The ex-Judge-Advocate insists that the signature to the death-warrant was a matter of very little moment. The President could withdraw it at any time. But would he have us believe that, after the President had dispatched such a fatal missive to the officer whose sole duty, with regard to it, consisted in the promulgation of an order for its execution within twenty-four hours, such action was simply provisional and, according to usage, still subject to rescission by a Cabinet vote?
Desperate, indeed, must be the necessities of a defence, which drive the defendant on the forlorn hope of identifying a Cabinet meeting, voting as a unit to deny a petition for clemency, "_before the death-warrant was approved_," with a Cabinet discussion of the petition, _after_ the death-warrant, fixing the execution on the next day but one, had been signed by the President, (who is represented as urgent and eager at the moment of his signature to exact in the shortest time the extremest penalty); on the ground that the latter was held _before_ the theoretical _animus revocandi_ of the Executive had become technically inoperative with the last sigh of the condemned.
It has been suggested by one of his subordinate officers that the Secretary of War having seen the petition as soon as the record came to his department, it is inconceivable that, at some moment between the 30th and the 7th, the matter should not have been discussed by him with the President.
Of course, there can be no doubt that Stanton knew all about the recommendation. But, (and this obvious answer seems to have altogether escaped the attention of his friend), if the paper was in fact suppressed, it was suppressed with Stanton's own knowledge. Indeed, his must have been the master-hand. He it was who kept the late Vice-President up to the mark of severity as long as the bloody humor lasted.
He was the sovereign, and Bingham and Holt but his vassals. Everybody will give them the credit of not having dared to dream of suppression without the electrifying nod of their imperious lord.
And, from the long silence of one, if not both, of his slaves, it would appear, that he not only directed the suppression of the paper, but was too proud to deny, or suffer his minions to deny, it to his dying day.