Therefore, when Judge Bingham came to review the evidence, he utterly refused to recognize in the testimony any such thing as a plot to capture; he shut his eyes to it and obstinately ignored it; he scornfully swept it aside as an absurdity it would be waste of time to combat; and he twisted every circumstance which looked to a connection, however remote, with an abandoned plot to kidnap, into a proof, solid and substantial, of complicity in the plot to murder. And, therefore, when this same thorough-going advocate, with his two emulous associates, proceeded in secret conclave with the members of the Commission to go over the testimony for the purpose of making up their verdict and sentence, he summarily stifled any hint as to the possibility of a plot to capture; he banished from the minds of the Court, if they ever entertained such a purpose, any attempt to reconcile the circumstantial evidence with the existence of such a plot; and, besides, he held it up to the condemnation of those military men as equally heinous and as deserving the same punishment as the actual assassination. Thus, the presence of these prosecutors during the deliberations of the Court must have exerted a deadly influence (if any influence were necessary) against the prisoners, and benumbed any impartiality and freedom of judgment which might otherwise have lodged in the members of the Commission. The Commission, with its three attending prosecuting officers, held two secret sessions--Thursday and Friday, the 29th and 30th of June; on the first day from 10 o'clock in the morning until 6 o'clock in the evening, on the second day, probably, during the morning only. The record of the proceedings is meagre, but contains enough to show the lines of the discussion which, in such an unexpected manner through one whole day, prolonged the deliberations of a tribunal organized solely to obey the predetermination of a higher power, and even made necessary an adjournment over night. There was no difficulty with the verdicts, except in the case of Spangler, over the degree of whose guilt a majority of the Commission presumed for the first time to differ with the Judge-Advocates. They would unite in a conviction of the crime of assisting Booth to escape from the theatre with knowledge of the assassination, but they would go no farther. They would not find him a participant in the "traitorous conspiracy." This poor fellow, as we can see _now_, was clearly innocent of the main charge; but that was no reason, _then_, why the Commission should find him so. There was more testimony pointing to his complicity with Booth on the fatal night than there was against Arnold or O'Laughlin or even Mrs. Surratt; and Judge Bingham, the guardian and guide of the Court, had pronounced it "Conclusive and brief." The testimony of the defense, however, appears overwhelmingly convincing, and, moreover, his case was admirably managed by General Ewing.