The Louisiana Democrat. [volume] (Alexandria, La.) 1845-1918, 1868-10-07
Surrratt Free.

Surratt is at length free, uhconvicted
nnaccused, of crime. Upon their face
these are words of little moment; but uu
derneath, their meaning is fearfully strong
Upwards OF three years ago, he was pn
under outlawry by tfe most ferocions pro
clamation ever issued by the government
Tracked over two continents with tire
less rage, which thirst for blood inspired
and still keencr thirst for money sus
tanned, he was at last captured in the uni
torn of a papal soldier. For he, the fIgi
tive from the tyrannons fury of govern
meDt boasting itself the freest on the globe
had sought strange refuge amid the shad
Ows. the monuments and memories of the
worlds migbtiest despotism. Put upon
trial at Washington for murder, there was
but one circumstance in his favor. It hap
pened that martial law-that is to say
the suppression of law-had expired, sur
teited with the blood, and the agony, and
the tears Of innocence; and the prisoner
was tried by an ordinary tribunal, and not
by military commission, a court organ.
lied to convict. Though the predisposi-
tions of judge, jury aud prosecuting attor-
ney We're all against him, he could not be
convicted; tho testimony for the prosecu-
tion was too flimsy.. Yet he was not al
lowed to go free. His conviction was
deemed necessary to relieve the govern
ment from a scandalous embarrassment,
and he was therefore held to undergo an
other trial for murder. But when the
time came for this, the other day, the pros
ecution broke down completely for want
of anything like decent evidence; the in
ventive genius of a Conover and the I'M
scrupulous subtlety of a Holt being no
longer available, it would seem, to inspire
the imaginations and fire the zeal Of mer
two
menced against him under no minor charge,
and they have come to nothing but the
confusion and shame of the prosecution
And thus it is that at length Surratt is
free. But where is Surratt's mother? She
fills the grave of an innocent convict. She
was tried by military commission as an
accomplice with John Surratt in q sconspi-
racy to murder, civil crime; and by this
monstrous solecism she was speedily done
to death In ruthless CONSISTENCY with the
logic Of its creation. But she could not
have been an accomplish unless her son
was; for her acquaintance with Booth came
about through him, and all her subsequent
relations with Booth were at her sons in
stance and by his continuance. And it
now stands forth as q judiciously ascertain
ed fact that John Surratt was not an ac-
complete in the Booth-Lincoln tragedy.
What follOws2 Why, that the execution
of Mrs. Surratt was murdered 1t cannot
even be dignified with the name of judicial
murder. Her prosecutors and her triers
were totally without warrant in law.
They had no sanction but that of the
strong hand and the lawless will. Popular
clamor did not require them to take the
life of this unfortunate and forlorn woman.
No imperious public expediency demanded
the sacrifice. They murdered her in the
abstract and fiendish, bloodthrstiness OF
the cowardly, malignant and tyrannous ma
lures which the vicissitudes of a disjointed
time had raised to places of irresponsible
power The liberation Of Surratt is their
condemnation. Morally, they are now
hanging as felons upon the rope by which
Surratt would have been hung had he been
Justly convicted under civil trial. Holt,
and Bingham, and Stanton, and Hunter,
and the rest, may die in their beds per-
chance !; but history will infailibly gibbet
their memory, as they are already gibbet-
ted in the scorn and ioathi1g of all true
manhood. The blood of this poor woman
is on their hands, and on their souls, as hot
and as heavy as molten lead. =" The deep
damnation Of her taking Off will be,upon
their fame forever, as immoyable as Etna
upon the breast of Encoladus.
During the presidency of,Mr. Lincoln lib
erty lost every guarantee; Bastiles spruDg
up all over the land; the tinkline of little
bell in maudlin secretarys closet at w ash
ington might be the stroke of fate for the
purest and most unimpeachable citizens in
the country. It was a system unspeakab!y
execrable and Infamous; its horror was on
ly equaled by the catastrophe which ended
the life of the man who. by his office, was
its supreme symbol and exponent. But
still more execrable and infamous and hor-
rid than the drama itself was the nfter-scene
in which helpless woman, of unblemished
womanly repute, was hung, to expiate the
absence ola fugitive SOD whose innocence
is now judicially established.-[N. o,
Crescent. 4Fa ~ s4