Here we have Mr. Seddon, the rebel Secretary of War, of course not on his own responsibility, but under the orders of his superior, Jefferson Davis, ordering the officer in charge of the prisoners of war in their possession to mine the building in which they were confined, and in the event of a Yankee raid entering the city, to blow up the building, and thus murder, at one fell swoop, all the prisoners in it to prevent their being rescued and taken back into the service. Need we wonder that an administration that could deliberately prepare to murder its prisoners of war rather than suffer their liberation under the fortunes of war, should have deliberately planned for the destruction of its prisoners by the starvation and cruelties of Andersonville? It gives me no pleasure to rehearse these things, but it is due to the truth of history that they should be known. I desire to see a speedy and complete reconciliation of these two sections of our country; and I have always rejoiced that we who faced each other on the fields of deadly conflict, have, from the time of the surrender of Lee's army, been ready to meet each other as friends and brothers and fellow citizens of a common country. The sight witnessed at Appomattox of the soldiers of our army emptying their haversacks to satisfy the wants of men who but the hour before stood confronting them as foes, but who now had laid down their arms, worn out and famishing, was a glorious exhibition of the best side of our nature, and plainly said that though we had been enemies in war in peace we would be friends, and foreshadowed the speedy reconciliation that has followed our terrible strife, so far as the soldiers of the two armies are concerned. I charge none of these things on these men. I fix the responsibility for these things on the political leaders of the rebellion, and not even on them indiscriminately but only on such of them as are named in the charge and specifications under which, through the medium of the Commission, they were arraigned before the world, and the evidence of their guilt was produced. It is to show that the government in so doing completely vindicated its dignity and honor that I write. If the acts of public men render them infamous in history, the responsibility rests in their bad exercise of that freedom of will that makes us responsible beings.[4] And in human affairs, bad examples should be held up as warnings, just as good examples should be held up for imitation and encouragement. We shall now approach a little more closely to the consideration of the responsibility of Jefferson Davis and his Canada Cabinet for the assassination of Abraham Lincoln; and will show, we think, by incontestible evidence, that they were co-conspirators with Booth and his gang, or rather, that they originated and concocted the plan, and that Booth and his followers were merely their hired assassins for the accomplishment of their purposes. CHAPTER XI.