Judge Bingham replied under date of February 17, 1873, and among other things said:—
"Before the President had acted upon the case, I deemed it my duty to call the attention of Secretary Stanton to the petition for the commutation of sentence upon Mrs. Surratt, and did call his attention to it, before the final decision of the President. After the execution, the statement which you refer to was made that President Johnson had not seen the petition for the commutation of the death sentence upon Mrs. Surratt. I afterwards called at your office, and, without notice to you of my purpose, asked for the record of the case of the assassins; it was opened and shown me, and there was then attached to it the petition, copied and signed as hereinbefore stated. Soon thereafter I called upon Secretaries Stanton and Seward and asked if this petition had been presented to the President before the death sentence was by him approved, and was answered by each of those gentlemen that the petition was presented to the President, and was duly considered by him and his advisers before the death sentence upon Mrs. Surratt was approved, and that the President and Cabinet, upon such consideration, were a unit in denying the prayer of the petition; Mr. Stanton and Mr. Seward stating that they were present.
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"Having ascertained the fact as stated, I then desired to make the same public, and so expressed myself to Mr. Stanton, who advised me not to do so, but to rely upon the final judgement of the people."
In replying to this letter, Judge Holt very justly remarks: "It would have been very fortunate for me indeed could I have had this testimony in my possession years ago. Mr. Stanton's advice to you was, under all the circumstances of the case, most extraordinary.
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"The asking you 'to rely upon the final judgment of the people,' and at the same time withholding from them the proof on which the judgment—to be just—must be formed, was a sad, sad mockery."
The next is a letter from ex-Attorney General Speed, dated March 30, 1873, in which he says: "After the finding of the military commission that tried the assassins of Mr. Lincoln and before their execution, I saw the record of the case in the President's office, and attached to it was a paper, signed by some of the members of the commission, recommending that the sentence against Mrs. Surratt be commuted to imprisonment for life; and according to my memory, the recommendation was made because of her sex.
"I do not feel at liberty to speak of what was said at Cabinet meetings. In this I know I differ from other gentlemen, but feel constrained to follow my own sense of propriety."
So that it is most clear from this statement of Attorney General Speed, unless he, without interest or motive, stated a most deliberate falsehood, that Judge Holt did not "withhold" or "suppress" the recommendation to mercy, but carried it with the record and "attached to it," as Mr. Speed says, and delivered it in the President's office. Certainly every intelligent mind will concede that this testimony of Mr. Speed utterly disposes of the charge of Andrew Johnson that Judge Holt "suppressed" or "withheld" this recommendation to mercy. If Mr. Johnson did not see it or read it when in his office, that was his neglect, his failure to perform a solemn official duty. But on this question of his having read and considered it, how stands the evidence? Judge Holt states that he drew his attention to it, and that Mr. Johnson read it in his presence. Judge Bingham says both Mr. Stanton and Mr. Seward stated to him that this petition had been presented to the President and was duly considered by him and his advisers before the death sentence upon Mrs. Surratt was approved. Under date of May 27, 1873, James Harlan, a former member of Mr. Johnson's Cabinet, addressed a letter to Judge Holt, in which he said: "After the sentence and before the execution of Mrs. Surratt, I remember distinctly the discussion of the question of the commutation of the sentence of death pronounced on her by the Court to imprisonment for life had by members of the Cabinet in presence of President Johnson. I can not state positively whether this occurred at a regular or a called meeting, or whether it was at an accidental meeting of several members, each calling on the President in relation to the business of his own department. The impression on my mind is, that the only discussion of the subject by members of the Cabinet, which I ever heard, occurred in the last-named mode, there being not more than three or four members present—Mr. Seward, Mr. Stanton, and myself, and probably Attorney General Speed and others—but I distinctly remember only the first two. When I entered the room, one of these was addressing the President in an earnest conversation on the question whether the sentence ought to be modified on account of the sex of the condemned. I can recite the precise thought, if not the very words, used by this eminent statesman, as they were impressed on my mind with great force at the time, and I have often thought of them since, viz.: 'Surely not, Mr. President, for if the death penalty should be commuted in so grave a case as the assassination of the head of a great nation, on account of the sex of the criminal, it would amount to an invitation to assassins hereafter to employ women as their instruments, under the belief that if arrested and condemned, they would be punished less severely than men. An act of executive clemency on such a plea would be disapproved by the government of every civilized nation on earth.'"