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mike86002000 · 01-18-2019, 05:25 PM

(01-18-2019 03:41 PM)RJNorton Wrote: If the link I posted above does not work, then here is the full URL:

https://rogerjnorton.com/LincolnDiscussi...f9e8cbe0d5

Thanks, Roger,
Low contrast on my monitor, and poor eye sight made me miss the shortcut.
Mike

wpbinzel · 01-18-2019, 08:41 PM

(01-18-2019 01:54 PM)mike86002000 Wrote:
(01-15-2019 11:32 AM)mike86002000 Wrote:
(01-13-2019 03:59 PM)wpbinzel Wrote: Hello, Another Mike. Welcome to the forum.
I know a little bit about the law and Ex Parte Milligan. See the March 2018 issue of the Columbia Law Review.

Mr. Binzel,
I'm in the process of reading the article you mentioned. Thanks for bringing it up. It is in Vol. 118, Issue 2, titled: "The Law (?) Of The Lincoln Assassination", by Martin Lederman. I'm becoming a fan of his. I see you and Laurie Verge are mentioned in the acknowledgements. You should be proud.
I had problems accessing the article using the URL Laurie provided, probably because of my browser, and found it on "myjstor" @:
https://www.jstor.org/stable/26371823?se...b_contents . Other folks may find it useful to do the same. Free membership requires only a user name and password. You can come and go on the article as you please. It's about 168 pages long but there is an abstract and an excellent table of contents that would let one "cherry pick".
The article supports Ex Patre Milligan in the strongest terms, and considers military trials of civilians an aberration. The author is concerned about the recent invocation of these few trials as precedent, supporting the legitimacy of more of them, the opinions of Brett Kavanaugh and Donald Trump not with standing.
Mike

I've finished a first reading of the Columbia Law Review article, on line. It took a snow storm, two pots of bean soup, and several hours.
I've ordered a paper copy of that issue of the law review, which I can copy, (for my own use), high light, and mark up. A serious student of the subject may want to do the same. I checked with the law review, it's in stock and the price remains $20. (They require a check, no credit cards.) That includes Fed Ex shipping. They need a physical address, not just a PO box, and a phone #.
https://columbialawreview.org/back-issues/ .

It's an especially fine article.

Mike

Thank you, Mike. Allow me to return the compliment to you on your efforts to tackle Martin Lederman's missive. I believe your summation of the article and the author's concerns are on the mark.

I have great respect for Marty and his scholarship; however, I do not agree with his conclusion. The principle source of our disagreement is his basic premise, which he states on page 329: "As dramatic and consequential as the assassination may have been, however, it was also—both in form and as a matter of law—a standard-issue homicide, of the sort the criminal justice system routinely handled." In my view, his premise dictated his conclusion. If you begin with the premise that the Lincoln assassination conspiracy was "a standard-issue homicide" (which I read as “civilian”), then I readily grant you that Milligan will lead you to conclude that the conspirators should have been tried in a civilian court.

In my view, the premise is flawed. In April 1865, Abraham Lincoln was not just another “civilian.” He was the President and Commander-in-Chief of the military in the time of war. The Union government believed that the conspirators acted in conjunction with the enemy, as Judge Boynton phrased it in Ex parte Mudd, “to impair the effectiveness of military operations.” Booth himself said much the same thing, writing: (1) "But our cause [the Confederacy's war for independence] being almost lost, something decisive & great must be done."; and (2) “I hoped for no gain. I knew no private wrong. I struck for my country [the Confederate States of America] and that alone.” Reasonable people can (and do) fairly debate whether, in the course of the trial, the Government adequately linked the conspirators with the Confederate government and whether it established that the conspiracy was a “military offence.” In 1865, the argument against the use of a military commission to try the conspirators was raised and rejected. It was raised again in federal court in 1868, two years after Milligan, and was again rejected in a ruling that has never been overturned. I am somewhat skeptical of the argument that it would not stand in a case today because the same facts and circumstances do not exist . At best, I find it to be a matter of supposition and conjecture to apply 21st century legal theory to a mid-19th century proceeding. Historical events are better understood when viewed in the time and context in which they occurred, as best we can ascertain it.

However, if we are going to use the benefit of 21st century knowledge, I would suggest that – thanks to the work of people such as General Tidwell, Messrs. Hall and Gaddy, Ed Steers, Laurie Verge, Bill Richter, John Fazio, and many others – the Government got it right. I believe that there is sufficient evidence to support the conclusion that Booth, et al., Thomas Harney, and others targeted Lincoln and other Union officials as a military objective.

And that seems to be the crux of the matter. If you don’t see a connection between Booth and the Confederate government, then you are likely to be in the camp for a civilian trial. Conversely, the more you see of the connection, the more you are likely to side with the use of a military commission. Not everyone views history through the same lense, and that’s OK – and that is why I am very grateful to Roger for having a forum where we can have this kind of discussion.

mike86002000 · (This post was last modified: 01-19-2019 10:50 AM by mike86002000.)

"AussieMick" wrote:
[/quote]

The 20th-century case that I was referring to was the trial of the six German saboteurs during WWII. I believe that two of them claimed to be American citizens. They were all tried by military court, and I believe that four were hanged. There was also a case that someone brought to my attention years ago, but all I can remember is that the case had a Japanese or Korean name.
[/quote]

Mick,
You are probably thinking of "Korematsu". Wikipedia has an article about his case @: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korematsu_...ted_States . "The decision has been described as an odious and discredited artifact of popular bigotry, and as a stain on American jurisprudence."
Mike

L Verge · 01-19-2019, 01:12 PM

(01-19-2019 10:46 AM)mike86002000 Wrote: "AussieMick" wrote:

The 20th-century case that I was referring to was the trial of the six German saboteurs during WWII. I believe that two of them claimed to be American citizens. They were all tried by military court, and I believe that four were hanged. There was also a case that someone brought to my attention years ago, but all I can remember is that the case had a Japanese or Korean name.
[/quote]

Mick,
You are probably thinking of "Korematsu". Wikipedia has an article about his case @: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korematsu_...ted_States . "The decision has been described as an odious and discredited artifact of popular bigotry, and as a stain on American jurisprudence."
Mike
[/quote]

Mike - I am the one who posted about that, and thank you for identifying the case as being about Japanese-American internments because of perceived threats to national security.

To me, it is interesting to note that many of the "decisions" about this have been made within the past two decades. In fact, the citation for your quote about odious, etc. is actually an article from the Huffington Post in November of 2016, written by a Bruce Fein. It seems that the 9/11 terrorists and the Muslim issue are bringing back old memories?

To me, the point at any time in history is the safety and security of the American public -- desperate times require desperate measures.

mike86002000 · 01-20-2019, 11:47 AM

Bill Binzel 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. Judge Boynton specifically ruled that Milligan was not on point and was not applicable to the Lincoln assassination conspirators. That decision has never been overruled. In fact, a portion of the decision was cited as good law by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit in 2016 in a ruling authored by now-Justice Brett Kavanaugh. See Al Bahlul v. United States, 840 F.3d 757 (2016).

(End Quote)

The Supreme Court, in "Milligan", states its central question is the legality of military trials of civilians when civilian courts are available. "Had the military commission jurisdiction, legally, to try and sentence him?" Their finding certainly doesn't apply just to Mr. Milligan, any more than "Brown VS. The Board of Education" applies just to Ms. Brown.
The full title of the case Judge Boynton ruled on was "Ex Patre Samuel A. Mudd, Samuel Arnold, and Edward Spangler", all of the "conspirators" who survived. The decision was appealed to the Supreme Court. Just as the petition was being filed, President Johnson pardoned the doctor. The court had actually begun hearing oral arguments in the cases of the other two "conspirators", when they too were pardoned. This rendered the case moot and the court dropped it. Please see page 454 of the Columbia Law Review article.
If it is true that District Court Judge Boynton's decision has not been overruled, it's also true that the Supreme Court decision "Milligan" hasn't been either. Thankfully, it still stands.
Mike

mike86002000 · (This post was last modified: 01-20-2019 03:47 PM by mike86002000.)

(01-19-2019 01:12 PM)L Verge Wrote:
(01-19-2019 10:46 AM)mike86002000 Wrote: "AussieMick" wrote:

The 20th-century case that I was referring to was the trial of the six German saboteurs during WWII. I believe that two of them claimed to be American citizens. They were all tried by military court, and I believe that four were hanged. There was also a case that someone brought to my attention years ago, but all I can remember is that the case had a Japanese or Korean name.

Mick,
You are probably thinking of "Korematsu". Wikipedia has an article about his case @: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korematsu_...ted_States . "The decision has been described as an odious and discredited artifact of popular bigotry, and as a stain on American jurisprudence."
Mike
[/quote]

Mike - I am the one who posted about that, and thank you for identifying the case as being about Japanese-American internments because of perceived threats to national security.

To me, it is interesting to note that many of the "decisions" about this have been made within the past two decades. In fact, the citation for your quote about odious, etc. is actually an article from the Huffington Post in November of 2016, written by a Bruce Fein. It seems that the 9/11 terrorists and the Muslim issue are bringing back old memories?

To me, the point at any time in history is the safety and security of the American public -- desperate times require desperate measures.
[/quote]
Lest anyone think the low opinion of the Korematsu case is merely mine and Mr. Fein's, I should clarify: The first part of my quote, that characterizes the case as "an odious and discredited artifact of popular bigotry", is attributed to Mr. Fein. The second part that characterizes it as "a stain on American jurisprudence", is attributed to Carl Takei. The article also quotes numerous other critics with equally scathing comments. (There's a charming photo of Fred Korematsu, too!)
My favorite version of a quote attributed to Benjamin Franklin is:
"Those who would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both."
Mike

L Verge · (This post was last modified: 01-20-2019 07:55 PM by L Verge.)

(01-20-2019 01:37 PM)mike86002000 Wrote:
(01-19-2019 01:12 PM)L Verge Wrote:
(01-19-2019 10:46 AM)mike86002000 Wrote: "AussieMick" wrote:

The 20th-century case that I was referring to was the trial of the six German saboteurs during WWII. I believe that two of them claimed to be American citizens. They were all tried by military court, and I believe that four were hanged. There was also a case that someone brought to my attention years ago, but all I can remember is that the case had a Japanese or Korean name.

Mick,
You are probably thinking of "Korematsu". Wikipedia has an article about his case @: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korematsu_...ted_States . "The decision has been described as an odious and discredited artifact of popular bigotry, and as a stain on American jurisprudence."
Mike

Mike - I am the one who posted about that, and thank you for identifying the case as being about Japanese-American internments because of perceived threats to national security.

To me, it is interesting to note that many of the "decisions" about this have been made within the past two decades. In fact, the citation for your quote about odious, etc. is actually an article from the Huffington Post in November of 2016, written by a Bruce Fein. It seems that the 9/11 terrorists and the Muslim issue are bringing back old memories?

To me, the point at any time in history is the safety and security of the American public -- desperate times require desperate measures.
[/quote]
Lest anyone think the low opinion of the Korematsu case is merely mine and Mr. Fein's, I should clarify: The first part of my quote, that characterizes the case as "an odious and discredited artifact of popular bigotry", is attributed to Mr. Fein. The second part that characterizes it as "a stain on American jurisprudence", is attributed to Carl Takei. The article also quotes numerous other critics with equally scathing comments. (There's a charming photo of Fred Korematsu, too!)
My favorite version of a quote attributed to Benjamin Franklin is:
"Those who would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both."
Mike
[/quote]
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
My favorite version of a quote attributed to Benjamin Franklin is:
"Those who would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both."

Good point, Mike (and Mr. Franklin), but how do you maintain your liberty without being able to secure it from your enemies - both military and civilian (i.e. "enemy belligerents') in times of crisis and when the enemy lives next door?

I know you are particularly sympathetic to Dr. Mudd's case. Mrs. Surratt never had the opportunity to share her feelings about the "State of the New Union," but Dr. Mudd sure did, especially in his writings to his wife from Fort Jefferson.

Even before his case, he was quite vocal about what was happening to his country (much like Booth's writings). See his correspondence with a Catholic literary journal. Google "Letter from Mudd to Orville Brownson, January 13, 1862. Dr. Sam is a tad angry at his church hierarchy as well as the U.S. government.

Angry people often take their anger out on those that they perceive to be causing the problem. I believe that evidence before the court in 1865 pointed to his actions before and during the war and in relation to Booth bearing out this anger towards the Union and its leaders

One more clarification in reference to the quotes from Bruce Fein of the Huffington Post and Carl Takei, mentioned above in regards to the internments of Japanese-Americans during WWII: Mr. Takei is also a journalist and works for the Los Angeles Times. He has a vested interest in the Korematsu case because his grandmother Betty Takei was one of those sent to the camps despite the fact that her husband (Carl's grandfather) was fighting with a U.S. Army artillery unit in Europe. While in hindsight a most appropriate description of the Korematsu case, perhaps, but not an objective, unbiased one.

wpbinzel · 01-20-2019, 08:20 PM

(01-20-2019 11:47 AM)mike86002000 Wrote: Bill Binzel 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. Judge Boynton specifically ruled that Milligan was not on point and was not applicable to the Lincoln assassination conspirators. That decision has never been overruled. In fact, a portion of the decision was cited as good law by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit in 2016 in a ruling authored by now-Justice Brett Kavanaugh. See Al Bahlul v. United States, 840 F.3d 757 (2016).

(End Quote)

The Supreme Court, in "Milligan", states its central question is the legality of military trials of civilians when civilian courts are available. "Had the military commission jurisdiction, legally, to try and sentence him?" Their finding certainly doesn't apply just to Mr. Milligan, any more than "Brown VS. The Board of Education" applies just to Ms. Brown.
The full title of the case Judge Boynton ruled on was "Ex Patre Samuel A. Mudd, Samuel Arnold, and Edward Spangler", all of the "conspirators" who survived. The decision was appealed to the Supreme Court. Just as the petition was being filed, President Johnson pardoned the doctor. The court had actually begun hearing oral arguments in the cases of the other two "conspirators", when they too were pardoned. This rendered the case moot and the court dropped it. Please see page 454 of the Columbia Law Review article.
If it is true that District Court Judge Boynton's decision has not been overruled, it's also true that the Supreme Court decision "Milligan" hasn't been either. Thankfully, it still stands.
Mike

“The decisions of the Supreme Court are binding on the inferior courts; and no decision was ever more willingly followed than would be the decision and the ruling of the majority of the Supreme Court in Milligen’s [sic] case by this Court in any case where that decision was on point. … But I do not think that ex parte Milligen [sic] is a case in point here [i.e., the facts of Ex parte Milligan, are not applicable to the Lincoln assassination conspirators because they were not “civilians”]. … The President was assassinated not from private animosity, nor any other reason than a desire to impair the effectiveness of military operations…. It was not Mr. Lincoln who was assassinated, but the Commander-in-Chief of the army for military reasons [i.e., the Lincoln assassination conspirators were, in modern terminology “enemy combatants”]. I find no difficulty therefore, in classing the offence 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.”
-- Ex parte Mudd, 17 F. Cas. 954 (S.D. Fla. 1868)

PS - I am familiar with what Marty Lederman wrote on page 454, but it does not change the fact that Mudd still stands as the final ruling on the Constitutionality of the use of a military commission to try the Lincoln assassination conspirators. One may be of the opinion that Judge Boynton's ruling is incorrect, but that is all it is -- an opinion, and is not a matter of fact or law.

mike86002000 · 01-20-2019, 11:19 PM

Laurie wrote:
Good point, Mike (and Mr. Franklin), but how do you maintain your liberty without being able to secure it from your enemies - both military and civilian (i.e. "enemy belligerents') in times of crisis and when the enemy lives next door?

I know you are particularly sympathetic to Dr. Mudd's case. Mrs. Surratt never had the opportunity to share her feelings about the "State of the New Union," but Dr. Mudd sure did, especially in his writings to his wife from Fort Jefferson.

Even before his case, he was quite vocal about what was happening to his country (much like Booth's writings). See his correspondence with a Catholic literary journal. Google "Letter from Mudd to Orville Brownson, January 13, 1862. Dr. Sam is a tad angry at his church hierarchy as well as the U.S. government.

Angry people often take their anger out on those that they perceive to be causing the problem. I believe that evidence before the court in 1865 pointed to his actions before and during the war and in relation to Booth bearing out this anger towards the Union and its leaders

One more clarification in reference to the quotes from Bruce Fein of the Huffington Post and Carl Takei, mentioned above in regards to the internments of Japanese-Americans during WWII: Mr. Takei is also a journalist and works for the Los Angeles Times. He has a vested interest in the Korematsu case because his grandmother Betty Takei was one of those sent to the camps despite the fact that her husband (Carl's grandfather) was fighting with a U.S. Army artillery unit in Europe. While in hindsight a most appropriate description of the Korematsu case, perhaps, but not an objective, unbiased one.
End quote

Politicians, charlatans really, who exploit fear and prejudice and bigotry, are also "enemies".
I have a copy of the collection of Dr. Mudd's letters from prison, put together by his daughter, the "Nettie Mudd book". It's been years since I read it. I don't remember that there was much about his political beliefs. His mail was censored. He wrote asking that well meaning people would stop telling him that they were sure he would be released soon. He had taken it literally, thinking they knew something, and it was heart breaking when his hopes were dashed - things like that.
The letter to the journal is all that survives of his personal papers from before the trial. The rest were confiscated and "lost". It's "telling" that the military commission apparently found nothing in his papers to use against him in his trial. I don't remember it as a Catholic journal. It had been recommended to him, as good reading, by a priest. Dr. Mudd objected to their editorial stance and cancelled his subscription. When he continued to receive copies, and presumably be charged for them, he was irate.
It's not just me, Fein, and Takei. Several critics of the Korematsu case are quoted in the Wikipedia article. We don't all have an ax to grind.
Mike

mikegriffith1 · (This post was last modified: 01-21-2019 08:54 AM by mikegriffith1.)

Before I present the points I want to make about Weichmann, Lloyd, and the Mary Surratt case, I must say that the comments in this thread that strain to defend the legality of Stanton's military commission are just another sad example of the apparent propensity here to see the Emperor's New Clothes, in spite of clear evidence to the contrary. If you go back and read the newspapers of the day, you will discover that everyone, everybody, the whole country knew that Ex Parte Milligan was a clear slap at Stanton's military commission, which perhaps explains why Stanton and his ilk were so furious with the decision. And then there's the fact that Stanton wanted to try John Surratt before a military court but could not do so precisely because of the Milligan decision (H. Donald Winkler, Lincoln and Booth, p. 243; William Marvel, Stanton: Lincoln's Autocrat, p. 423; see also this article on Ex Parte Milligan and this article on the legality of Stanton's military commission). Anyway. . . .

Historians Benjamin Thomas and Harold Hyman, whom I quoted on Stanton's Confederate conspiracy theory in another thread, also had a lot to say about Weichmann and Lloyd. I thought about including their comments in my article on the Mary Surratt case, but I decided not to use them because the quotes from Bogar’s book and Clampitt’s article convey much of the same information. Here are the comments by Thomas and Hyman that I almost included in my article:

Weichmann, too, might very well have been accused of complicity in the plot, and two years later, at the trial of John Surratt, Lloyd not only contradicted some of the statements at the conspiracy trial but admitted that he had been subjected to both promises and threats. That Weichmann was subjected to the same sort of intimidation by Stanton, in the private cross-examination, seems likely from the statement made by John T. Ford, owner of the celebrated theater. Ford, imprisoned with Lloyd and Weichmann, became convinced from what they told him that Mary Surratt was innocent and that the two witnesses had been coerced. “Many yet living recall their fright,” Ford wrote, and asserted that Weichmann had told him that “Secretary Stanton had, in a threatening manner, expressed the opinion that his [Weichmann’s] hands had as much of the President’s blood on them as Booth’s.”

Weichmann, testifying at the John Surratt inquiry in 1867, said he had been “nervous” at the previous trial and contradicted some of his previous statements, thereby putting Mrs. Surratt in a more favorable light. At this second trial, which in some respects amounted to a rehearing of Mrs. Surratt’s case, Louis Carland, a former customer at Ford’s Theater, testified that Weichmann had told him in 1865 that if he had been “let alone . . . it could have been quite a different affair with Mrs. Surratt than it was,” that his statements had been written out for him, and that he had been threatened with prosecution as an accessory if he refused to swear to them. Weichmann, under examination, denied that he had made this confession, but admitted that he had talked to Carland.

John W. Clampitt, one of Mrs. Surratt’s lawyers, a number of years after the trial wrote that Weichmann, after testifying, had been stung with remorse because he had committed perjury in implicating Mrs. Surratt in Lincoln’s murder. Certain “authorities of the War Department” had threatened to prosecute him as an accomplice in the conspiracy against Lincoln if he refused to offer testimony, Weichmann claimed, according to Clampitt. Holt had rejected the first statement Weichmann had prepared with the remark that “it was not strong enough,” whereupon, still under threat of prosecution, Weichmann had written a second and stronger statement, the substance of which he subsequently swore to on the witness stand. The man to whom Weichmann made this confession, wrote Clampitt, was refused permission to testify. (Stanton: The Life and Times of Lincoln’s Secretary of War, New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1962, pp. 426-427)

You can find this information in lots of books whose main subject is not the Lincoln assassination but that discuss people who were involved in the case. Very few books written on the Lincoln assassination present this information. Most of the relatively few that do present this information are attacked by the echo chamber of the Lincoln assassination research community. This community, as evidenced by this forum, is dominated by people who believe in the War Department’s version of the assassination. From what I’ve seen in this forum, most members of this community are unaware of the degree to which “outside” scholars, i.e., scholars who do not focus on Lincoln’s murder, have rejected and debunked key elements of the War Department’s version.

This little echo-chamber community tends to summarily reject information that does not fit with their version of the case, now matter how credible and/or documented the information might be. Take, for example, their reaction to David Homer Bates’ matter-of-fact account of Stanton’s and Eckert’s final encounter with Lincoln on the night of the assassination. The true believers here reject it with various excuses, even though Bates deeply admired Stanton, wrote glowingly of Stanton, and was so close to Stanton that Stanton took him on a vacation with his family.

So why do true believers refuse to accept Bates’ account? Well, because Bates innocently reported that when Lincoln asked Stanton to let Eckert be his bodyguard that night, Stanton refused and gave the excuse that Eckert would be too busy with “important” work that evening. Bates, you see, had no idea that Stanton was lying. Bates thought he was simply reporting on an innocent encounter. Bates did not know that subsequent research would prove that the War Department’s telegraph office handled only a few routine telegrams that night, that Eckert left early and was home by supper time, and that Eckert left a low-level subordinate to handle the telegraphic traffic that evening (Theodore Roscoe, The Web of Conspiracy: The Complete Story of the Men Who Murdered Abraham Lincoln, New Jersey: Prentice Hall, 1959, pp. 21-22).

RJNorton · 01-21-2019, 09:17 AM

(01-21-2019 08:01 AM)mikegriffith1 Wrote: At this second trial, which in some respects amounted to a rehearing of Mrs. Surratt’s case, Louis Carland, a former customer at Ford’s Theater, testified that Weichmann had told him in 1865 that if he had been “let alone . . . it could have been quite a different affair with Mrs. Surratt than it was,” that his statements had been written out for him, and that he had been threatened with prosecution as an accessory if he refused to swear to them. Weichmann, under examination, denied that he had made this confession, but admitted that he had talked to Carland.

John W. Clampitt, one of Mrs. Surratt’s lawyers, a number of years after the trial wrote that Weichmann, after testifying, had been stung with remorse because he had committed perjury in implicating Mrs. Surratt in Lincoln’s murder.

Mike, is his book, Weichmann writes:

"The evidence against her (Mary Surratt) was very strong; more so than against Atzerodt, Arnold, O'Laughlin, Mudd, and Spangler. It extended from the date of her son's meeting with Booth and Mudd on December 23, 1864, to the date of her arrest on April 17, 1865." The visits of Booth, Atzerodt, Payne, Herold, and Dr. Mudd (once) to her house were shown. Her intimate acquaintance with Booth during that period was well established. Her own daughter, Miss Fitzpatrick, Mr. and Mrs. John T. Holohan, and myself testified to the presence of Payne in her house on two difference occasions, giving his name as Wood on his first visit, and taking his meals, and making his home there for four days, on his second visit."

"All this and much other matter in relation to her alleged connection to the conspiracy prior to April 14, however, would have counted but for little, had it not been for the doings on the day of the murder itself."

And quoting Laurie regarding Mary Surratt's actions on the day itself:

"Most learned scholars who do not have a sympathetic bend for Mrs. Surratt would point out to you that, even if Booth only decided to murder Lincoln on that specific day, Mrs. Surratt was still doing his bidding by the early afternoon - and that bidding was what led to her conviction and death, not what had been done previously, but what she did that day."

L Verge · 01-21-2019, 11:43 AM

I believe this re-hashing of events and rejection of facts has dragged on now longer than the actual 1865 trial. Has anything really been accomplished? I certainly believe in keeping history alive; but when things are repeated and repeated and stated without factual discovery, people tire of the subject and shut down. I know one too many references to "freckles" and the "Emperor's New Clothes" is very irritating to me.

mike86002000 · 01-21-2019, 12:57 PM

(01-21-2019 11:43 AM)L Verge Wrote: I believe this re-hashing of events and rejection of facts has dragged on now longer than the actual 1865 trial. Has anything really been accomplished? I certainly believe in keeping history alive; but when things are repeated and repeated and stated without factual discovery, people tire of the subject and shut down. I know one too many references to "freckles" and the "Emperor's New Clothes" is very irritating to me.

Laurie,
I hope, once again, you don't mean me. I haven't even once mentioned "freckles" or the "Emperor's New Clothes". I hope I am engaged in an intelligent, respectful conversation with people, with whom I disagree.

another Mike

L Verge · (This post was last modified: 01-21-2019 01:00 PM by L Verge.)

While I believe that Weichmann's memoirs are a very important source for studying the Lincoln assassination, I still keep in mind that it is very much a self-vindication of his role and a perfectly understandable example of self-preservation on two fronts. During the trial, he needed to protect his own safety, and after the trial, he had to go back out into the civilian and Catholic world and explain his actions regarding Mrs. Surratt (especially when the media and public opinion swung in favor of the lady after the gov't. shocked them by hanging her, which few who were against her thought would happen).

The fact that he never chose to publish his book is puzzling to me, unless he used his writing of it as a catharsis to "cleanse his soul," but did not want to stir up that old hornets' nest again by releasing it to the general public? I feel sympathy for Weichmann, but I'm not sure that I would have liked him.

wpbinzel · 01-21-2019, 01:01 PM

Well, someone seems a little fuzzy on what constitutes "clear evidence" versus "my opinion" . . . .

Mike G., please cite just ONE source that corroborates any aspect of Bates' account of events in the Telegraph Office on the morning of April 14, 1865 that was written prior to 1907. You won't because you can't. Bates' fanciful recollection, first revealed 42 years after the fact, is demonstrably -- to use current terminology -- fake news. There is no evidence that Lincoln was even in the Telegraph Office that morning, muchless had a conversation about or with Thomas Eckert.