The Flimsy Case Against Mary Surratt

[mikegriffith1]

It is very simple: In America, we don't try civilians in a military court if civilian courts are open and operating. It is just that simple and straightforward. There was a reason that Ex Parte Milligan was a unanimous decision from a court with a Republican/Whig majority (including four judges appointed by Lincoln himself). We would do well to heed the words of this unanimous decision:

Military commissions organized during the late civil war, in a State not invaded and not engaged in rebellion, in which the Federal courts were open, and in the proper and unobstructed exercise of their judicial functions, had no jurisdiction to try, convict, or sentence for any criminal offence, a citizen who was neither a resident of a rebellious State nor a prisoner of war, nor a person in the military or naval service. And Congress could not invest them with any such power.

The guaranty of trial by jury contained in the Constitution was intended for a state of war, as well as a state of peace, and is equally binding upon rulers and people at all times and under all circumstances. . . .

Neither the President nor Congress nor the Judiciary can disturb any one of the safeguards of civil liberty incorporated into the Constitution except so far as the right is given to suspend in certain cases the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus.

A citizen not connected with the military service and a resident in a State where the courts are open and in the proper exercise or their jurisdiction cannot, even when the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus is suspended, be tried, convicted, or sentenced otherwise than by the ordinary courts of law.

A key to understanding the Lincoln assassination is to understand that Stanton's demand for a military commission and his appointment of Holt and Bingham to serve as the prosecutors were part of his cover-up. He was not seeking justice. He was trying to direct all attention to his phony Confederate conspiracy theory, which theory soon collapsed under its own fraudulent and illogical weight.

Even Andrew Johnson, whose hatred of the planter class and the Confederacy knew few equals, after seeing how the Radicals ruthlessly attacked him for trying to implement Lincoln's Reconstruction terms, began to grasp that the Radicals, not the Confederates, had the motive, means, and opportunity to murder Lincoln. It is worth remembering that some Radicals actually tried to gather false testimony that would implicate Johnson in Lincoln's murder, and that some of them publicly suggested that Johnson was involved with Lincoln's murder, after they realized that Johnson was going to try to follow Lincoln's Reconstruction program after all.