corpus. But the Constitution explicitly gives the power to Congress, anyway. And in 1863 Congress passed the Habeas Corpus Act which effectively legalized what Lincoln had already ordered.
The point is that Congress can legally suspend habeas corpus. So if the president, in such a scenario, had the support of Congress, as Lincoln eventually did, then de facto martial law could be quite easily effected.