This controversy over the petition of clemency was the only thing needed
to round out and decorate the entire, complete and perfect iniquity of the
whole drama. It is immaterial and indifferent to history where the truth
lies between these combatants in so unsavory a strife. Each one tears off
the burning brand of shame, not to extinguish it, but to pass it on to his
colleague. If we credit Holt, it is difficult to conceive the malignity
of soul of Andrew Johnson, who could invent so foul a charge, the meanness
of spirit of Edwin M. Stanton, who, knowing its blackness, could forbid
the promulgation of the truth, the cowardly silence of John A. Bingham,
whose lips the death of the dreaded Stanton alone could unclose. If we
credit Johnson, then in all the crowded catalogue of inquisitors,
persecutors, cruel or pettifogging prosecuting officers, devil's advocates
and murderous Septembrisers, there is not one who would not spurn with
profane emphasis association with Holt or Bingham or Stanton.
As the choicest specimen in this shower of accusations and
counter-accusations, listen to the tender-hearted ex-Judge-Advocate of
1873--once the stony head of the death-dealing Bureau--rebuking Andrew
Johnson for his cold-blooded cruelty! "I would have shuddered to propose
the brief period of two days within which the sentences should be
executed, for with all the mountain of guilt weighing on the heads of
those convicted culprits I still recognized them as human beings, with
souls to be saved or lost, and could not have thought for a moment of
hurrying them into the eternal world, as cattle are driven to the
slaughter-pen, without a care for their future."
Listen again to the former expounder of the "common law of war" before the
Military Commission, as he arraigns the ex-President for his disregard of
the writ of habeas corpus: "The object of which was, and the effect of
which would have been, had it been obeyed, to delay the execution of Mrs.
Surratt at least until the questions of law raised had been decided by the
civil courts of the District; yet this writ was, by the express order of
the President, rendered inoperative. And so, under this Presidential
mandate, the execution proceeded. * * * But for his direct intervention
and defiant action on the writ, whatever might have been the final result,
it is perfectly apparent her life would not then have been taken."
Once more. Hear J. Holt, the Recorder of the Commission! "As Chief
Magistrate he was, under the Constitution," (HEAR HIM!) "the depositary of
the nation's clemency and mercy to the condemned, and a pressing
responsibility rested upon him as such _to hear the victims of the law
before he struck them down_." (The italics are his who wrote out the
death-warrant.) "Did he do this? On the contrary, * * he gave * * a
peremptory order to admit nobody seeking to make an appeal in behalf of
the prisoners, saying that he would 'see no one on this business.'