Holt pictures the dead Johnson exulting even in Hell over the silence of his old Attorney-General; blasts the character of Stanton by ascribing his injunction of silence to a motive the most diabolic; and, unconscious seemingly that he does it, at the same time ruins the credit of Bingham by extolling his "scrupulous obedience" to such an infernal command.
Johnson unwittingly proclaims the pardon of the slain woman in his anxiety to show that he signed her death-warrant through ignorance, forced upon him by the ineffable depravity of the men in whom he was compelled to trust.
This controversy over the petition of clemency was the only thing needed to round out and decorate the entire, complete and perfect iniquity of the whole drama. It is immaterial and indifferent to history where the truth lies between these combatants in so unsavory a strife. Each one tears off the burning brand of shame, not to extinguish it, but to pass it on to his colleague. If we credit Holt, it is difficult to conceive the malignity of soul of Andrew Johnson, who could invent so foul a charge, the meanness of spirit of Edwin M. Stanton, who, knowing its blackness, could forbid the promulgation of the truth, the cowardly silence of John A. Bingham, whose lips the death of the dreaded Stanton alone could unclose. If we credit Johnson, then in all the crowded catalogue of inquisitors, persecutors, cruel or pettifogging prosecuting officers, devil's advocates and murderous Septembrisers, there is not one who would not spurn with profane emphasis association with Holt or Bingham or Stanton.
As the choicest specimen in this shower of accusations and counter-accusations, listen to the tender-hearted ex-Judge-Advocate of 1873--once the stony head of the death-dealing Bureau--rebuking Andrew Johnson for his cold-blooded cruelty! "I would have shuddered to propose the brief period of two days within which the sentences should be executed, for with all the mountain of guilt weighing on the heads of those convicted culprits I still recognized them as human beings, with souls to be saved or lost, and could not have thought for a moment of hurrying them into the eternal world, as cattle are driven to the slaughter-pen, without a care for their future."