A strong and coercive centre capable of overriding state authority at will would almost certainly have failed to secure ratification. Hence, although federal authority prevailed, it did so through state cooperation rather than autonomous national power. Federal power expanded further during the Civil War where President Abraham Lincoln suspended the writ of habeas corpus without congressional authorisation. Following sustained political pressure and overwhelming public support for federal intervention, the Court altered its interpretive approach further widening federal authority. Courts intervened cautiously by adopting an approach of judicial accommodation: some constraint, but no fundamental resistance to expanded federal power in conditions of perceived emergency.