The Judicial Murder of Mary E. Surratt (Paperback)

Excerpt: ... very fact. "In Indiana, for example, at the time of the arrest of Milligan and his co conspirators, it is established by the papers in the record, that the State was a military district; was the theatre of military operations, had been actually invaded, and was constantly threatened with invasion. It appears, also, that a powerful secret association, composed of citizens and others, existed within the State, under military organization, conspiring against the draft, and plotting insurrection, the liberation of the prisoners of war at various depots, the seizure of the State and national arsenals, armed co-operation with the enemy, and war against the national government." Pg 132 Not one of which circumstances (except that it was a military district) can be truthfully predicated of the District of Columbia at the time of the assassination. As for actual martial law, there was no declaration of martial law claimed for the City of Washington, other than the proclamation of the President which applied as well to Indiana, and, indeed, to the whole North. We are justified, therefore, in saying, that the Supreme Court of the United States, in this case of Milligan, pronounced the final condemnation of the whole proceedings of the Military Commission which tried and condemned Mary E. Surratt; declaring, with all the solemn force of a determination of the highest judicial tribunal known to this nation, that every one of its acts, from its creation by the President to its transmission of its record of doom to the President, was in direct contravention of the Constitution of the United States and absolutely null and void. That illustrious Court, speaking by Judge David Davis, thus enunciates the law: "The Constitution of the United States is a law for rulers and people, equally in war and in peace, and covers with the shield of its protection all classes of men, at all times, and under all circumstances. No doctrine, involving more...