It is a difficult matter at this distance of time to realize the attitude of public sentiment against Jefferson Davis the state prisoner of Fortress Monroe. As the chief executive of the late Confederacy, he was, in popular estimation, the incarnation, if not the proximate cause, of all the sins and suffering of Rebellion, but worse than all the administration which in feverish, puerile haste had declared him an accessory to the assassination of Mr. Lincoln and upon that score had paid out of the public treasury $100,000 for his capture, could not, or rather dared not reverse its attitude and speak the truth. The result was, of course, that the vast majority of the people at the North believed Mr. Davis to be as guilty of murder as he was of treason, and consequently there was a mighty clamor for his summary execution.

Had there been a scintilla of evidence, nay, had there been any fact which human ingenuity could have tortured into a plausible resemblance to guilty knowledge of Mr. Lincoln’s death, no one will now doubt that Jefferson Davis would have been murdered as was Mrs. Serrat.

Andrew Johnston within ninety days after he had issued his ridiculously false proclamation admitted it to be without foundation—a fact which all along was fully realized by every member of the government who had personally known the accused. And yet a coterie of radicals, headed by a conspicuous member of the Cabinet, continued to search by such questionable means for incriminating evidence that it disgusted the just, conservative men of all parties, and they demanded that the senseless accusation be dropped for all time.However, a chance yet remained to dispose of the fallen chieftain without incurring any of the trouble and risk that must arise from a trial according to the laws of the land.

Thousands of Federal prisoners had starved and died at Andersonville and throughout the North this tale of suffering had inspired such horror and indignation that there was a general demand for the punishment of those who were supposed to be responsible for it. Captain Wirz, the commandant of Andersonville, was accordingly haled before a drum-head court martial and, despite the fact that he conclusively demonstrated that conditions responsible for the horrors of that pest hole were beyond his own control, or that of any man or number of men in the Confederacy, he was promptly convicted and was sentenced to death.

Then a serviceable, if not honorable, idea seized the hysterical radicals, which was nothing less than the feasibility of holding Jefferson Davis responsible for the horrors of Andersonville. But there again the ingenuity of malice failed to discover any evidence except that which was highly creditable to the intended victim.

All that followed in the nefarious plot is not and never will be fully known, but from the declaration of the priest, who was Captain Wirz’s spiritual adviser, as well as from other authentic information, there is no room whatever to doubt that the condemned man was offered his life and liberty if he would swear that in the management of the prison he had acted under the direction of Jefferson Davis. Captain Wirz, however, was a brave and honorable man and scorning to purchase his life with such a lie, he met his fate like a soldier. This left but one other course open. If Mr. Davis were to be punished at all, it must be for treason. The idea appealed to the radicals with something of the same zest that a child experiences from its first gaudy toy, and for a time they fairly reveled in visions of a court martial which, unincumbered of the troublesome rules of evidence observed in courts of law, would speedily give the desired result.

But fortunately for the American people, there were men in the Cabinet and in Congress, who knowing the law, clearly saw that such a course of procedure must shock the whole civilized world and reduce the guarantees of the Constitution to a parity with the so-called organic law of the revolutionary despotisms of Central American and South America. Against this sentiment the ravings of the vindictive cabal availed nothing, and, as the months went by, it became evident that if a trial ever came, it must be according to the laws of the land.