The Flimsy Case Against Mary Surratt

[RJNorton]

(01-13-2019 04:59 PM)wpbinzel Wrote:  No court of competent jurisdiction has ever ruled that the trial of the Lincoln assassination conspirators was "illegal," even in the aftermath of Milligan. Judge Thomas Jefferson Boynton of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida considered that very issue in Ex Parte Mudd, 17 F. Cas. 954 (S.D. Fla. 1868) two years after Milligan.

Here is a part of the heart of Judge Thomas J. Boynton's opinion:

"The President was assassinated not from private animosity, nor any other reason than a desire to impair the effectiveness of military operations, and enable the rebellion to establish itself into a Government; the act was committed in a fortified city, which had been invaded during the war, and to the northward as well as the southward of which battles had many times been fought; which was the headquarters of all the armies of the United States, from which daily and hourly went military orders. The President is the Commander in Chief of the army and the President who was killed had many times made distinct military orders under his own hand, without the formality of employing the name of the Secretary of War or commanding general. It was not Mr. Lincoln who was assassinated, but the Commander in Chief of the army for military reasons. I find no difficulty therefore, in classing the offense as a military one, and with this opinion, arrive at the necessary conclusion that the proper tribunal for the trial of those engaged in it was a military one."