Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 37.djvu/258

 "It has been asserted that Davis is responsible for the death by exposure and famine of our captured soldiers; and his official position gives plausibility to the charge. Yet while Henry Wirz— a miserable wretch— a mere tool of tools— was long ago arrainged, tried, convicted, sentenced and hanged for this crime—no charge has been officially preferred against Davis. So we presume none is to be."

The Tribune kept up repeating this demand during the following part of that year, and admonished the Government of the increased absurdity of its position, for not daring, seemingly, to prosecute a great criminal against whom it had officially declared it was possessed of evidence to prove that crime. On November 9, 1866, The Tribune again thus emphasized this thought:

"Eighteen months have nearly elapsed since Jefferson Davis was made a State prisoner. He had previously been publicly charged, by the President of the United States, with conspiring to assassinate President Lincoln, and $100,000 offered for his capture thereupon. The capture was promptly made and the money duly paid; yet, up to this hour, there has not been even an attempt made by the Government to procure an indictment on that charge. He has, also, been popularly, if not officially, accused of complicity in the virtual murder of Union soldiers, while prisoners of war, by subjecting them to needless, inhuman exposure, privation and abuse; but no official attempt has been made to indict him on that charge. . . . A great Government may deal sternly with offenders, but not meanly; it cannot afford to seem unwilling to repair an obvious wrong."

The Government, however, continued to express its inability to proceed with the trial. Another year had passed since the capture of Mr. Davis, and now another attempt to liberate him by bail was to be made. The Government, by its conduct, having tacitly abandoned those special charges of inhumanity, a petition for a writ was to be presented by which the prisoner might be handed over to the civil authorities to answer the indictment for treason. In aid of this project Mr. Wilson, Chairman of the Committee of Military Affairs, offered in the Senate, on the 1 8th of March, 1867, a resolution urging the