Was Stanton a murder target?

[John Fazio]

(10-17-2016 06:21 PM)L Verge Wrote:  James O. Hall was the first to explain this situation to me regarding succession to the presidency as established under the 1792 act.

Section 9 declared that, in the event of the removal, resignation, death, or inability of both the President and Vice President, the President pro tempore of the United States Senate was next in line of succession after the Vice President, followed by the Speaker of the House of Representatives.

If both the President and Vice President were removed, resigned, or died, section 10 required there to be a presidential election in December of the year in which section 9 was invoked (or in December of the next year, if there was less than two months to go until December and the presidential term was not about to expire).

Section 10 appears to be the key, and Secretary of State Seward would be the one responsible for gathering the electors and arranging an emergency election. Mr. Hall's contention was that that was the reason for Seward being next on the hit list. Mike Kauffman used to cite Seward's tyrannical abolitionist beliefs as another reason for Booth to target him -- part of the Come Retribution cipher symbolism.

Laurie:

I concur with both James Hall and Mike Kauffman, to which I would add that Seward was also, and most especially, loathed by the Southern leadership because he had frustrated (mostly through the agency of Charles Francis Adams, the American Minister to Great Britain) every attempt they made to gain foreign recognition of the Confederacy. They had sent three representatives to Europe for this express purpose--William Yancy, Pierre Rost and Dudley Mann--and all three of them failed. The failure was laid at Seward's feet.

John