A Miscarriage of Justice

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A Miscarriage of Justice

By Ryan Walters on Dec 5, 2016

 

“Passion governs, and she never governs wisely,” wrote Benjamin Franklin to Joseph Galloway in 1775 [1] Wise words from the wisest of America’s Founders, yet ninety years later the very government that Franklin helped create disregarded his wisdom, fell prey to those very passions, and trampled the constitutional rights of its own citizens in order to help quench what seemed an insatiable thirst for vengeance.

 

On July 7, 1865, one of those citizens, Mary Elizabeth Jenkins Surratt of Maryland, went to the gallows for her role, or supposed role, in the plot to assassinate President Abraham Lincoln. Though her execution would not have seemed a tragedy to Northerners in 1865, or to many Americans today, it is a glaring example of how government can become tyrannical when given the opportunity, particularly when passions are at a fever pitch, just as Franklin had warned.

 

As history tells us, Lincoln met his fate at Ford’s Theater on the evening of April 14, 1865, just days after General Lee’s surrender at Appomattox. Euphoric feelings across the North celebrating the end of a long and bloody war quickly abated after news spread that actorhttps://www.abbevilleinstitute.org/review/a-miscarriage-of-justice/