And now what shall be said as to this taking of human life?
Maintaining the most rigorous allegiance to the simple unadulterated truth, what can be said? Arraigned at the bar of the common law as expounded by the precedents of centuries, and confronted by plain provisions of the Constitution of the United States, which need no exposition and yet have been luminously expounded; but one thing can be said.
Had Mary E. Surratt the right guaranteed by the Constitution to a trial singly and alone, in a regularly constituted civil court, and by a jury of the vicinage, the individuals of which she might select by challenge, both for cause, in all cases, and without cause to a certain number, before she could be legally convicted of any crime whatever, or be lawfully punished by the most trivial loss of property or the minutest injury to limb, to say nothing of the brutal crushing out of her life? That’s the unevadable question which the ages put and will continue to put. And upon its precisely truthful answer, depend the character and color of the acts of every person who had lot or part in the execution of this woman.
On the 21st day of October, 1864—while the war was still raging—Lambdin P. Milligan, a citizen of the United States and a resident of Indiana, was arraigned before a Military Commission convened by the commanding General of that Military District, at Indianapolis, on the following charges preferred against him by Henry L. Burnett, Judge-Advocate of the Department of the West:
1. Conspiracy against the Government of the United States.
2. Affording aid and comfort to the rebels.
3. Inciting insurrection.
4. Disloyal practices.
5. Violation of the laws of war.