The annals of modern times will be searched in vain to furnish its parallel. Execrations rise to our lips, as we read, in the pages of Macaulay, of the hanging of Alice Lisle, and the burning of Elizabeth Gaunt. But Alice Lisle and Elizabeth Gaunt were indicted by grand juries, tried by petit juries, found guilty, and sentenced, in strict accordance with criminal procedure. The forms of law, which the bigoted James, and even the infamous Jeffrey, were careful to observe, were swept aside by Holt and Bingham and Stanton, with a sneer.
We turn aside with sickening horror from the recital of the murderous orgies of the Terrorists of the French Revolution—shedding the blood of the young, the tender, the beautiful, the brave. But the Terrorists of France could plead the excuse, that they were driven to madness by the thought, that the invading hosts, encompassing the new-born Republic, were drawing nearer and nearer, every hour, with vengeance and counter-revolution perched upon their banners; and a merciful destiny granted them the grace to expiate their bloody deeds on the same scaffold as their victims.
But, in the case of Mary E. Surratt, not a single redeeming feature relieves
“The deep damnation of her taking off.”
Alas! Alas! Right in the centre of the glory which beams from the triumph of the Union and Emancipation, there hangs a dark figure—casting an eclipsing shadow—ever widening—ever deepening—in the eyes of all the coming generations of the just.
Transcriber’s Note: In the original text, the list on pages 72-73 skips from 2 to 7.