CHAPTER XVII.

CONCLUSION.

Now come the United States and challenge an intelligent and candid world to say whether or not, in the light of all this evidence, they have vindicated their dignity and honor by showing that they had just grounds for charging Jefferson Davis, George N. Sanders, Beverly Tucker, Jacob Thompson, William C. Cleary, Clement C. Clay, George Harper, George Young, and others unknown, with combining, confederating and conspiring together with one John Wilkes Booth and John Harrison Surratt to kill and murder Abraham Lincoln, Andrew Johnson, William H. Seward, and Ulysses S. Grant, with the intent to subvert the Constitution and overthrow the government of the United States in aid of the then existing rebellion and as a means of giving it success; and that further, as specified, they, together with John H. Surratt, John Wilkes Booth, David E. Herold, George A. Atzerodt, Lewis Payne, Mary E. Surratt, Edward Spangler, Samuel Arnold, Michael O'Laughlin, and Dr. Samuel A. Mudd, did, on the night of the 14th day of April, 1865, murder Abraham Lincoln, and did attempt to murder William H. Seward, and did lie in wait to murder Andrew Johnson, in pursuance of said conspiracy, and in the purpose and intent thereof, as therein alleged. And they further say, that if, in the light of all this evidence, any persons shall feel like erecting a monument to the memory of Jefferson Davis, this is a free country; let them do so, and take the consequences that cannot fail to result to their reputation and memory in the minds of a patriotic, intelligent, and right-minded people, reared up under the influences and advantages of our free and liberal institutions of civil administration, and of their uplifting power and elevating influences on the people, who must, under these favoring conditions, ultimately reach the true ideal of human development.