Backstage At The Lincoln Assassination

[L Verge]

As you all know by now, I love Backstage... and have written so in a review I did for Amazon. One thing I enjoyed most was a really good portrayal of John Ford and what a kind man he was and what he endured from the federal government. There is one quote from Ford that Tom used that really impressed me as to "how everything old is new again."

Even after his own release, Ford continued to fight for the release of Edman Spangler. When the ex parte Milligan case was decided in 1866, Ford asked Thomas Ewing and Reverdy Johnson to draft a writ of habeas corpus on behalf of Spangler; and the three men appealed directly to Andrew Johnson -- but were rebuffed, pretty much saying that there was too much "political excitement" still going on.

In the book, Tom quotes Ford having written to Ewing, "Alas our poor country -- she bleeds from every vein." He looked "with fear to the future and entertain a vague regret that I am father to children who may inherit the wreck of our once proud country."

That immediately made me think of very similar, modern comments - mainly related to the economic and social conditions that the U.S. faces today. Like so many straight-thinking Americans now, John T. Ford was thinking about what the present was going to do to the future.