Cite as: 518 U. S. 651 (1996)
Opinion of the Court
Whether or not we are bound by these restrictions, they certainly inform our consideration of original habeas petitions.
III
Next, we consider whether the Act suspends the writ of habeas corpus in violation of Article I, § 9, clause 2, of the Constitution. This Clause provides that "[t]he Privilege of the Writ of Habeas Corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in Cases of Rebellion or Invasion the public Safety may require it."
The writ of habeas corpus known to the Framers was quite different from that which exists today. As we explained previously, the first Congress made the writ of habeas corpus available only to prisoners confined under the authority of the United States, not under state authority. Supra, at 659- 660; see Ex parte Dorr, 3 How. 103 (1844). The class of judicial actions reviewable by the writ was more restricted as well. In Ex parte Watkins, 3 Pet. 193 (1830), we denied a petition for a writ of habeas corpus from a prisoner "detained in prison by virtue of the judgment of a court, which court possesses general and final jurisdiction in criminal cases." Id., at 202. Reviewing the English common law which informed American courts' understanding of the scope of the writ, we held that "[t]he judgment of the circuit court in a criminal case is of itself evidence of its own legality," and that we could not "usurp that power by the instrumentality of the writ of habeas corpus." Id., at 207.
It was not until 1867 that Congress made the writ generally available in "all cases where any person may be restrained of his or her liberty in violation of the constitution, or of any treaty or law of the United States." Supra, at 659. And it was not until well into this century that this Court interpreted that provision to allow a final judgment of conviction in a state court to be collaterally attacked on habeas. See, e. g., Waley v. Johnston, 316 U. S. 101 (1942) (per curiam); Brown v. Allen, 344 U. S. 443 (1953). But we assume,
663
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