The Surratt Cause Cclebre.
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THE SURRATT CAUSE CELEBRE. By A. Oakey Hall. THE case of the young Italian girl who to the execution of Mrs. Surratt; when all was sentenced to execution for the the judges decided that the Military Com murder of her traitorous lover in New York mission had no jurisdiction to try Milligan, City has excited marked attention over the that he should have been tried by a civil Union, and revived the always emotional court, and that the findings and sentence question whether a woman should ever be were void, wherefore they discharged him. put to capital punishment. The only difference between jurisdiction in Thirty years ago last summer the attention his case and that for Mrs. Surratt — and in of the whole country was aroused by the her favor — was that the Milligan trial pro same question through a trial that in national ceeded while the Civil War was raging, and that her trial began after it had ended. interest has been equaled only by the prose cution of Aaron Burr. But this is somewhat, yet understandingly, The details of the prosecution, conviction, anticipating the occurrences at the Surratt and hanging of Mrs. Mary E. Surratt at the hearings. national capital in Jul)', 1865, are so in Those began on May 10, 1865, twentydefinitely known to this generation that an six days after the assassination of President article purporting to present the legal and Lincoln and the contemporaneous murder historic features formed by those details may ous midnight attempt upon the lives of not prove uninteresting. These remain the Secretary Seward and his son. The trial more interesting when she became, after her proceeded during a time when the body death and burial, substantially declared ille politic of the nation throbbed with such in gally convicted, and in effect entitled to a new tense excitement as in the memory of this trial, through what is known in the legal pro generation accompanied theGuiteau assassi fession as the Milligan decision in the Federal nation of President Garfield. The entire Supreme Court. Mrs. Surratt was tried and North, while Mrs. Surratt was being tried, condemned by a military court-martial held echoed a wild cry for legal vengeance that outside of military lines, and was denied in first came from Washington. Moreover on dictment and arraignment in a court of civil the day that the Surratt Commission met, jurisdiction against her application therefor. public attention was additionally aroused by Several months before the condemnation of the arrest of the President of the Confeder Mrs. Surratt, one Lambdin P. Milligan of acy. Had Mrs. Surratt been then arraigned Indiana had been sentenced by a Military before a civil court — no matter to what even Commission, sitting at the capital of that distant portion of the land its venue may State, to be executed after conviction by it have been charged — there can be no doubt for conspiracy against the United States that the empaneling of an unbiased chal Government, for affording aid and comfort to lengeable jury would have been difficult, if Confederates, for inciting insurrection, for not impossible. The Commission was duly divers disloyal practices, and although a constituted, without any voice of Mrs. Sur civilian) for violation of the laws of war. ratt in selection of its members, under the His objections to the jurisdiction of the ordinary procedures applicable to courtsMilitary Commission and the propriety of martial. Its designated members were nine in his denial of civil trial came before the Fed number. Their President was Major-General eral Supreme Court six months subsequent David Hunter, and its other members were
