The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1885-10-26
A Vigorous Denial of the Statement that
Johnson Favored the Trial of the Leaders
of the Rebellion by Military Courts.
A New Story Concerning the Alleged
Effort to Send Gen. Grant to Mexico.
Giles F. Filley Tells of a Remarkable Scheme
Concocted by Ben Wade and Other
Prominent Republican Leaders.
JOHNsON's PRIVATE SECRETARY.

Atlanta Special.
The recent letter of Hon. Chauncy M. Depew,
of New York. concerning the relations of Gen.
Grant and President johnson has called forth
from Col. Sam w. Small an interesting paper
on that question Colonel Small occupied con-
fdential relations with ex-President johnson in
time when Mr.. johnson was seeking to renew
his career in the American Congress. Mr.. Small
said:
'"The first point in the Depew letter relating
to President Johnson's eagerness to have the
leaders of the Confederacy court-martiaed and
summarily dealt with, is fully exploded by the
documentary references in my possession. 1t lie
true that Mr.. Johnson in the heat of the conflict
and while he was being mathematical everywhere
in the South, said: Treason must be made
odious and traitors punshed;' but when he
was suddenly called upon to assume the func-
tons of government, instead of making this cpl
gram the shibbo.eth of his administration, as
Mr. Depew asserts, he resolutely adopted the
policy and plans of his great predecessor, Lin
coin, and set to work at once to make them eff
fective. To this fact General Grant himself tes-
titled before committee of Congress on the 18th
of july 1867, saying:
Mr.. Lincoln, prior to his assassination, had
inaugurated policy intended to restore those
governments l was present twice before his
murder when plan was read. The plan
adopted by Mr. johnson was substantially the
plan which had been inaugurated by Mr.. Lincoln
as the basis for his future action. don't know
that it was verbatim the same think that the
very paper which heard read twice while Mr..
Lincoln was President was the one which was
carried right through
'That ought to settle the authorship of the
johnson policy that has been so cursed, and was
so opposed and villified by the Radical leaders.
"Mr. Depew says Mr.. johnson insisted upon
the United States Courts in Virginia finding in
dictments against all of the leading members of
the Confederacy. The conspicuous case of all
was that of jefferson Davis. A reward of $780,,
900 was offered for his capture, because it was
charged that he was one of the conspirators in
the assassination plot to which Mr.. Lincoln fell
a victim. He was arrested, and held subject to
the demands of the government on that charge.
The subsequent history of his case and those of
the men charged with him, needs rehearsal
now. It is enough to add that Mr. johnson had
sought and obtained the written opinions, yet
extant in his private papers, of men like Charles
OConor. BENZ. R. Curtis, of Boston, Jere
Black, and others equally distinguished in law
by their decisions upon these legal questions.
Chief justice Chase refused to bring on the trial
of Jefferson Davis at Richmond until he had
urged President johnson specially to decide that
military rule in that State was at an end, and
that civil law was operative and paramount"
'Mr. johnson, by my notes here, always held
that the paroles of prisoners of war protected
them from arrest and prosecution for having
waged the war That he was so understood is
evidenced by General Grants letter to General
Loo dafo Irno OiuIno hic mil mir
and saying this opinion, | am informed is sub
stantally the same as that entertained by the
government. General Grant wrote these words
the very same day that he forwarded General
Lees application for amnesty and pardon, and
but two months after Mr.. johnson became Presi-
dent. AS to Davis and the civil leaders of the
Confederacy the President was of the opinion
that they should be tried by the regularly con-
stituted courts of the country. There was a
question as to their amenability to the laws of
treason. and he was advised that the matter
should be adjudicated and the precedent settled.
He never favored the trial of these issues by
court-martial. but was of the same opinion with
reference to such tribunals then as he was when he
elaborated In his veto of the second Freedmens
Bureau bill If he had not been, it is certain that
Mr.. Seward would not have remained member
of his Cabinet and his warm supporter through
out Mr.. Johpson's views upon these matters
were we'll known at Washington, certainly as
early as General Grant could have announced
them.
'By the Presidents approval, the New York
World of June 6, 1865 said of him:
He does not think that the blood of traitors
is the only imperishable cement of free nsttu-
tions. He does think it would be very bad policy
to make martyr out of jeff Davis. and still
worse to bring General Lee to the scafold, as
he is now urged to do
Two days later. equally with his approval.
the New York News said much, ard on the
10th Of the same month. still not two months
after his inauguration, the Portland (Me.) Ad-
vertiser, by authority, said
$50 far as General Lee is concerned the Presi-
dent holds that the terms of his surrender to
Grant place him beyond all molestation, and
that he cannot be legally tried for treason
''These were the views of Mr.. johnson. and
the files of the National Intelligencer, of Wash
ington, will fully demonstrate the fact 1t
should be remembered that Mr.. Depew or Gen.
Grant has ignored the history of the times when
1T is said the most frequent visitors at the White
House at that period were the men whom the
President had prescribed. The paroles and
releases of those men required them to stay at
nome, and they could none of them visit Wash
ington even without special enlargement of
their paroles for that purpose. It looks strange
that these men should have been the ones to
urge Mr.. johnson to adopt for his own the plans
that President Lincoln had formulated before
the war had closed. There is evidently a plank
off the fence at this point in Mr.. Depew's narra-
tive. Those who knew Mr.. johnson best knew
that he was incapable of the truculency of
which this narrative would convict him.
Colonel Small was asked: What do YOU know
about the charge that johnson tried 10 send
General Grant out of the country so as not to
thwart Johnson's scheme to set up Congress of
his own2"
THAT is absurd. Lewis d. Campbell was ap-
pointed minister to Mexico. 1t was the time of
the Maximian invasion, and there was wide
spreak desire that the imperial dynasty should
not succeed there. The instructions to Camp
bell were of most important character, and
there was chance that his mission might result
in the United States taking active interest in
the settlement of the Mexican question. Camp
bell himself. in frequent letters to President
johnson, urged that General Grant should be