Fifty Years in the Church of Rome

by Charles Paschal Telesphore Chiniquy

“The dying President was taken into a house near by, and placed upon a bed. What a scene did that room present! The chief of a mighty nation lay, there, senseless, drenched in blood, his brains oozing from his wounds! Sumner, Farwell and Colfax and Stanton, and many others were there, filled with grief and consternation.

“The surgeon, General Barnes, solemnly examined the wound. There was silence as of the grave, the life and death of the nation seemed dependent on the result. General Barnes looked up sadly and said: ‘The wound is mortal!’

'“‘Oh! No! General, no! no!’ cried out Secretary Stanton, and sinking into a chair, he covered his face, and wept like a child. Senator Sumner tenderly held the head of the unconscious martyr.

“Though all unused to weep, he sobs as though his great heart would break. In his anguish, his head falls upon the bloodstained pillow, and his black locks blend with those of the dying victim, which care and toil has rendered gray, and which blood has crimsoned. What a scene! Sumner, who had lingered through months of agony, having himself been stricken down by the bludgeon of slavery, now sobbing and fainting in anguish over the prostrate form of his friend, whom slavery had slain! This vile rebellion, after deluging the land with blood, has culminated in a crime which appalls all nations.

“Noble Abraham, true descendant of the father of the faithful; honest in every trust, humble as a child, tender-hearted as a woman, who could not bear to injure even his most envenomed foes; who in the hour of triumph, was saddened lest the feelings of his adversaries should be wounded by their defeat, with ‘charity for all, malice towards none,’ endowed with ‘common sense,’ intelligence never surpassed, and with power of intellect which enabled him to grapple with the most gigantic opponents in debates, developing abilities as a statesman, which won the gratitude of his country and the admiration of the world, and with graces and amiabilities which drew to him all generous hearts; dies by the bullet of the assassin!”—History of the Civil War, by Abbott, vol. ii., page 594.

But who was that assassin? Booth was nothing but the tool of the Jesuits. It was Rome who directed his arm, after corrupting his heart and damning his soul.

After I had mixed my tears with those of the grand country of my adoption, I fell on my knees and asked my God to grant me to show to the world what I knew to be the truth, viz.: that that horrible crime was the work of Popery. And, after twenty years of constant and most difficult researches, I come fearlessly, to-day, before the American people, to say and prove that the President, Abraham Lincoln, was assassinated by the priests and the Jesuits of Rome.

In the book of the testimonies given in the prosecution of the assassin of Lincoln, published by Ben. Pitman, and in the two volumes of the trial of John Surratt in 1867, we have the legal and irrefutable proof that the plot of the assassins of Lincoln was matured, if not started, in the house of Mary Surratt, No. 561 H Street, Washington City, D. C. But who were living in that house, and who were visiting that family? The legal answer says: “The most devoted Catholics in the city!” The sworn testimonies show more than that. They show that it was the common rendezvous of the priests of Washington. Several priests swear that they were going there “some times,” and when pressed to answer what they meant by “some times,” they were not sure if it was not once a week, or once a month. One of them, less on his guard, swore that he seldom passed before that house without entering; and he said he never passed less than once a week. The devoted Roman Catholic (an apostate from Protestantism) called L. J. Weichman, who was himself living in that house, swears that Father Wiget was very often in that house, and Father Lahiman swears that he was living with Mrs. Surratt, in the same house! * * * *

What does the presence of so many priests, in that house, reveal to the world? No man of common sense, who knows anything about the priests of Rome, can entertain any doubt that, not only they knew all that was going on inside those walls, but that they were the advisers, the counselors, the very soul of that infernal plot. Why did Rome keep one of her priests under that roof, from morning till night, and from night till morning? Why did she send many others, almost every day of the week, into that dark nest of plotters against the very existence of the great republic, and against the life of her President, her principal generals and leading men, if it were not to be the advisers, the rulers, the secret motive power of the infernal plot.

No one, if he is not an idiot, will think and say that those priests, who were the personal friends and the father confessors of Booth, John Surratt, Mrs. and Misses Surratt, could be constantly there without knowing what was going on, particularly when we know that every one of those priests, was a rabid rebel in heart. Every one of those priests, knowing that his infallible Pope had called Jeff Davis his dear son, and had taken the Southern Confederacy under his protection, was bound to believe that the most holy thing a man could do, was to fight for the Southern cause, by destroying those who were its enemies.