But Mr. Speed would not speak—finally saying, in his letter of October 25, 1883, "After very mature and deliberate consideration, I have come to the conclusion that I cannot say more than I have." Neither would he enter into consideration or discussion of his determination not "to speak of what was said at Cabinet meetings." It seems to me that Judge Holt was right and Mr. Speed was wrong in their relative positions upon this question. In his letter of April 18, 1883, addressed to Mr. Speed, to which I have referred, Judge Holt forcibly presents his view: "You were a member of his (President Johnson's) Cabinet, and I have the strongest reasons for believing that this atrocious accusation is known to you to have been false in its every intendment. It originated with President Johnson, and for years was industriously circulated by his unscrupulous abettors, though he did not dare make open proclamation of it until he felt assured, through your letter of the 30th of March, 1873, that no damaging disclosures were to be apprehended from yourself.... The question whether a President of the United States, as a craven refuge from accountability for official action, did seek to blacken the reputation of a subordinate officer holding a confidential interview with him, is in no just sense a private question; it is essentially a public one, which concerns the whole country, and one of which the country may well expect to speak, seeing that you were a member of that President's Cabinet, at the time of this disgraceful transaction. Your unwillingness thus to speak of it in 1873, seemed to have arisen from an exaggerated estimate of a rule which once prevailed with regard to the inviolability of Cabinet councils and secrets. But whatever may have been, in the remote past, the recognized force of this rule, the frequent and conspicuous disregard of it during the last two decades, by statesmen of the highest probity and rank, leaves the impression that the rule itself has lived its day and is now practically dead and inoperative. Waiving, however, this view, it is clear to me that, were the rule accepted as now binding in its utmost rigor, it could have no application to this case. I can not be misled in supposing that the relations between the President and the Cabinet are relations of honor, and that, therefore, they cannot be held to oblige any member of his Cabinet to protect, by his concealment, and thus become a moral accomplice in it—any criminal or wrongful act into which the President may be drawn by a guilty ambition, or by any other unworthy passion or purpose. In a word, the rule never has been and never should be so construed as to become a shelter for perjury or crime.
"Your associates in the Cabinet,—Messrs Seward and Stanton,—condemning the rule by which I have been so long victimized, declared the truth fully to Judge Bingham, as he has so forcibly set forth in his letter to which you are referred."
But, as I have said, Mr. Speed would not speak. I can only account for it by the life, circumstances, and education of the man. In the old slave States, in the ante-bellum days, there existed many of the ideas, traditions, and rules of personal conduct of the feudal times. Things touching personal honor, or trusted to it, or that partook of the knightly and chivalrous, were esteemed above common right, common honesty, or common sense. Restrained by these limitations of birth and tradition, and controlled by his chivalrous idea of not revealing what he regarded as Cabinet secrets, Mr. Speed would not speak, even to save a public officer from a great wrong, or his personal friend from a calumny which he knew would walk beside him, shadowing and embittering a life, noble and void of wrong, down to its close. In this I think the judgment of mankind will be that he erred. He knew that this charge of Andrew Johnson was a cruel falsehood. Not only what he said, but what he refused to say, proves this. His letter of March 30, 1873, states that he saw the record, with the recommendation attached to it, in the President's office before the execution. Judge Holt did not, therefore, "withhold," as the President alleged. But, stronger than this, and conclusive, I believe, in the mind of every honest and unprejudiced man, were Mr. Speed's utterances, less than two years ago, at a meeting of the Loyal Legion at Cincinnati. Mr. Speed read a paper at the meeting of this society, held there on the 4th of May, 1887, in which he said:—
"Only the group of fiends who stilled the pulsations of Lincoln's great heart, paid the penalty of the crime. A maudlin sentiment has sought to cast blame on the officials who dealt out justice to these. One in particular is my distinguished friend, the then Judge Advocate General of the army. Judge Holt performed his duty kindly and considerately. In every particular he was just and fair. This I know; but Judge Holt needs no vindication from me nor any one else. I only speak because I know reflections have been made, and because my position enabled me to know the facts, and because I know the perfect purity and uprightness of his conduct." Could any words say in stronger form, he knew that in this matter Judge Holt did his whole duty, and that President's Johnson's charges were false? Could he have said, "In every particular he was just and fair, this I know," if he did not know and intended to say that he knew Judge Holt did his whole duty and had presented this recommendation to mercy to President Johnson? But what he refused to say is as strongly convincing to my mind of the fact that the recommendation to mercy was, to his knowledge, duly brought to the President's attention, and was read and considered by him and members of his Cabinet, as anything he has affirmatively stated.
He was asked by Judge Holt to state whether this paper was or was not before President Johnson and his Cabinet. He refused to answer "because he did not feel at liberty to speak of what was said at Cabinet meetings." If nothing was said about the recommendation, if no such paper ever came before the Cabinet, might he not have so stated; might he not have said, "No such matter ever came before the Cabinet?" This would not reveal any Cabinet secret, would come nowhere near the limitations he had prescribed for himself "not to speak of what was said at Cabinet meetings."
Is it not the inevitable logical conclusion that it was because of this knowledge that this recommendation had been before, and had been discussed by, the President and his Cabinet, and his determination "not to speak of what was said at Cabinet meetings," that he would not speak?
But, finally, my friends, has not the faith of Judge Holt been realized? Has not time caused the truth to shine forth and his innocence to appear? In 1873, he said: "An abiding faith, however, remains with me that the public will do these witnesses justice, and myself, also; and that if truth has power to disarm the cloud of calumny of its lightnings, that then, standing in their presence and under their shelter, I may well feel that for the future this cloud can have no terrors for me."
Saith an old poet:—
"... I have ever thought
Nature doth nothing so great for great men
As when she's pleased to make them lords of truth.
Integrity of life is fame's best friend,
Which nobly beyond death shall crown the end."