The Judicial Murder of Mary E. Surratt Part 17

Holt pictures the dead Johnson exulting even in h.e.l.l over the silence of his old Attorney-General; blasts the character of Stanton by ascribing his injunction of silence to a motive the most diabolic; and, unconscious seemingly that he does it, at the same time ruins the credit of Bingham by extolling his "scrupulous obedience" to such an infernal command.

Johnson unwittingly proclaims the pardon of the slain woman in his anxiety to show that he signed her death-warrant through ignorance, forced upon him by the ineffable depravity of the men in whom he was compelled to trust.

This controversy over the pet.i.tion of clemency was the only thing needed to round out and decorate the entire, complete and perfect iniquity of the whole drama. It is immaterial and indifferent to history where the truth lies between these combatants in so unsavory a strife. Each one tears off the burning brand of shame, not to extinguish it, but to pa.s.s it on to his colleague. If we credit Holt, it is difficult to conceive the malignity of soul of Andrew Johnson, who could invent so foul a charge, the meanness of spirit of Edwin M. Stanton, who, knowing its blackness, could forbid the promulgation of the truth, the cowardly silence of John A. Bingham, whose lips the death of the dreaded Stanton alone could unclose. If we credit Johnson, then in all the crowded catalogue of inquisitors, persecutors, cruel or pettifogging prosecuting officers, devil's advocates and murderous Septembrisers, there is not one who would not spurn with profane emphasis a.s.sociation with Holt or Bingham or Stanton.

As the choicest specimen in this shower of accusations and counter-accusations, listen to the tender-hearted ex-Judge-Advocate of 1873--once the stony head of the death-dealing Bureau--rebuking Andrew Johnson for his cold-blooded cruelty! "I would have shuddered to propose the brief period of two days within which the sentences should be executed, for with all the mountain of guilt weighing on the heads of those convicted culprits I still recognized them as human beings, with souls to be saved or lost, and could not have thought for a moment of hurrying them into the eternal world, as cattle are driven to the slaughter-pen, without a care for their future."

Listen again to the former expounder of the "common law of war" before the Military Commission, as he arraigns the ex-President for his disregard of the writ of habeas corpus: "The object of which was, and the effect of which would have been, had it been obeyed, to delay the execution of Mrs.

Surratt at least until the questions of law raised had been decided by the civil courts of the District; yet this writ was, by the express order of the President, rendered inoperative. And so, under this Presidential mandate, the execution proceeded. * * * But for his direct intervention and defiant action on the writ, whatever might have been the final result, it is perfectly apparent her life would not then have been taken."

Once more. Hear J. Holt, the Recorder of the Commission! "As Chief Magistrate he was, under the Const.i.tution," (HEAR HIM!) "the depositary of the nation's clemency and mercy to the condemned, and a pressing responsibility rested upon him as such _to hear the victims of the law before he struck them down_." (The italics are his who wrote out the death-warrant.) "Did he do this? On the contrary, * * he gave * * a peremptory order to admit n.o.body seeking to make an appeal in behalf of the prisoners, saying that he would 'see no one on this business.'

"He closed his door, his ears, and his heart against every appeal for mercy in her behalf, and hurried this hapless woman almost unshrived to the gallows."

What a picture is this!

The minion of Stanton, the colleague of Bingham, the tutor of Weichman, the tutor of Lloyd, the procurer of the death-warrant, weeping over the empty grave in the a.r.s.enal, which, after his master's relentless watch was over, had at length given up its dead!

Here we are forced to stop. After such an exhibition, we can linger no longer over this miserable scramble to s.h.i.+rk responsibility. Its only consequence of historic importance, after all, is the light it casts upon the memory of the sacrificial victim. Out of the cloud of mutual vituperation, which covers the men who, among them, somehow, compa.s.sed her slaughter, her innocence rises clearer and clearer, like the images of retribution from the foul fumes of the witches' cauldron.

Her vindication must be held to be final, complete and una.s.sailable, when John A. Bingham is anxious to acquaint the country that he drafted a pet.i.tion to save her life; when J. Holt pretends to weep for her; when Andrew Johnson is forced, by the inexorable pressure of events, to confess that when he signed her death-warrant he knew not what he did.

As we let fall the curtain at the close of this dark and shameful tragedy, let us endeavor to antic.i.p.ate the verdict of history.

The execution of Mary E. Surratt is the foulest blot on the history of the United States of America.

It was a violation of the most sacred provisions of that Const.i.tution, whose enforcement was the vaunted purpose of the War.

It was a violation of the fundamental forms and principles of criminal jurisprudence, centuries older than the Const.i.tution.

It was a violation of that even-handed justice, which is said to rule in the armies of Heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth.

It was a violation of those chivalrous impulses which spring unbidden to the manly breast in the presence of woman.

It was a violation of the benign precepts of Jesus, which enjoin tenderness to the fatherless and the widow.

It was a violation of the magnanimity of the brave soldier, which scorns to wound the weak, the fallen and the helpless.

It was a violation of even the common instincts of fairness, which subsist, as a matter of course, between man and man.

It was unconst.i.tutional. It was illegal. It was unjust. It was inhumane.

It was unholy. It was pusillanimous. It was mean. And it was each and all of these in the highest or lowest degree. It resembles the acts of savages, and not the deeds of civilized men.

The annals of modern times will be searched in vain to furnish its parallel. Execrations rise to our lips, as we read, in the pages of Macaulay, of the hanging of Alice Lisle, and the burning of Elizabeth Gaunt. But Alice Lisle and Elizabeth Gaunt were indicted by grand juries, tried by pet.i.t juries, found guilty, and sentenced, in strict accordance with criminal procedure. The forms of law, which the bigoted James, and even the infamous Jeffrey, were careful to observe, were swept aside by Holt and Bingham and Stanton, with a sneer.

We turn aside with sickening horror from the recital of the murderous orgies of the Terrorists of the French Revolution--shedding the blood of the young, the tender, the beautiful, the brave. But the Terrorists of France could plead the excuse, that they were driven to madness by the thought, that the invading hosts, encompa.s.sing the new-born Republic, were drawing nearer and nearer, every hour, with vengeance and counter-revolution perched upon their banners; and a merciful destiny granted them the grace to expiate their b.l.o.o.d.y deeds on the same scaffold as their victims.

But, in the case of Mary E. Surratt, not a single redeeming feature relieves

"The deep d.a.m.nation of her taking off."

Alas! Alas! Right in the centre of the glory which beams from the triumph of the Union and Emanc.i.p.ation, there hangs a dark figure--casting an eclipsing shadow--ever widening--ever deepening--in the eyes of all the coming generations of the just.