Food for Thought

[wpbinzel]

(07-31-2019 04:56 AM)mike86002000 Wrote:  Trials of civilians by military tribunals are illegal.

I am currently traveling and do not have time to post a lengthy response, but the underlying premise and assumption of the above statement is that the Lincoln assassination conspirators were mere citizens and that the facts of Ex parte Milligan and Ex parte Mudd are on point. They are not. Milligan was a civilian, and the Lincoln assassination conspirators were enemy combatants who committed an act of war by conspiring to kill the Commander in Chief in a time of war to further the prospects of the belligerent government of the Confederacy. Whether you accept that as fact today or not, that's how the conspirators were viewed in 1865; and whether 21st Century legal theory would support that view is, in my opinion, totally irrelevant to a 19th Century legal proceeding that has not been overturned.

As for the speculation that Andrew Johnson's action in the waning hours of administration was to avoid a Supreme Court ruling on Mudd is just that: speculation. In my view, such speculation either ignores or totally misreads Johnson's character. He had a much stronger motivation.