The Judicial Murder of Mary E. Surratt — John Stuart Mill — John Shaqi
The Judicial Murder of Mary E. Surratt
John Stuart Mill · en
It would be foreign to our purpose, as well as tedious to the reader, to
examine in detail the testimony given on this trial. One conclusion--and
that is the important thing--is certain. It is true, beyond the shadow of
a doubt, that the prosecution made an incomparably stronger case against
Surratt than was made against his mother. They had but one culprit at whom
to direct their aim, and they made a far more desperate and thorough-going
effort to convict, because of the known unreliability of a jury to do what
the prosecution might tell them to do without the aid of proof. Before a
Military Commission, tossed about by the passions of its members and
steered by Judge-Advocates, the accusers could afford to be careless of
gaps in their scheme of proof, missing links in the chain of
circumstantial evidence. Not so now and here. Vehement affirmation without
evidence availed nothing. Curses against treason, traitors, disloyalty,
apostrophes to the imperiled Union, tears over the beloved
Commander-in-Chief, could fill no void in the testimony. Of course, there
was no such outrage against not only the elementary rules of evidence, but
against ordinary decent fairness, as an attempt to introduce testimony of
the horrors of Libby Prison and Andersonville; but the door looking in
that direction was opened as wide as possible by the eager Judge. All the
material testimony given upon the "Conspiracy Trial" against Mrs. Surratt,
not only, but also against Payne, Herold, Atzerodt, Arnold and O'Laughlin,
was reproduced here. The direct testimony on the part of the United States
occupied from June 17th to July 5th, and in that period eighty-five
witnesses were examined. On the Conspiracy Trial, the direct case consumed
the time from May 12th to May 25th, and about one hundred and thirty
witnesses were examined against the eight accused persons, not only, but
also against the eight accessories, headed by Jefferson Davis, included in
the charge, the testimony ranging over the whole rebellion and including
Libby, Andersonville, Canada, St. Albans, and projected raids on New York,
Washington and other cities. Every witness, whose testimony on the former
trial had the remotest bearing upon the question of the guilt or innocence
of Mrs. Surratt, once more showed his face and retold his story.
Lloyd was there, compelled, despite his superstitious reluctance to speak
against a woman now she was dead, to rehearse the tale which his terrors
had evolved out of his drunken imagination. This time, however, his
sottish memory or failure of memory, his fright at the time of his arrest,
his repeated denials of the visit of Booth and Herold, his temptations and
bribes to accuse his landlady, were, under the keen cross-examination of
the counsel for the prisoner, fully exposed.