Benjamnin F. Butler, Butler's Book: Autobiography and Personal Reminiscences of Major-General Benjamin Butler

“ [918] learned counsel will instruct you. And if that Court shall decide any one of the questions that you have raised here in your favor, or that in anything this commission has over-stepped its power in doing any act or omitting to do anything which it should have done according to its powers and duty, so that your trial has not been a fair and just one according to military law and usage, the President will be advised in any such case that you be discharged and go of these accusations without day, and if he deem it expedient that he grant you executive clemency.”

I said: “If that is done in due order, Mr. President, no man will say that Davis has not had a fair. trial, and you will have referred the question of his guilt to the highest court of the country and will be at liberty to act at your discretion under the best guides you have. At any rate you will have lifted the burden of this case from yourself to the courts.”

The President said that he thought well of this plan and would take it into consideration.

Soon after this he began to waver in his determination that treason should be punished and traitors take back seats, and the commission was never called together. I understood that Mr. Secretary Welles alone of the Cabinet objected to my plan and said the trial must be by jury under the Constitution.

Decorative Motif.