New Orleans daily crescent. [volume] ([New Orleans, La.]) 1851-1866, 1866-08-18
A RADICAL CONSPIRACY.


have had the temerity to publish the evidence
on which they attempt to connect Jefferson
Davis with the conspiracy to assassinate the
late President Lincoln. The fact that they
ventured to draw public attention to this
point shows that malignant vindietiveness, as
well as vaulting ambition, may make too lofty
a leap. The majority of the Judiciary COM
mittee have given us conspicuous llustra-
ton of this kind of approximation. In their
anxiety to convict Mr.. Davis of a crime of
which they ought to know him to be incapable,
they have opened the way for convicting them
selves Of hypocrisy and malice, and for con
yicting others of a crime which surpasses even
the wickedness Of assassination.
The first circumstance which aroused pub
lie suspicion on these points, was the attempt
which was made to prevent Mr.. Rogers of
New Jersey, a member of the committee, from
examining the papers and documents. This
was done so etfectually that it was only the
day before the adjournment that Mr.. Rogers
had an opportunity to look over those papers,
which were so voluminous that the majority
of the committee had devoted several months
to the task of analyzing them, with the object
of making out a case against Mr.. Davis. The
intention plainly was 10 preclude the posi-
biEty of any report which might weaken the
impression of the majority statement on the
public opinion of the. country. This object
however was frustrated by the energy and
skill which Mr. Rogers brought to the fulfill
ment of his difficult duty In accomplishing
his task he was aided by recollection of
the extraordinary developments of the
published evidence taken last year, before
the famous military commission in Washing
ton. No one who read that testimony could
fail to remember the strange suspicious en-
rendered by the conduct of the man Sanford
w. Conover, who after swearing in the St.
Adams trials, in Canada that he was one
man, swore in Washington that he was an
other man; then offered reward through the
newspapers for the detection of the person
who had counterfeited him, he being that
identical person under an alias; then
swore that he made his last publication
under compulsion, and, finally, disappeared
altogether from public view. These cireum-
stances, taken in connection with the develop
ments concerning the witnesses Merritt and
Montgomery led many persons to the belief
that there was an attempt somewhere to dam
age the reputation of Mr.. Davis, and other
prominent Confederate officials, by means OF
suborned testimony. The suspicion was GER
tainly horrible enough; but it was scarcely
more lacking in probability than the accuse
ton of conspiracy to murder, which was
brought against gentlemen who would have
been quite as incapable of committing a muir
der as of making use of perjured Witnesses to
fix crime on an innocent enemy.
These circumstances appear to have taken
firm hold of Mr.. Rogers's mind, and he,
therefore, directed his attention to them, dis
regarding the futile and absurd attempt of the
majority to convict Mr.. Davis by strained
implications connected with irrelevant pre-
misses. His efforts were entirely successful,
as our readers must have perceived from his
report, published not long since in the Ores
CENT He makes it pretty plain that some
body had been at work suborning testimony
and bribing witnesses to prove facts deemed
necessary for the purpose of connecting Mr.,
Davis with the assassination conspiracy. But
he does not name the persons whom he sus-
poets of having concocted this nefarious plot
He shows conclusiyely that the only facts
bearing on the point Of completely We're estab-
lished by witnesses who were proved by in
dubitable circumstances and by their own
subsequent confessions, to have been hired
for the purpose, and there he leaves the case.
The New York Herald directly asserts that
there was a radical conspiracy to implicate
Mr., Davis in the assassination of President
Lincoln, and the correspondent Of that paper
has been trying to ferret out the conspirators,
In recent letter from Washington that cor
respondent says
Witnesses of integrity and high social standing
We're offered the committee who would testify to
9 knowledge that several propositions had been
made to Davis for the kidnapping and killing of
President Lincoln and his cabinet, and that he
promptly and Indignantly tabOoed them. But the
committee did not want and would not have any
such witnesses. 1t is true they examined Camp
bell and company, who acknowledged that they
had been suborned for the bureau of military jus
tice, but they did so only because they had been
placed in such a position that they could not
dared not refuse. Besides, the confessions of
these men that their original statements were fab
rCated for them by radical agent of the govern
ment did not tend to vindcate Davis. They made
grand flourish of trumpets over letters written
TO Davis by three men named Barmore Durham
and AlstOn; proposing the assassination of leading
characters of the North, because Endorsements
were found thereon referring them to the rebel
secretary of war, but they refused to receive any
explanatory evidence on the subject Young Har-
rison, private secretary to Davis, who made on
the letter of Aston the Endorsement t'respect-
fully referred, by direction of the President, to
the Honorable Secretary of War;" was pre-
pared to testify that Davis never saw or
heard of the letter until after the Endorsement
made and that he did notin any sense approve
the proposition it contained that he (Davs) was
often flooded with letters, and that when they
came TO his (Harrison's) hands for perusa and
examination, as they frequently did without being
first seen by the President, he, acting under gem
eral instructions, made Endorsements on such as
related to matters within scope of other branches
OF the government, referring them, as by direc-
ton of the President, to the heads of the appro-
pirate departments; that he did this in the case of
AlstOns letter, without its being seen by Davis at
all, and that thelsame thing was done in tie case
of Durham's letter; but the committee, although
notified of the fact that these Endorsements could
be explained in this manner, and knowing that
they could not be received in court of justice as
evidence against Davis without its being first
shown that he knew and approved the contents of
the Letters, and directed tile Endorsements to be
made, refused to examine Harrison refused abso-
mtely to inquire into the subject lest they should
be deprived of all grounds and excuse for report
ing hat there probable cause to believe DAVIS
accessory TO the assassination, It cannot be OBJ
jeCted that Harrison was rebel for the commit
tee examined other rebel agents, one of whom,
James A. FoWles, The majority report declares
was ''in degree m unwilling witness - ftstli de