Soon afterwards the validity of the Reconstruction Acts was again presented in the celebrated McArdle case, and in such a form that the decision of the question could not well be avoided.  In November, 1867, McArdle had been arrested and held in custody by a military commission organized in Mississippi under the Reconstruction Acts, for trial upon charges of (1) disturbance of the public peace; (2) inciting to insurrection, disorder, and violence; (3) libel; and (4) impeding reconstruction.  He thereupon applied to the Circuit Court of the United States for the District of Mississippi for a writ of habeas corpus, in order that he might be discharged from his alleged illegal imprisonment.  The writ was accordingly issued, but on the return of the officer showing the authority under which the petitioner was held, he was ordered to be remanded.  From that judgment he appealed to the Supreme Court.  Of course, if the Reconstruction Acts were invalid, the petitioner could not be held, and he was entitled to his discharge.  The case excited great interest throughout the country.  Judge Sharkey and Robert J. Walker, of Mississippi, David Dudley Field and Charles O’Connor, of New York, and Jeremiah S. Black, of Pennsylvania, appeared for the appellant; and Matthew H. Carpenter, of Wisconsin, Lyman Trumbull, of Illinois, and Henry Stanbery, the Attorney-General, appeared for the other side.  The hearing of it occupied four days, and seldom has it been my fortune during my judicial life, now (1877) of nearly twenty years, to listen to arguments equal in learning, ability, and eloquence.  The whole subject was exhausted.  As the arguments were widely published in the public journals, and read throughout the country, they produced a profound effect.  The impression was general that the Reconstruction Acts could not be sustained; that they were revolutionary and destructive of a republican form of government in the States, which the Constitution required the Federal government to guarantee.  I speak now merely of the general impression.  I say nothing of the fact, as the Court never expressed its opinion in judgment.  The argument was had on the 2d, 3d, 4th, and 9th of March, 1868, and it ought to have been decided in regular course of proceedings when it was reached on the second subsequent consultation day, the 21st.  The Judges had all formed their conclusions, and no excuse was urged that more time was wanted for examination.  In the meantime an act was quietly introduced into the House, and passed, repealing so much of the law of February 5th, 1867, as authorized an appeal to the Supreme Court from the judgment of the Circuit Court on writs of habeas corpus, or the exercise of jurisdiction on appeals already taken.  The President vetoed the bill, but Congress passed it over his veto, and it became a law on the 27th of the month.[3] Whilst it was pending in Congress the attention of the Judges was called to it, and in consultation on the 21st they postponed the decision of the case until it should be disposed of.  It was then that Mr. Justice Grier wrote the following protest, which he afterwards read in Court: