Around the 14th century English common law began to recognize the principle by which a prisoner who feels they were unlawfully detained can challenge that detainment. The writ of Habeas Corpus became written law in Britain in the 1600s and enshrined in Article One, Section 9 of the U.S. Constitution. There was, however an out written into the clause: it shall not be suspended “unless when in cases of rebellion or invasion the public safety may require it.” Such cases have been infrequent, but did crop up several times during the history of the U.S.

On this day, October 17, in 1871, President Ulysses S. Grant, engaged in his own “war on terror” against the Ku Klux Klan, suspended the writ of Habeas Corpus to ensure clansmen arrested and imprisoned would not be sprung from captivity by sympathetic legislators.

Grant’s proclamation was brief and affected just South Carolina, making it relatively tame compared to an earlier series of suspension by President Abraham Lincoln during the Civil War, to help the Union army operate among Confederate loyalists in the north. Lincoln’s precedent was also cited by President George W. Bush in his suspension of the writ in trying suspected terrorists.