Year: 1865

The Sainted Martyr

 The frien,ls of treason and murder are mak ing great efforts to create public dissatisfaction with the fate of the assassinators. The guilt of every one of those who were executed is beyond doubt. It is absurd to suppose that the Commission before whom they were tried, was less intelligent or impartial than any jury that could have been impannelled. Indeed no one who has watched the intense anxiety that the counsel of these felons have displayed 10 bring the convicts before a civil tribunal. can have doubt that their only hope of escape from justice was before jury. It would be all easy matter to pack jury to the interest of these rebel agents. We are not now discussing the righteousness of a military tribunal, hut the unquestionable guilt of the criminals. Not only was their guilt established in the minds of the lea,ned and patriotic members of the Commission. but it Is patent to any person who will peruse the evidence given in the protract- ed trial. Nay more, their guilt was so trans parent that their able and sagacious counsil abandoned the hope to establish defense upon their innocence, and directed all the power o their arts ana learning against the authority of the court.

 But long after their best friends had ceased to assert their freedom from guilt, after the II T exhausted. after the Commission had found them guilty, after the President had prescribed their punishment and justice had been execut- ed it was suddenly discovered that one of them, and the worst one. was pure and nno- cent and had been mos, unjustly murdered.

 The first proof of the innocence of Mrs. Sur, ratt, Was the assertion of another of the mur derers that she had nothing to do with the as. sassination This same man had previously denied his own guilt, which was atterward proved 10 be of the most aggravated and hide ous kind. Another man Was found who con- tradicted the testimony of one of the witnesses for the prosecution. But her sentence did not rest alone upon the evidence of this witness, so if all his testimony Is oeerthrown. Il hundred facts that brand her as a mu,deress remain unanswered Then comes the last words of the wretrhed woman at her execution ~ l nm in nocent, but Gods holy will be done" Why, this same woman solen,ny affirmed that she did not know her associate layne, when he

 l. |, ,l. b l. the morning after the murder She has affirm ed hundred things since her arrest that are known to be false How do her assertions of innocence stand before the towering proofs ot her guilt ? Are we to believe that she who foretold the event, who entertained nearly all the williams at her house. who was in secret conference with the murderer of our President but an hour before the crime was committed, who made unnistakab'e preparations to assist in the escape of her coregues in crime,--thal this woman, who by her commanding intellect and deep-seated hatred of the Government was was the head and front of the conspiracy is pure and innocent?

 But the malicious enemies of the government do not care if she be innocent or guilty. if on ly they are able to excite the people against her punishment This criminal being woman was good subject for pub.i: sympathy. The idea of visiting woman with capital punish ment, is abhorrent to the tender taste of many really good-hearted people Public sympathy is always searching for some apology for the errors of the weaker sex. It will forgive them most freely for crimes that would sink man in eternal infamy: The prevalent idea that public sentiment is always unjust and abusive to them, is an error; and this is one reason that Mrs. Surratt was chosen towards whom to direct public sympathy, instead of Payne or Atzeroth or any other of her associates.

 Another fact that made her most promis- ing candidate for public sympathy, was her be- ing member of the Roman Catholic Church. A large class of our people would entertain very natural, but often most unfounded confi- dence in any person who was consistent fol- lower of that creed. B1t her being commu- nicant in the Catholic church, or in any other church, is not positive proof of her innocence and after her guilt has been so clearly estab lshed, the honor of the whole body of believers in the Roman Catholic faith demands that her hypocritical claims to church sympathy be re- pudiated We do not believe that the crime of murder is one of the christian virtues in the Catholic creed, but it certainly is if this wick ed woman was a consistent christian" accord ing to their faith and practice. at x at.

 One of the most foolish and futile attempts to excite the public mind in her favor, was the statement, by Father Walter, that he was de- nied by Gen. Hardee the privilege of visiting Mrs. Surratt to bestow spiritual consolation and advice, unless he would promise to not assert her innocence. This statement the As sistant Secretary promptly denied, ia amanner that made Father Walter look rather ridiculous. Father Walter, who is said to have always been a most bitter and uncompromising rebel, at l.