The Revolutionary War was made possible by the system of taxation already in place. That is, America was able to achieve its independence from Britain only by funding a militia with taxes collected from the colonists.



After the Boston Tea Party, Americans continued to argue about taxes for the next 220 years. Still to this day, Americans are concerned about taxes, in part because it means each and everyone of us is essentially working for the state or federal government 20-50% of the time. In addition, Americans do not like how tax revenues are appropriated, especially as it proves to be a funding mechanism for an ever growing empire.

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History of Property Taxes in the United States

Posted Mon, 2010-02-01 17:21 by Anonymous

Glenn W. Fisher, Wichita State University (Emeritus)

Taxes based on ownership of property were used in ancient times, but the modern tax has roots in feudal obligations owned to British and European kings or landlords. In the fourteenth and fifteenth century, British tax assessors used ownership or occupancy of property to estimate a taxpayer’s ability to pay. In time the tax came to be regarded as a tax on the property itself (in rem). In the United Kingdom the tax developed into a system of “rates” based on the annual (rental) value of property.

The growth of the property tax in America was closely related to economic and political conditions on the frontier. In pre-commercial agricultural areas the property tax was a feasible source of local government revenue and equal taxation of wealth was consistent with the prevailing equalitarian ideology.

Taxation in the American Colonies

When the Revolutionary War began, the colonies had well-developed tax systems that made a war against the world’s leading military power thinkable. The tax structure varied from colony to colony, but five kinds of taxes were widely used. Capitation (poll) taxes were levied at a fixed rate on all adult males and sometimes on slaves. Property taxes were usually specific taxes levied at fixed rates on enumerated items, but sometimes items were taxed according to value. Faculty taxes were levied on the faculty or earning capacity of persons following certain trades or having certain skills. Tariffs (imposts) were levied on goods imported or exported and excises were levied on consumption goods, especially liquor.

During the war colonial tax rates increased several fold and taxation became a matter of heated debate and some violence. Settlers far from markets complained that taxing land on a per-acre basis was unfair and demanded that property taxation be based on value. In the southern colonies light land taxes and heavy poll taxes favored wealthy landowners. In some cases, changes in the tax system caused the wealthy to complain. In New York wealthy leaders saw the excess profits tax, which had been levied on war profits, as a dangerous example of “leveling tendencies.”  Owners of intangible property in New Jersey saw the tax on intangible property in a similar light.

By the end of the war, it was obvious that the concept of equality so eloquently stated in the Declaration of Independence had far-reaching implications. Wealthy leaders and ordinary men pondered the meaning of equality and asked its implications for taxation. The leaders often saw little connection among independence, political equality, and the tax system, but many ordinary men saw an opportunity to demand changes.

Constitutionalizing Uniformity in the Nineteenth Century

In 1796 seven of the fifteen states levied uniform capitation taxes. Twelve taxed some or all livestock. Land was taxed in a variety of ways, but only four states taxed the mass of property by valuation. No state constitution required that taxation be by value or required that rates on all kinds of property be uniform. In 1818, Illinois adopted the first uniformity clause. Missouri followed in 1820, and in 1834 Tennessee replaced a provision requiring that land be taxed at a uniform amount per acre with a provision that land be taxed according to its value (ad valorem). By the end of the century thirty-three states had included uniformity clauses in new constitutions or had amended old ones to include the requirement that all property be taxed equally by value. A number of other states enacted uniformity statutes requiring that all property be taxed. Table 1 summarizes this history.

The political appeal of uniformity was strong, especially in the new states west of the Appalachians. A uniform tax on all wealth, administered by locally elected officials appealed to frontier settlers many of whom strongly supported the Jacksonian ideas of equality, and distrusted both centralized government and professional administrators.

The general property tax applied to all wealth -- real and personal, tangible and intangible. It was administrated by elected local officials who were to determine the market value of the property, compute the tax rates necessary to raise the amount levied, compute taxes on each property, collect the tax, and remit the proceeds to the proper government. Because the tax was uniform and levied on all wealth, each taxpayer would pay for the government services he or she enjoyed in exact proportion to his wealth.

The tax and the administrative system were well adapted as a revenue source for the system of local government that grew up in the United States. Typically, the state divided itself into counties, which were given many responsibilities for administering state laws. Citizens were free to organize municipalities, school districts, and many kinds of special districts to perform additional functions. The result, especially in the states formed after the Revolution, was a large number of overlapping governments. Many were in rural areas with no business establishment. Sales or excise taxes would yield no revenue and income taxes were not feasible.

The property tax, especially the real estate tax, was ideally suited to such a situation. Real estate had a fixed location, it was visible, and its value was generally well known. Revenue could easily be allocated to the governmental unit in which the property was located.

Failure of the General Property Tax

By the beginning of the twentieth century, criticism of the uniform, universal (general) property tax was widespread. A leading student of taxation called the tax, as administered, one of the worst taxes ever used by a civilized nation (Seligman, 1905).

There are several reasons for the failure of the general property tax. Advocates of uniformity failed to deal with the problems resulting from differences between property as a legal term and wealth as an economic concept. In a simple rural economy wealth consists largely of real property and tangible personal property -- land, buildings, machinery and livestock. In such an economy, wealth and property are the same things and the ownership of property is closely correlated with income or ability to pay taxes.

In a modern commercial economy ownership and control of wealth is conferred by an ownership of rights that may be evidenced by a variety of financial and legal instruments such as stocks, bonds, notes, and mortgages. These rights may confer far less than fee simple (absolute) ownership and may be owned by millions of individuals residing all over the world. Local property tax administrators lack the legal authority, skills, and resources needed to assess and collect taxes on such complex systems of property ownership.

Another problem arose from the inability or unwillingness of elected local assessors to value their neighbor’s property at full value. An assessor who valued property well below its market value and changed values infrequently was much more popular and more apt to be reelected. Finally the increasing number of wage-earners and professional people who had substantial incomes but little property made property ownership a less suitable measure of ability to pay taxes.

Reformers, led by The National Tax Association which was founded in 1907, proposed that state income taxes be enacted and that intangible property and some kinds of tangible personal property be eliminated from the property tax base. They proposed that real property be assessed by professionally trained assessors. Some advocated the classified property tax in which different rates of assessment or taxation was applied to different classes of real property.

Despite its faults, however, the tax continued to provide revenue for one of the most elaborate systems of local government in the world. Local governments included counties, municipalities of several classes, towns or townships, and school districts. Special districts were organized to provide water, irrigation, drainage, roads, parks, libraries, fire protection, health services, gopher control, and scores of other services. In some states, especially in the Midwest and Great Plains, it was not uncommon to find that property was taxed by seven or eight different governments.

Overlapping governments caused little problem for real estate taxation. Each parcel of property was coded by taxing districts and the applicable taxes applied.

Reforming the Property Tax in the Twentieth Century

Efforts to reform the property tax varied from state to state, but usually included centralized assessment of railroad and utility property and exemption or classification of some forms of property. Typically intangibles such as mortgages were taxed at lower rates, but in several states tangible personal property and real estate were also classified. In 1910 Montana divided property into six classes. Assessment rates ranged from 100 percent of the net proceeds of mines to seven percent for money and credits. Minnesota’s 1913 law divided tangible property into four classes, each assessed at a different rate. Some states replaced the town or township assessors with county assessors, and many created state agencies to supervise and train local assessors. The National Association of Assessing Officers (later International Association of Assessing Officers) was organized in 1934 to develop better assessment methods and to train and certify assessors.

The depression years after 1929 resulted in widespread property tax delinquency and in several states taxpayers forcibly resisted the sale of tax delinquent property. State governments placed additional limits on property tax rates and several states exempted owner-occupied residence from taxation. These homestead exemptions were later criticized because they provided large amounts of relief to wealthy homeowners and disproportionally reduced the revenue of local governments whose property tax base was made up largely of residential property.

After World War II many states replaced the homestead exemption with state financed “circuit breakers” which benefited lower and middle income homeowners, older homeowners, and disabled persons. In many states renters were included by provisions that classified a portion of rental payments as property taxes. By 1991 thirty-five states had some form of circuit breakers (Advisory Commission on Intergovernmental Relations, 1992, 126-31).

Proponents of the general property tax believed that uniform and universal taxation of property would tend to limit taxes. Everybody would have to pay their share and the political game of taxing somebody else for one’s favorite program would be impossible. Perhaps there was some truth in this argument, but state legislatures soon began to impose additional limitations. Typically, the statutes authorizing local government to impose taxes for a particular purpose such as education, road building, or water systems, specified the rate, usually stated in mills, dollars per hundred or dollars per thousand of assessed value, that could be imposed for that purpose.

These limitations provided no overall limit on the taxes imposed on a particular property so state legislatures and state constitutions began to impose limits restricting the total rate or amount that could be imposed by a unit of local government. Often these were complicated to administer and had many unintended consequences. For example, limiting the tax that could be imposed by a particular kind of government sometime led to the creation of additional special districts.

During World War II, state and local taxes were stable or decreased as spending programs were cut back because of decreased needs or unavailability of building materials or other resources. This was reversed in the post-war years as governments expanded programs and took advantage of rising property value to increase tax collections. Assessment rose, tax rates rose, and the newspapers carried stories of homeowners forced to sell their homes because of rising taxes

California’s Tax Revolt

Within a few years the country was swept by a wave of tax protests, often called the Tax Revolt. Almost every state imposed some kind of limitation on the property tax, but the most widely publicized was Proposition 13, a constitutional amendment passed by popular vote in California in 1978. This proved to be the most successful attack on the property tax in American history. The amendment:

1.      limited property taxes to one percent of full cash value

2.      required property to be valued at its value on March 1, 1975 or on the date it changes hands or is constructed after that date.

3.      limited subsequent value adjustment in value to 2 percent per year or the rate of inflation, whichever is lesser.

4.      prohibited the imposition of sales or transaction taxes on the sale of real estate.

5.      required two-thirds vote in each house of the legislature to increase state taxes

and a two-thirds vote of the electorate to increase or add new local taxes.

This amendment proved to be extremely difficult to administer. It resulted in hundreds of court cases, scores of new statutes, many attorney generals’ opinions and several additional amendments to the California constitution. One of the amendments permits property to be passed to heirs without triggering a new assessment.

In effect Proposition 13 replaced the property tax with a hybrid tax based on a property’s value in 1975 or the date it was last transferred to a non-family member. These values have been modified by annual adjustments that have been much less than the increase in the market value of the property. Thus it has favored the business or family that remains in the same building or residence for a long period of time.

Local government in California seems to have been weakened and there has been a great increase in fees, user charges, and business taxes. A variety of devices, including the formation of fee-financed special districts, have been utilized to provide services.

Although Proposition 13 was the most far-reaching and widely publicized attempt to limit property taxes, it is only one of many provisions that have attempted to limit the property tax. Some are general limitations on rates or amounts that may be levied. Others provide tax benefits to particular groups or are intended to promote economic development. Several other states adopted overall limitations or tax freezes modeled on Proposition 13 and in addition have adopted a large number of provisions to provide relief to particular classes of individuals or to serve as economic incentives. These include provisions favoring agricultural land, exemption or reduced taxation of owner-occupied homes, provisions benefiting the poor, veterans, disabled individuals, and the aged. Economic incentives incorporated in property tax laws include exemptions or lower rates on particular business or certain types of business, exemption of the property of newly established businesses, tax breaks in development zones, and earmarking of taxes for expenditure that benefit a particular business (enterprise zones).

The Property Tax Today

In many states assessment techniques have improved greatly. Computer assisted mass appraisal (CAMA) combines computer technology, statistical methods and valve theory to make possible reasonably accurate property assessments. Increases in state school aid, stemming in part from court decisions requiring equal school quality, have increased the pressure for statewide uniformity in assessment. Some states now use elaborate statistical procedures to measure the quality and equality of assessment from place to place in the state. Today, departures from uniformity come less from poor assessment than from provision in the property tax statutes.

The tax on a particular property may depend on who owns it, what it is used for, and when it last sold. To compute the tax the administrator may have to know the income, age, medical condition, and previous military service of the owner. Anomalies abound as taxpayers figure out ways to make the complicated system work in their favor. A few bales of hay harvested from a development site may qualify it as agricultural land and enterprise zones, which are intended to provide incentive for development in poverty-stricken areas, may contain industrial plants, but no people -- poverty stricken or otherwise.

The many special provision fuel the demand for other special provisions. As the base narrows, the tax rate rises and taxpayers become aware of the special benefits enjoyed by their neighbors or competitors. This may lead to demands for overall tax limitations or to the quest for additional exemptions and special provisions.

The Property Tax as a Revenue Source during the Twentieth Century

At the time of the 1902 Census of Government the property tax provided forty-five percent of the general revenue received by state governments from their own sources. (excluding grants from other governments). That percentage declined steadily, taking its most precipitous drop between 1922 and 1942 as states adopted sales and income taxes. Today property taxes are an insignificant source of state tax revenue. (See Table 2.)

The picture at the local level is very different. The property tax as a percentage of own-source general revenue rose from 1902 until 1932 when it provided 85.2 percent of local government own-source general revenue. Since that time there has been a significant gradual decline in the importance of local property taxes.

The decline in the revenue importance of the property tax is more dramatic when the increase in federal and state aid is considered. In fiscal year 1999, local governments received 228 billion in property tax revenue and 328 billion in aid from state and federal governments. If current trends continue, the property tax will decline in importance and states and the federal government will take over more local functions, or expand the system of grants to local governments. Either way, government will become more centralized.

Table 2

Property Taxes as a Percentage of Own-Source General Revenue, Selected Years

______________________________                                     Year                 State                Local                                     ______________________________                                                1902                45.3                 78.2                                     1913                38.9                 77.4                                     1922                30.9                 83.9                                     1932                15.2                 85.2                                     1942                  6.2                 80.8                                     1952                  3.4                 71.0                                     1962                  2.7                 69.0                                     1972                  1.8                 63.5                                     1982                  1.5                 48.0                                     1992                  1.7                 48.1                                     ­­1999                  1.8                 44.6                                     _______________________________

Source: U. S. Census of Governments, Historical Statistics of State and Local Finance, 1902-1953; U. S. Census of Governments, Governments Finances for (various years); and http://www.census.gov.

References

Adams, Henry Carter. Taxation in the United States, 1789-1816. New York: Burt Franklin, 1970, originally published in 1884.

Advisory Commission on Intergovernmental Relations. Significant Features of Fiscal Federalism, Volume 1, 1992.

Becker, Robert A. Revolution, Reform and the Politics of American Taxation. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1980.

Ely, Richard T. Taxation in the American States and Cities. New York: T. Y. Crowell & Co, 1888.

Fisher, Glenn W. The Worst Tax? A History of the Property Tax in America. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1996.

Fisher, Glenn W. “The General Property Tax in the Nineteenth Century: The Search for Equality.” Property Tax Journal 6, no. 2 ((1987): 99-117.

Jensen, Jens Peter. Property Taxation in the United States. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1931.

Seligman, E. R. A. Essays in Taxation. New York: Macmillan Company, 1905, originally published in 1895.

Stocker, Frederick, editor. Proposition 13: A Ten-Year Retrospective. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Lincoln Institute of Land Policy, 1991.

Citation: Fisher, Glenn. "History of Property Taxes in the United States". EH.Net Encyclopedia, edited by Robert Whaples. September 30, 2002. URL http://eh.net/encyclopedia/article/fisher.property.tax.history.us

­­1999                  1.8                 44.6                                     _______________________________ Source: U. S. Census of Governments, Historical Statistics of State and Local Finance, 1902-1953; U. S. Census of Governments, Governments Finances for (various years); and http://www.census.gov. References Adams, Henry Carter. Taxation in the United States, 1789-1816. New York: Burt Franklin, 1970, originally published in 1884. Advisory Commission on Intergovernmental Relations. Significant Features of Fiscal Federalism, Volume 1, 1992. Becker, Robert A. Revolution, Reform and the Politics of American Taxation. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1980. Ely, Richard T. Taxation in the American States and Cities. New York: T. Y. Crowell & Co, 1888. Fisher, Glenn W. The Worst Tax? A History of the Property Tax in America. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1996. Fisher, Glenn W. “The General Property Tax in the Nineteenth Century: The Search for Equality.” Property Tax Journal 6, no. 2 ((1987): 99-117. Jensen, Jens Peter. Property Taxation in the United States. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1931. Seligman, E. R. A. Essays in Taxation. New York: Macmillan Company, 1905, originally published in 1895. Stocker, Frederick, editor. Proposition 13: A Ten-Year Retrospective. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Lincoln Institute of Land Policy, 1991. Citation: Fisher, Glenn. "History of Property Taxes in the United States". EH.Net Encyclopedia, edited by Robert Whaples. September 30, 2002. URL http://eh.net/encyclopedia/article/fisher.property.tax.history.us Encyclopedia: Encyclopedia Read more at eh.net

 

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Global USD Ponzi Scheme Exposed

What value is the USD to an average citizen if the Federal Reserve can "lend" freely printed money to all other central banks and private banks around the world in secrecy in order to prop them up? What good does it do for us to evaluate the creditworthiness of these institutions and their debt instruments if a privileged few can magically inflate their bank accounts with Fed money long enough for them to complete an audit or produce financial statements.



Combine this with the off balance sheet Enron style accounts and entities and you can see that these banking corporations are nothing more than larger versions of the Madoff enterprise.



Add to that the ability of trading companies and investment brokerages to borrow and gamble with your money as collateral (a process known as rehypothicatation) and not be held responsible when the music stops.



What is the true risk associated with the stocks and bonds of banks, investment brokerages, etc if they are all indeed running a ponzi scheme?



What is the point of having regulatory institutions like the CFTC, CFE, SEC, and FED is they are going to turn a blind eye to the risk and corruption?



And last but not least, what is the point of electing politicians to write laws if they are going to be bought by the highest bidder anyways? Democracy for Sale.



The global markets are overrun by cancerous and twisted politics and twisted economics.



It's time to rethink economics. It's time to rethink politics.

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Bail-out Bombshell: Fed "Emergency" Bank Rescue Totaled $29 Trillion Over Three Years

By J. Andrew Felkerson, AlterNet Posted on December 15, 2011, Printed on December 16, 2011 http://www.alternet.org/story/153462/bail-out_bombshell%3A_fed_%22emergency%22_bank_rescue_totaled_%2429_trillion_over_three_years

Speculation about the the Fed’s actions during the financial crisis has made headlines on and off again over the last several years.  The latest drama occurred on November 27 when Bloomberg published an article, “Secret Fed Loans Gave Banks $13 Billion Undisclosed to Congress," which gives an account of the news agency’s struggle to bring to light the details of the Fed’s emergency programs. Bloomberg throws out some very large numbers, revealing that as of March 2009, the Fed lent, spent, or committed $7.77 trillion worth of aid to the financial system and that banks used the low interest rates charged on these loans to make an estimated $13 billion in income.  On December 6, the Fed struck back, issuing a four page unsigned memo intended to correct recent “egregious errors and mistakes” found in various reports of its emergency lending facilities.  The Fed argues that the “total credit outstanding under liquidity programs was never more than about $1.5 trillion.”  While Bloomberg wasn’t mentioned explicitly in the Fed memo, it was fairly clear to whom the response was directed.  The following day Bloomberg defended its reporting, and the Wall Street Journal’s David Wessel came to the Fed’s defense, characterizing Bloomberg’s methodology as a “great story,” but ultimately not “true.” All this may sound like controversy, but it’s little more than a tempest in a teacup. Here’s the hurricane: In reality, no less than $29.616 trillion is the total emergency assistance provided by the Fed to foreign and domestic entities during the Global Financial Crisis. Let’s repeat that: $29 trillion. This astounding number is over twice U.S. gross domestic product, the nominal value of all goods and services produced for the year 2010.  This is the total of the bailout as calculated by Nicola Matthews and myself as part of the Ford Foundation project, A Research And Policy Dialogue Project On Improving Governance Of The Government Safety Net In Financial Crisis.  We will be presenting the results of our analysis in a series of papers published by the Levy Economics Institute, the first of which, “29,000,000,000,000: A Detailed Look at the Fed’s Bailout by Funding Facility and Recipient,” is already available here. The results we have calculated are presented below, and it is important to note that the totals are cumulative and in billions of U.S. dollars. (The numbers in parentheses indicate amounts still outstanding as of November 10, 2011). Facility Total Percent of Total Term Auction Facility $3,818.41 12.89% Central Bank Liquidity Swaps 10,057.4 (1.96) 33.96 Single Tranche Open Market Operations 855 2.89 Term Securities Lending Facility and Term Options Program 2,005.7 6.77 Bear Stearns Bridge Loan 12.9 0.04 Maiden Lane I 28.82 (12.98) 0.10 Primary Dealer Credit Facility 8,950.99 30.22 Asset-Backed Commercial Paper Money Market Mutual Fund Liquidity Facility 217.45 0.73 Commercial Paper Funding Facility 737.07 2.49 Term Asset-Backed Securities Loan Facility 71.09 (10.57) 0.24 Agency Mortgage-Backed Security Purchase Program 1,850.14 (849.26) 6.25 AIG Revolving Credit Facility 140.316 0.47 AIG Securities Borrowing Facility 802.316 2.71 Maiden Lane II 19.5 (9.33) 0.07 Maiden Lane III 24.3 (18.15) 0.08 AIA/ ALICO (AIG) 25 0.08 Totals $29,616.4 100.0%   I want to be clear. These are the totals of Fed lending and asset purchases actually undertaken since the bail-out began. There is no double-counting. And we do not include any credit facilities created by the Fed unless they were actually used. These figures accurately reflect the cumulative totals over the approximately three years actually used by the Fed to prop-up domestic and international banks, shadow banks, central banks, and even some non-financial institutions. Banks in the Shadows The programs above constitute the crisis prevention machinery rolled out by the Fed to combat the worst financial panic since 1929. All the programs above were designed and implemented to target domestic financial and nonfinancial corporations or foreign central banks or markets, or both. Only one of the facilities, the Term Auction Facility, can be viewed as being consistent with the Fed’s mandate to protect the commercial banking system from systemic failure. The rest are the result of the increasing relevance of the “shadow banking” to our economy—and of the Fed’s attempt to rescue the shadow banking sector. Shadow banks are highly leveraged financial institutions that perform functions historically relegated to the commercial banking system. It is important to note that these financial concerns do not have access to the conventional means of Fed support. Nor were they ever really regulated or supervised by the Fed. They engaged in extremely risky behavior that in large part led to the global financial crisis. And when it hit, the Fed spent and lent $29 trillion, much of it devoted to rescuing the shadow banking system. Thus, we see a host of unconventional programs designed to aid these institutions rather than the Fed’s traditional patrons. The information used to calculate the totals above is freely available (thanks in large part to the valiant efforts of a group of lawmakers led by Senator Bernie Sanders) as the result of an amendment inserted into the Dodd Frank bill. Moreover, this information has been freely available since December 10, 2010 on the Fed’s website. So why didn’t someone else already put the data together in this way? The Fed's Secrets Obviously, $29 trillion is much bigger than the previous estimates of $7.77 trillion (Bloomberg) or $1.5 trillion (the Fed and the Wall Street Journal). An in-depth account of each of the facilities above is a rather lengthy process as the Levy working paper attests. The main difference in our analysis is the variables we identify as essential in understanding the Fed’s response. In our paper we report three measures that we view as critical to capturing the size and magnitude of the bailout. Each of the three measures deals exclusively with programs put into place by the Fed that transcend its conventional "lender of last resort" (LOLR) function. That is, we only include the emergency facilities the Fed created. We agree with the Fed that only facilities which were actually made operational should be considered in any account of the Fed’s actions. But we take the side of Bloomberg regarding the general lack of transparency by the Fed—the Fed fought tooth and nail to keep the details of its programs secret. At any given moment inspection of the amount owed to the Fed resulting from nonconventional lender of last resort actions provides a reasonable account of what the Fed was doing in the period leading up to that time. However, looking at this number over time and in the context of the weekly amount lent provides insight into how the Fed’s efforts evolved over the run of the crisis. These two approaches to measurement (a “stock” or outstanding balance and a “flow” or cumulated amount spent and lent weekly) only provide us with details regarding the scope of the Fed’s bailout. To get a clear picture we need some account of the magnitude. We believe that this is captured by looking at the cumulative totals of all programs. Perhaps the largest difference in our analysis is that we learned our money and banking theory from the late Hyman Minsky. He taught us that the modern economy is essentially financial, and as such, is prone to systemic financial crises that if left unchecked can lead to “bone crunching depressions.” Therefore it is essential to have a LOLR. Thus, any transaction between the Fed and the markets which is not part of conventional monetary operations, such as lending from the discount window or open market operations, represents an instance in which private markets were not able to or were unwilling to engage in the normal financial intermediation process. If it any point in time the private markets were capable (or willing) to carry out business as usual, Fed intervention would not have been required. Thus, we need to account for each extraordinary event, and the best way that we know to do this is by summing each instance--which results in a cumulative total of over $29 trillion dollars. Who does the Fed serve? A figure as large as $29.616 trillion should not be taken lightly, but focus on the specific magnitude of the figure diverts our attention from a larger issue that is at stake: how should the LOLR responsibility to be discharged in the future? With unemployment remaining persistently high and millions continuing to lose their homes to foreclosure as the result of lost income from a poor economy or outright fraud in the mortgage lending and foreclosure process, it becomes increasingly difficult to justify the ability of a single institution staffed by unelected officials to carry out such a targeted commitment of the obligations of the United States citizenry. Thanks to the actions of Senator Sanders and other individuals possessing the temerity to question the authority of the Fed we now have access to much of the data regarding what the Fed did during the recent crisis. But we still need to go through the data from the past three years of bail-outs to answer the following questions: Who got funds from the Fed? How much did they get? And why did they get them? The Fed has not adequately explained why its emergency lending and asset purchases went on for so long and accumulated to such a large number.     J. Andrew Felkerson is a Interdisciplinary PhD student at the University of Missouri- Kansas City Read more at www.alternet.org

 

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Lincoln Assassination Conspiracy Trial

The Trial of the Lincoln Assassination Conspirators by Doug Linder (2009) APRIL 14, 1865For President Abraham Lincoln, things looked brighter on Friday, April 14, 1865 than they had for a long time.  Five days earlier, General Robert E. Lee effectively ended the long nightmare of the Civil War by surrendering the Army of Northern Virginia, and just the previous day, the city of Washington celebrated the war's end by illuminating every one of its public building with candles.  Candles also burned in most private homes, causing a city paper to describe the nation's capital as "all ablaze with glory."  The President decided he could finally afford an evening of relaxation: he would attend a performance of Our American Cousinat Ford's Theatre in downtown Washington.  About eight-thirty, the President and Mrs. Lincoln, accompanied by Major Henry Rathbone and his date, Clara Harris, arrived in a carriage at Ford's Theatre on Tenth Street.  As the presidential party entered the theatre, the play was stopped and the band struck up "Hail to the Chief."  The audience stood to give the President a rousing standing ovation. The presidential party took their seats in a specially-prepared box on the left side of the stage.  During the second scene of the third act of the play, John Wilkes Booth, a southern-sympathizing actor, climbed the stairs to the mezzanine.  He showed a card to Lincoln's valet-footman and was allowed entry through a lobby door leading to the presidential box.  Reaching the box, Booth pushed open the door.  The President sat in his armchair, one hand on the railing and the other holding to the side a flag that decorated the box, in order to gain a better view of a person in the orchestra.  From a distance of about four feet behind Lincoln, Booth fired a bullet into the President's brain as he shouted "Revenge for the South!"  (according to one witness) or "Freedom!" (according to another).  Major Rathbone sprang up to grab the assassin, but Booth wrested himself away after slashing the major with a large knife.  Booth rushed to the front of the box as Rathbone reached for him again, catching some of his clothes as Booth leapt over the railing.  Rathbone's grab was enough to cause Booth to fall roughly on the stage below, where he fractured the fibula in his left leg.  Rising from the stage, Booth shouted "Sic semper tyrannus!" and ran across the stage and toward the back of the theatre.**  Ed Spangler, a Ford's theater stagehand, opened a rear door as Booth rushed out to a horse being held for him by Joseph Burroughs (better known as "Peanuts").  Booth mounted the horse and swept rapidly down an alley, then to the left toward F Street--and disappeared into the Washington darkness. About 10:15, the same time as Booth fired his fatal shot, two men well known to Booth, Lewis Powell and David Herold, approached the Washington home of Secretary of State William Seward, where the Secretary lay bedridden from a recent carriage accident.  Powell knocked on the door of Seward's home as Herold waited outside with his horse.  Powell told the servant who answered the door, William Bell, that he had a prescription for Secretary Seward from his doctor.  Over Bell's objections, Powell began walking up the steps toward the Secretary's room.  One of the Secretary's sons, Frederick Seward, confronted Powell.  Seward told Powell he would take the medicine, but Powell insisted on seeing the Secretary.  When Seward continued to refuse him entry to the bedroom, Powell clubbed him violently with his revolver (fracturing Seward's head so severely that he would remain in a coma for sixty days), then slashed the Secretary's bodyguard, George Robinson, in the forehead with a bowie knife.  Finally reaching the Secretary in his bed, Powell--shouting, "I'm mad, I'm mad!"--stabbed him several times before he could be pulled off by Robinson and two other men.  Powell raced down the stairs and out the door to his bay mare.  Sometime after 10:30, Booth approached the Navy Yard bridge leading over the Potomac to Maryland.  Questioned by the sentry guarding the bridge about his purposes, Booth said he was "going home" to his residence "close to Beantown."  The sentry allowed Booth to pass.  Five to ten minutes later a second rider, David Herold, approached the bridge.  Herold told the sentry his name was "Smith" and had been "in bad company" and wanted to get home to White Plains.  The sentry decided to let Herold pass.  Shortly thereafter, Booth and Herold met up.  Booth and Herold arrived around midnight in Surrattsville, where they proceeded to a home and tavern kept by John Lloyd.  Herold burst into Lloyd's home shouting, "Lloyd, for God's sake, make haste and get those things!" Lloyd, without replying, turned to get two carbines that had been delivered three days earlier by Mary Surratt, owner of the tavern.  Herold took the carbines and a bottle of whiskey.  He gave the whiskey bottle to Booth, who drank from it while sitting on his horse.  In less than five minutes, they were off again, heading south. Meanwhile, in Washington, the President lay dying in a private home across the street from Ford's Theater.  Without ever regaining consciousness, he would live for seven more hours. INVESTIGATION AND ARRESTSLess than six hours after the attack, investigators--under the direction of Secretary of War Edwin Stanton--already began to focus on the 541 High Street home of Mary Surratt, a house where Booth was known to have stayed during his frequent visits to Washington.  Rousing Surratt from bed about four in the morning, investigators questioned her about Booth's whereabouts.  When the investigators left, Surratt exclaimed to her daughter (according to Louis Weichmann, a boarder in Surratt's house), "Anna, come what will, I am resigned.  I think J. Wilkes Booth was only an instrument in the hands of the Almighty to punish this proud and licentious people."  On April 17, shortly after eleven at night, a team of military investigators again arrived at the Surratt home to interview her and other residents about the assassination.  While they were doing so, Lewis Powell, carrying a pick-axe, knocked on the door.  Powell--at the unlikely late-night hour--claimed to have been hired to dig a gutter.  Mary Surratt refused to back up his story.  Surratt told investigators, "Before God, sir, I do not know this man, and have never seen him, and I did not hire him to dig a gutter for me."  While in the Surratt home, investigators uncovered various pieces of incriminating evidence, including a picture of John Wilkes Booth hidden behind another picture on a mantelpiece.  Facing arrest, Surratt asked a minute to kneel and pray.  Surratt and Powell were taken into custody, where William Bell, Secretary's Seward's servant, identified Powell as the man who had stabbed the Secretary.  The investigation, directed by Lafayette Baker of the National Detective Police, produced three more arrests on the 17th.  Investigators picked up Edman Spangler after gathering reports from theater-goers and nearby residents that Booth had yelled for Spangler in the hours before the assassination and that Spangler had told a theater worker who witnessed Booth's escape, "Don't say which way he went." Samuel Arnold was arrested at Fortress Monroe in Virginia.  Investigators determined Arnold to be the author, "Sam," of a vaguely incriminating letter found in a search of a trunk in Booth's hotel room following the assassination.  In his March 27 letter to Booth, Arnold wrote, "You know full well that the G[overnmen]t suspicions something is going on" and that "therefore the undertaking is becoming more complicated."  He declared, however, that initially "None, no not one, were more in favor of the enterprise than myself."  Arnold's arrest proved especially helpful because he identified a number of individuals he said had met in March to plan the kidnapping of the President.  According to Arnold, at a meeting at the Lichau House on Pennsylvania Avenue in March, seven men developed a plan to abduct Lincoln at a theatre, take him to Richmond, and hold him there until the Union agreed to release Confederate prisoners.  Arnold said his part was to have been "to catch the President when he was thrown out of the box at the theatre."  In addition to himself and Booth, Arnold told investigators that men at the meeting included Michael O'Laughlen, George Atzerodt, John Surratt, a man with the alias of "Moseby," and another small man whose name he did not know.  Two of the men identified by Arnold as part of the original kidnapping plan soon were in custody.  One, Michael O'Laughlen, voluntarily surrendered himself in Baltimore.  O'Laughlen, wearing black clothes and a slouch hat and claiming to be a lawyer, had allegedly (this contention would later be hotly disputed by his defense attorney) entered the home of the Secretary of War, Edwin Stanton, on the night before the assassination and inquired about the Secretary's whereabouts.  At the time of the attacks the next night, however, O'Laughlen was not fulfilling his suspected assignment of assassinating Stanton, but was instead drinking at the Rullman's Hotel.  George Atzerodt's arrest came on April 20 at the home of his cousin in Germantown, Maryland.  Atzerodt had aroused suspicion by asking a bartender on the day of the assassination at the Kirkwood Hotel in Washington about the Vice President Andrew Johnson's whereabouts.  (The Vice President had taken a room at the hotel.) The day after Lincoln's assassination, a hotel employee contacted authorities concerning a "suspicious-looking man" in "a gray coat" who had been seen around the Kirkwood.  John Lee, a member of the military police force, visited the hotel on April 15 and conducted a search of Atzerodt's room.  The search revealed that the bed had not been slept in the previous night.  Lee discovered under a pillow a loaded revolver, a large bowie knife, a map of Virginia, three handkerchiefs, and a bank book of John Wilkes Booth.  Meanwhile, efforts to apprehend Lincoln's assassin continued. Military investigators tracking Booth's escape route south through Maryland reached the farm ofDr. Samuel Mudd home on April 18.  Mudd admitted that two men on horseback arrived at his home about four o'clock on the morning of April 15.  The men, it turned out, were John Wilkes Booth--in severe pain with his fractured leg--and David Herold.  Mudd said that he welcomed the men into his house, placed Booth on his sofa for an examination, then carried him upstairs to a bed where he dressed the limb. After daybreak, Mudd helped construct a pair of crude crutches for Booth and tried, unsuccessfully, to secure a carriage for his two visitors.  Booth (after having shaved off his mustache in Mudd's home) and Herold left later on the fifteenth.  Mudd told investigator Alexander Lovett that the man whose leg he fixed "was a stranger to him." He also misled Lovett about Booth's escape route, telling the investigator that the two men had headed south, when they actually had departed to the east. Lovett returned to the Mudd home three days later to conduct a search of Mudd's home.  When Lovett told of his intentions, Mudd's wife, Sarah, brought down from upstairs a boot that had been cut off the visitor's leg three days earlier.  Lovett turned down the top of the left-foot riding boot and "saw the name J Wilkes written in it."  Mudd told Lovett that he had not noticed the writing.  Shown a photo of Booth, Mudd still claimed not to recognize him--despite evidence gathered from other area residents that Mudd and Booth had been seen together the previous November.  Mudd became the seventh conspirator to be arrested.  Near the banks of the Rappahannock River in Virginia, investigators closed in on their prey on April 26.  Everton Conger and two other investigators pulled Willie Jett out of a bed in a hotel in Bowling Green to demand, "Where are the two men who came with you across the river?"  Jett knew that Conger meant Booth and Herold.  When Jett had talked with the two conspirators they had made no effort to hide their identity.  Herold had boldly declared, "We are the assassinators of the President.  Yonder is J. Wilkes Booth, the man who killed Lincoln."  Jett told Conger that the men they sought "are on the road to Port Royal" at the home of "Mr. Garrett's." Reaching Garrett's farm, the government party ordered an old man, Garrett, out of his home and asked, "Where are the two men who stopped here at your house?"  "Gone to the woods," Garrett answered.  Unsatisfied with Garrett's response, Conger told one of his men, "Bring me a lariat rope here, and I will put that man up to the top of one of those locust trees."  One of his sons broke in, "Don't hurt the old man; he is scared; I will tell you where the men are--...in the barn." Finding the suspects to be in the Garrett barn, Conger gave Booth and Herold five minutes to get out or, he said, he would set fire to it.  Booth responded, "Let us have a little time to consider it."  After some discussion in the barn, Booth proposed that if the capturing party were withdrawn "one hundred yards from the door, I will come out and fight you."  When his proposal--and a second one for a withdrawal to fifty yards--was rejected, Booth said in a theatrical voice, "Well, my brave boys, prepare a stretcher for me."  As Conger ordered pine boughs placed against the barn to start a fire, Booth announced, "There's a man who wants to come out." After being called "a damned coward" by his partner, David Herold stepped out of the door of the barn and into the hands of his capturers. Conger lit the fire minutes later.  With flames rising around him, Booth, carrying a carbine, started toward the door of the barn.  A shot rang out from the gun of Sergeant Boston Corbett.  Booth fell.  Soldiers carried Booth out on the grass.  Booth turned to Conger and said, "Tell mother I die for my country."  Moved into Garrett's house, Booth revived somewhat.  Repeatedly he begged of his captors, "Kill me, kill me."  Booth again weakened. Two or three hours after being shot, he died. One suspected conspirator would elude investigators for more than a year and would not stand trial with the other eight: John Surratt, Jr., the son of Mary Surratt.  Surratt fled to Canada after the assassination. In September, Surratt traveled to England and later to Rome. Finally arrested in Egypt on November 27, 1866, Surratt was brought back to the United States for trial in a civilian court in 1867. TRIAL BEFORE A MILITARY COMMISSION The Decision to Try the Conspirators Before a Military CommissionSecretary of War Edwin Stanton favored a quick military trial and execution.  According to Secretary of Navy Gideon Welles, who favored trial in a civilian court, Stanton "said it was intention that the criminals should be tried and executed before President Lincoln was buried." (Lincoln was buried on May 4, before the start of the conspiracy trial.)  Edward Bates, Lincoln's former attorney general, was among those objecting to a military trial, believing such an approach to be unconstitutional.  Understanding the use of a military commission to try civilians to be controversial, President Johnson requested Attorney General James Speed to prepare an opinion on the legality of such a trial.  Not surprisingly, Speed concluded in his opinion that use of a military court would be proper.  Speed reasoned that an attack on the commander-in-chief before the full cessation of the rebellion constituted an act of war against the United States, making the War Department the appropriate body to control the proceedings. While debates continued in the Johnson Administration as to how to proceed with the alleged conspirators, the prisoners were kept under close wraps at two locations.  Mary Surratt and Dr. Samuel Mudd first were jailed at the Old Capitol Prison, while the other six were imprisoned on the ironclad vessels Montauk andSaugus.  Later, as their trial date approached, authorities confined  prisoners to separate cells in the Old Arsenal Penitentiary.  Four of the male prisoners (Herold, Powell, Spangler, and Atzerodt) were shackled to balls and chains, with their hands held in place by an inflexible iron bar.  Most strikingly, from the time of their arrest until midway through their trial, all the prisoners except Mary Surratt and Dr. Mudd--under orders from Secretary Stanton--were forced to wear canvas hoods that covered the entire head and face.  On May 1, 1865, President Johnson issued an order that the alleged conspirators be tried before a nine-person military commission.  Some, such as former Attorney General Bates, complained bitterly: "If the offenders are done to death by that tribunal, however truly guilty, they will pass for martyrs with half the world." The Military Commission convened for the first time on May 8 in a newly-created courtroom on the third floor of the Old Arsenal Penitentiary in Washington.  The voting members of the Commission were Generals David Hunter (first officer), August Kautz, Albion Howe, James Ekin, David Clendenin, Lewis Wallace, Robert Foster, T. M. Harris, and Colonel C. H Tomkins.  Judge Advocate General Joseph Holt served in the problematic dual roles of chief prosecutor and legal advisor to the Commission.  John A. Bingham (later an influential member of Congress) served on the Commission as Special Judge Advocates and handled examination of witnesses and gave the government's summation.  H. L. Burnett was the third member of the prosecution team.   On the evening of May 9, General John Hantranft visited each prisoner's cell to read the charges and specifications against them.  Hantranft later wrote: "I had the hood [of each prisoner] removed, entered the cell alone with a lantern, delivered the copy, and allowed them time to read it, and in several instances, by request read the copy to them, before replacing the hood."  Testimony began in the Lincoln assassination conspiracy trial on May 12, just three days after the prisoners were first asked if they would like to have legal counsel.  The rules of the Commission made the position of the defendants even more grave: conviction could come on a simple majority vote and a majority of two-thirds could impose the death sentence. Over the course of the next seven weeks, the Commission would hear from 371 witnesses.  As the witnesses paraded to the stand, spectators lucky enough to get admission passes from Major General Hunter would move in and out of the nonchalant atmosphere of the courtroom. Confederate Terrorism on TrialThe War Department saw the trial as an opportunity to prosecute not only the eight charged conspirators, but also the already-dead Booth, Jefferson Davis, and the Confederate Secret Service.  Prosecutors suggested that as the war turned in favor of the federal government, the Confederacy became increasingly willing to support dubious enterprises that would have been rejected under less desperate circumstances. Witnesses told of Confederate plots to destroy public buildings, burn steamboats, poison the public water supply of New York City, offer commissions to raiders of northern cities, mine a federal prison, starve Union prisoners-of-war, and even mount a biological attack.  The Confederate Congress appropriated five million dollars to support a clandestine campaign of subversion in February, 1864.  Two months later, Jefferson Davisappointed Jacob Thompson (Secretary of Interior in the Buchanan Administration) and Clement Clay (a former United States Senator from Alabama) to head the operation.  Both men would spend, along with a dozen or more other Confederates, most of the duration of the war in Canada coordinating and funding terrorism, according to over a dozen prosecution witnesses.  One of the most frightening plots--called by Special Judge Advocate (prosecutor) John A. Bingham "an infamous and fiendish project of importing pestilence"--hatched by the Confederate Secret Service working out of Canada was believed at the time to have been the cause of 2,000 military and civilian deaths.  The attack, according to witness Godfrey Hyams, came in the form of clothing "carefully infected in Bermuda with yellow fever, smallpox, and other contagious diseases." Some of the infected goods were to be placed in a valise intended for presentation to President Lincoln, while others were to be given or sold to Union troops.  Hyams testified that the Confederate Government appropriated $200,000 for carrying out the attack, and that he was promised at least $60,000 (but received only $100) for his role in distributing nine trunks of the infected goods.  Hyams said that the operation's mastermind, Dr. Luke P. Blackburn, who he met in Halifax, told him that trunk "Big Number 2" "will kill them at sixty yards distance." Hyams testified that he refused to deliver an infected trunk "as a donation to President Lincoln," but did place the others in channels of distribution near concentrations of Union soldiers.  For his work, Hyams testified, he received congratulations from Clement Clay. Some of the infected goods were auctioned near a Union base of operations by New Bern, North Carolina shortly before nearly 2,000 citizens and soldiers died there during a yellow fever outbreak.  Bingham attributed the epidemic to the Confederate plot, not knowing (as was discovered in 1901) that mosquitoes--not people--cause yellow fever.  The Assassination Conspiracy's Link to the Canadian Clique and Jefferson DavisThe prosecution offered evidence to show that the conspiracy against Abraham Lincoln and other high government officials began sometime after the battle at Gettysburg--probably in the summer of 1864.  Witness Sanford Conover (whose real name later turned out to be Charles Durham) reported Confederate Secret Service head Jacob Thompson as identifying the goal of the conspiracy as to "leave the government entirely without a head" by killing not only Lincoln, but also Vice President Johnson, Secretary of War Stanton, Secretary of State Seward, and General Grant.  Conover, a former employee of the Rebel war Department, in what is widely believed to be perjurious testimony quoted Thompson as saying there was "no provision in the Constitution of the United States by which, if these men were removed, they could elect another President."  Henry Van Steinacker, a Union soldier convicted of desertion, testified that while on a long horse ride in Virginia with John Wilkes Booth in late summer of 1863 Booth opined, "Old Abe must go up the spout [be killed], and the Confederacy will gain its independence."  (Steinacker, whose real name was Hans Von Winklestein, was released from prison shortly after his testimony, causing many to question his credibility.) Several witnesses testified that by the fall of 1864 a proposal to assassinate or abduct Union leaders, presumably made by Booth, was under active review by Confederate officials in both Canada and Richmond.  Witnesses told of frequently seeing Thompson and Clement Clay in Montreal in the company of of conspirators John Wilkes Booth, John Surratt, and Lewis Powell.  Richard Montgomery, a Union double agent in Canada, testified (perjuriously, again, according to many historians) that Thompson as saying in January 1865 that it would be a "blessing" to "rid the world" of Lincoln, Johnson, and Grant.  Montgomery testified that Thompson revealed that a "proposition" had been made by a group of "bold, daring men" to do just that.  Samuel Chester testified that beginning in November 1864 Booth tried to recruit his participation in a plot to abduct Lincoln and take him to Richmond, where he would be held until he could be exchanged for Confederate prisoners-of-war.  Initially, it seems, the proposal (either to abduct or assassinate Lincoln) was rejected in Richmond, as Montgomery quotes Montreal clique member Beverly Tucker as complaining that it was "too bad that they boys had not been allowed to act when they wanted to." Henry Finegas testified as to overhearing a conversation, made in "a low tone of voice" in Montreal in mid-February between Confederate clique members George Sanders and William Cleary: Sanders: If the boys only have luck, Lincoln won't trouble us much longer. Cleary:  Is everything going well? Sanders: Oh, yes.  Booth is bossing the job. Key government witness Louis Weichmann-- a boarder at Mary Surratt's and a friend of Booth, Powell, and other conspirators--testified that on March 27, 1865 John Surratt visited Richmond and conferred with Confederate Attorney General Judah Benjamin and President Jefferson Davis.  Surratt returned from Richmond to Washington, before heading north out of the Capital on April 3.  On April 6, John Surratt arrived in Montreal carrying with him--according to the prosecution's theory--final approval for Booth's assassination attempt.  Sanford Conover, a former employee of the Rebel War Department, testified that he was present at a meeting in the Montreal hotel room of Jacob Thompson when dispatches brought by Surratt from Richmond, including a letter in cipher from Jefferson Davis, were discussed.  According to Conover's testimony--strongly attacked by latter-day supporters of Davis--"Thompson laid his hand [on the dispatches from Richmond] and said, "This makes the thing all right."  A Canadian banker testified that Jacob Thompson withdrew $184,000 from the over $600,000 in his private Montreal account on April 6.  Special Judge Advocate John Bingham, in his summation for the government, found the evidence against Jefferson Davis damning: What more is wanting?  Surely no word further need be spoken to show that John Wilkes Booth was in this conspiracy; that John Surratt was in this conspiracy; and that Jefferson Davis and his several agents named, in Canada, were in this conspiracy....Whatever may be the conviction of others, my own conviction is that Jefferson Davis is as clearly proven guilty of this conspiracy as John Wilkes Booth, by whose hand Jefferson Davis inflicted the mortal wound on Abraham Lincoln.  Bingham found further confirmation of Davis's guilt in a letter of October 13, 1864, discovered in the possession of Booth after the assassination of Lincoln.  The ciphered letter, which notified Booth that "their friends would be set to work as he had directed," was proven to have been typed on a cipher machine recovered from a room in Davis's State Department in Richmond.  Finally, Bingham found incriminating Davis's reaction in North Carolina upon learning of the President's assassination: "If it were to be done at all, it were better that it were well done."Evidence Concerning the Eight PrisonersAs each of the eight defendants played different roles in the assassination conspiracy, the evidence of guilt varied as well.  The connection of Lewis Powell and David Herold to the conspiracy was clear almost beyond question, while the case against others--notably Dr. Samuel Mudd and Mary Surratt--was considerably more circumstantial, but nonetheless ultimately convincing. Many trial observers found Lewis Powell, the handsome young defendant who maintained a posture of studied indifference to the proceedings, to be the most intriguing of the prisoners.  The case against Powell was overwhelming.  Even Lewis Powell's attorney, William Doster, recognized his complicity in the plot was beyond question.  Identified as Seward's attacker by Seward's servant, found with blood on his shirt and the initials of John Wilkes Booth in his boots, and identified by Louis Weichmann as the man who called himself "Wood" and who--claiming to be a Baptist preacher and wearing a large false mustache-- frequently called at Mary Surratt's home, where he would sometimes engage in two or three hour private conversations with Booth and John Surratt, Doster was left to argue that Powell's life should be spared because he suffered from a fanaticism that bordered on insanity.  "I say he is the fanatic, and not the hired tool," Doster told the Commission.  "He lives in that land of imagination where it seems to him legions of southern soldiers wait to crown him as their chief commander."  Doster said that when he asked Powell why he did it, he replied, simply, "I believed it was my duty." Doster described Powell as an innocent farmboy turned assassin by circumstances beyond his control: "We know now that slavery made him immoral, that war made him a murderer, and that necessity, revenge, and delusion made him an assassin."  Doster ended his remarkably eloquent plea (but obviously hopeless) for Powell's life by asking the Commission to "Let him live, if not for his sake, for our own." David Herold's position was equally precarious.  Apprehended with the President's assassin and having bragged about the crime--telling one prosecution witness, Willie Jett, as he crossed the Rappahannock, "We are the assassinators of the President"--Herold's attorney, Frederick Stone, placed whatever slender hopes for saving Herold's life on his client's simple-mindedness and youth.  One defense witness called Herold "a light and trifling boy" who was "easily influenced,"  while a second said of Herold:"In mind, I consider him about eleven years of age." Stone argued to the Commission that Herold "was only wax in the hands of a man like Booth."  Unlike Lewis and Herold, the guilt of Ford's Theatre stagehand Edman Spangler was not beyond question, but prosecutors presented several witnesses who testified that Spangler played a critical--although minor--role in Booth's escape from the theatre.  Joseph Burroughs, better known as "Peanuts," a Ford's employee given the duty of guarding the stage-door during plays, testified that between nine and ten o'clock on the night of the assassination Spangler "told me to hold [Booth's] horse."  Burroughs told the Commission that when he replied that "I had to go in to attend my door" Spangler said he should hold the horse anyway and "if there was any thing wrong to lay the blame on him."  Other witnesses reported seeing Booth around seven-thirty that evening, standing at the back door of the theatre and holding his horse and calling for "Ned" Spangler.  John Sleichmann, a property man for the theatre, testified that he saw Booth enter the back door of the theatre and ask Spangler, "Ned, you'll help me all you can, won't you?"  According to Sleichmann, Spangler replied, "Oh, yes."  Joseph Stewart, a theatergoer with a front orchestra street who ran after Booth across the stage yelling, "Stop that man!," testified that he was "satisfied" that Spangler was the person he saw near the rear door who was in a position to block Booth's exit if he had been so inclined. Finally, John Miles, a Ford's employee, testified when he asked Spangler who it was he saw holding Booth's horse before his escape, Spangler replied, "Hush, don't say anything about it."  Spangler's defense attorney, Thomas Ewing, argued that while the prosecution evidence might suggest Spangler agreed to assist Booth on April 14, it failed to prove that Spangler was aware of Booth's guilty purposes in requesting his assistance. A letter from Samuel Arnold to Booth, dated March 27, 1865, and found in Booth's possession after the assassination provided compelling evidence that Arnold had willingly agreed to participate in the original plan to kidnap Lincoln and take him to Richmond.  In his letter, Arnold wrote that "None, no, not one were more in favor of the enterprise than myself."  Arnold's attorney, Walter Cox, argued that Arnold "backed out from this insane scheme of capture" and it was "abandoned somewhere about the middle of March."  Arnold, he argued, left Washington for Maryland about March 20 and that there "is no evidence that connects" Arnold with the "dreadful conspiracy" of assassination.  Cox told the Commission that Arnold's participation in the "mere unacted, still scheme" of abduction was "wholly different from the offense described in the charge." Michael O'Laughlen, who boarded at the same home in Washington as Arnold, might qualify as the most forgotten of the eight conspirators on trial.  The key evidence against O'Laughlen also links him to Booth's abandoned plan to abduct Lincoln.  On March 13, Booth sent to O'Laughlen, then in Baltimore, a telegram from Washington: "Don't fear to neglect your business.  You better come at once."  Twelve days later, Booth sent another telegram to O'Laughlen: "Get word to Sam.  Come on, with or without him, Wednesday morning.  We sell that day for sure.  Don't fail."  Prosecutors suggested that the "business" referred to in Booth's telegraph was the kidnapping of Lincoln and that the "Sam" referred to in the second dispatch was Samuel Arnold.  Bernard Early, an acquaintance of O'Laughlen's, testified that he rode into Washington with O'Laughlen from Baltimore on the day before the assassination.  Early said that the next day he waited with O'Laughlen at the National Hotel, where Booth had taken a room, for forty-five minutes before sending "up some cards to Mr. Booth's room for O'Laughlen" and leaving.  Most incriminating, perhaps, was the testimony of Major Kilburn Knox, who testified that about ten-thirty on the night of April 13 O'Laughlen, wearing black clothes and a slouch hat, entered the home of Secretary of War Edwin Stanton and inquired of the Secretary's whereabouts.  Knox said that O'Laughlen remained in the hall for a few minutes before being asked to leave.  Two other witnesses also reported seeing O'Laughlen at the Secretary's home.  Defense attorney Walter Cox argued that the prosecution witnesses were mistaken, and that on the night in question O'Laughlen innocently strolled the streets of the nation's capital enjoying the "night of illumination," the celebration of the Union victory that saw every public building in Washington lit with candles.   Cox also argued that the evidence showed persuasively that O'Laughlen did nothing to further the assassination on the night of the fourteenth, which he spent drinking at Lichau House before departing for Baltimore the next day. The prosecution argued that Booth assigned George Atzerodt the job of killing Vice-President Andrew Johnson.  Colonel W. R. Nevins testified that on  April 12 at the Kirkwood Hotel in Washington, Atzerodt asked him where he might find Vice President Johnson.  Police investigator John Lee testified that he searched Atzerodt's room at the Kirkwood (the same hotel that the Vice President was then staying at) on the day after Lincoln's assassination and discovered under a loaded revolver, a bowie knife, a map of Virginia, three handkerchiefs, and a bank book of John Wilkes Booth. The prosecution also showed that Atzerodt had met frequently with Booth in front of the Pennsylvania House in Washington.  John Fletcher, an employee of J. Naylor's livery stable testified that on April 14 Atzerodt showed up at the stable with co-defendant David Herold, bringing with them a dark-bay mare. Another witness told of Atzerodt's late night check-in (after midnight) on the night of Lincoln's assassination at the Pennsylvania House, his leaving again and returning around two, and then his checking out of the hotel between five and six in the morning.  George Atzerodt's attorney, Captain William E. Doster, argued that his client's cowardice made it unlikely that he played any significant role in the assassination conspiracy.  "I intend to show," Doster told the Commission, "that this man is a constitutional coward; that if he had been assigned the duty of assassinating the Vice President, he could never have done it; and that, from his known cowardice, Booth probably did not assign to him any such duty."  Doster presented defense witnesses who described Atzerodt as a "notorious coward"and as a man "remarkable for his cowardice."  President Andrew Johnson considered Mary Surratt the keeper of "the nest that hatched the egg."  Numerous witnesses reported Booth, Herold, Powell and other conspirators as frequent visitors to Surratt's boarding house in Washington.  Evidence of association with conspirators would, of course, not by itself sustain a conviction.  Prosecutors produced witnesses who showed convincingly that Surratt lied when she told authorities, when asked if she knew Lewis Powell, "Before God, sir, I do not know this man."  The most incriminating evidence against Surratt came, however, from two witnesses, Louis Weichmann and John Lloyd.  Weichmann, a boarder in Surratt's home, testified that Booth gave him $10 on the Tuesday before the assassination which he was to use to hire a buggy to take Surratt to her tavern in Surrattsville to collect--according to Surratt--a small debt.  Weichmann also told the Commission that on the day of the assassination, Mary Surratt sent Weichmann to hire a buggy for another two-hour ride to Surrattsville. Surratt and Weichmann arrived sometime after four at Surratt's tavern.  According to Weichmann, Surratt went inside while Weichmann waited outside or spent time in the bar.  Surratt remained inside about two hours.  Between six and six-thirty, shortly before the began their return trip to Washington, Weichmann saw  Surratt speaking privately in the parlor of the tavern with John Wilkes Booth. At nine o'clock, Weichmann saw Booth again when he came to the Surratt home for a last time.  After the visit, according to Weichmann, Surratt's demeanor changed--she became "very nervous, agitated and restless."  The most damning evidence of all against Surratt came from Surrattsville tavern keeper John Lloyd.  Lloyd told the Commission that five to six weeks before the assassination John Surratt, David Herold, and George Atzerodt came to Surrattsville to drop off at his tavern two carbines and ammunition. Lloyd testified that three days before the assassination, Mary Surratt told him that "the shooting irons" left at his place by the men weeks ago would be needed soon.  Then on the day of the assassination, Surratt again brought up the subject, according to Lloyd: On the 14th of April I went to Marlboro to attend a trial there; and in the evening, when I got home, which I should judge was about 5 o'clock, I found Mrs. Surratt there. She met me out by the wood-pile as I drove in  with some fish and oysters in my buggy. She told me to have those shooting-irons ready that night, there  would be some parties who would call for them. She gave me something wrapped in a piece of paper, which I took up stairs, and found to be a field-glass. She told me to get two bottles of whisky ready, and that these things were to be called for that night. Surratt's attorney, Frederick Aiken, argued that Lloyd's evidence should be disbelieved because he was "a man addicted to the excessive use of intoxicating liquors" and was motivated to "exculpate himself by placing blame" on Mary Surratt. The prosecution based its case against Dr. Samuel Mudd on the testimony of several witnesses that suggested a much closer relationship between the doctor and John Wilkes Booth--and other conspirators-- than Mudd would admit.  Several witnesses testified that they saw Mudd with John Wilkes Booth on November 13, 1864 in Maryland.  Witnesses said that Mudd during that November visit helped Booth buy a horse--a horse that he most likely used in his flight from Ford's theatre.  Louis Weichmann testified that in late December he was walking with John Surratt  near the National Hotel in Washington when Mudd, walking with Booth, called out "Surratt! Surratt!"  According to Weichmann, the three men later excused themselves for private conversation over what Mudd claimed to be Booth's interest in purchasing real estate in Maryland.  Attorney Marcus Norton testified that in early March, when he was in Washington to argue a case before the Supreme Court, a man he now recognized as Mudd excitedly burst into his room at the National Hotel.  Norton said the man apologized for his entry, saying that he thought the room belonged to a man named "Booth"--who actually had rented the room directly above Norton's. A minister, William Evans, testified that he saw Mudd go into the home of Mary Surratt in early March of 1865.  The evidence concerning Booth's prior dealings with Booth strongly suggested that Mudd lied to investigators when he denied having recognized Booth when he treated his broken leg on April 15.  Alexander Lovett told the Commission that Mudd appeared suspicious from the start of his investigation:  "When we first asked Dr. Mudd whether two strangers had been there, he seemed very much excited, and got pale as a sheet of paper and blue about his lips, like a man frightened at something he had done."  Prosecutors also produced witnesses who testified concerning certain statements Mudd allegedly made about President Lincoln and the federal government.  Daniel Thomas testified that he heard Mudd state in early 1865--whether jokingly or not, he couldn't tell--that "the President, Cabinet, and other Union men" would "be killed in six or seven weeks."  Mary Simms, a former slave of Mudd's, testified that during the war Mudd complained that Lincoln "stole [into office] at night, dressed in women's clothes" and if "he had come in right, they would have killed him."  Another slave, Milo Gardiner, testified that he overheard a friend of Mudd's, Benjamin Gardiner, tell Mudd that "Lincoln was a goddamned old son of a bitch and ought have been dead long ago" and that Mudd replied "that was much of his mind."  Mudd's attorney, Thomas Ewing, argued that Mudd's only prior encounter with Booth had been the one in November and that all the later alleged meetings were fabrications of prosecution witnesses.  Ewing contended that it was no crime to fix  a broken leg, even if it were the leg of a presidential assassin and even if the doctor knew it was the leg of a presidential assassin.  Ewing argued that the prosecution must prove more: that Mudd actually furthered the conspiracy in some way.  Prosecutors responded by arguing that the evidence showed more than the defense admitted.  They contended that Mudd furthered the conspiracy by, for example, pointing out to Herold the route that he and Booth should take upon leaving his farm.  SENTENCES AND EXECUTIONSOn June 29, 1865, the Military Commission met in secret session to begin its review of the evidence in the seven-week long trial.  A guilty verdict could come with a majority vote of the nine-member commission; death sentences required the votes of six members.  The next day, it reached its verdicts.  The Commission found seven of the prisoners guilty of at least one of the conspiracy charges, and Spangler guilty of aiding and abetting Boooth's escape.  Four of the prisoners (Mary Surratt, Lewis Powell, George Atzerodt, and David Herold) were sentenced "to be hanged by the neck until he [or she] be dead."  Samuel Arnold, Dr. Samuel Mudd and Michael O'Laughlen were sentenced to "hard labor for life, at such place at the President shall direct." Edman Spangler received a six-year sentence. The Commission forwarded its sentences and the trial record to President Johnson for his review.  Five of the nine Commission members, in the transmitted record, recommended to the President--because of "her sex and age"--that he reduce Mary Surratt's punishment to life in prison.  On July 5, Johnson approved all of the Commission's sentences, including the death sentence for Surratt. The next day General Hartrandft informed the prisoners of their sentences.  He told the four condemned prisoners that they would hang the next day.  Surratt's lawyers mounted a frantic effort to save their client's life, hurriedly preparing a petition for habeas corpus that evening.  The next morning, Surratt's attorneys succeeded in convincing Judge Wylie of the Supreme Court of the District of Columbia to issue the requested writ.  President Johnson quashed the effort to save Surratt from an afternoon hanging when he issued an order suspending the writ of habeas corpus "in cases such as this." Shortly after one-thirty on the afternoon of July 7, 1865, the trap of the gallows installed in the courtyard of the Old Arsenal Building was sprung, and the four condemned prisoners fell to their deaths.  Reporters covering the event reported that the last words from the gallows stand came from George Atzerodt who said, just before he fell, "May we meet in another world." EPILOGUE AND THE CONSPIRACY AS NOW UNDERSTOODIn the summer of 1867, John Surratt, having been captured in Egypt, faced trial in a civilian court for having participated in a conspiracy to assassinate the president.  The jury was unable to reach a verdict, with eight jurors voting "not guilty" and four voting "guilty."  In August, 1867, Surratt was released from prison.  Three years later he began a public lecture tour describing his association with the conspirators and proclaiming his innocence. Military personnel escorted Dr. Samuel Mudd, Michael O'Laughlen, Edman Spangler and Samuel Arnold to Fort Jefferson in Dry Tortugas, Florida.  Two years later, a yellow fever epidemic swept the prison, killing O'Laughlen and the prison's doctor, among many others.  Upon the death of the prison doctor, Mudd assumed duty as chief medical officer at the prison.  On March 1, 1869, Mudd and the other three imprisoned conspirators received an eleventh-hour presidential pardon from President Johnson. The last surviving convicted conspirator was Samuel Arnold, who died in 1906 after writing a detailed confession of his role in the conspiracy to kidnap President Lincoln. Over the years, critics have attacked the verdicts, sentences, and procedures of the 1865 Military Commission.  These critics have called the sentences unduly harsh, and criticized the rule allowing the death penalty to be imposed with a two-thirds vote of Commission members.  The hanging of Mary Surratt, the first woman ever executed by the United States, has been a particular focus of criticism.  Critics also have complained about the standard of proof, the lack of opportunity for defense counsel to adequately prepare for the trial, the withholding of potentially exculpatory evidence, and the Commission's rule forbidding the prisoners from testifying on their own behalf. The critics have a point: The 1865 trial of the Lincoln conspirators did fall short of commonly accepted norms of procedure and the verdicts--by modern standards--seem harsh.  There does seem little question, however, that four of the convicted conspirators participated--in ways either large or small--in Booth's plan to assassinate key federal officials.  Lewis Powell clearly attempted to stab to death Secretary Seward.  David Herold, Dr. Samuel Mudd, and Edman Spangler aided Booth's escape from Washington.  Herold and Mudd provided aid to Booth with full knowledge of his crime--and Spangler most likely did as well. The four other convicted conspirators--and Jefferson Davis--undoubtedly supported at least Booth's original plan, to kidnap Lincoln and take him to Richmond.  George Atzerodt, in a confession made shortly before he was hanged, admitted to have willingly agreed to play an important role in the planned abduction, but claimed not to have supported the assassination--and to have first heard of the plan to assassinate Lincoln just two hours before Booth fired his fatal shot.  Arnold also admitted his initial willingmess to participate in the kidnap plot.  The evidence with respect to O'Laughlen's and Mary Surratt's complicity in the scheme is only slightly less compelling.  Recent scholarship has strengthened the already strong evidence that approval for the kidnapping came directly from Jefferson Davis.  William Tidwell's Come Retribution: The Confederate Secret Service and the Assassination of Lincoln shows that large numbers of Confederate troops had massed in March of 1865 in the northern neck of Virginia along what must have been a planned route to take Lincoln to Richmond.  Apart from a planned abduction of Lincoln, there was no plausible strategic reason for their placement in that area. The prosecution fairly can be faulted for intentionally obscuring the fact that there were two conspiracies involving Lincoln in 1865: the original abduction plan, developed in the fall of 1864 and supported by all eight conspirators and top Confederate leadership, and Booth's assassination plan, conceived only after the original plan fell through when Lincoln cancelled plans to attend a play at the Campbell Hosptial on the outskirts of Washington on March 17.  (The plan had been to intercept the President's carriage as it returned from the matinee performance.)  After the failure of the March 17 plot, and abandonment as infeasible of another plot to kidnap Lincoln at Ford's theatre, Booth's thoughts turned to assassination.  Shooting Lincoln seems to have been on Booth's mind by April 7 when, after some hard drinking with his friend Samuel Chester in New York, Booth slammed the table and said, "What a splendid chance I had to kill the President on the fourth of March!" Booth's April 7 visit to New York was one of several in the weeks leading up to the assassination, leading some historians to speculate that New York was the location of his Confederate Secret Service control--possibly Confederate underground insider Roderick Watson.  George Atzerodt's confession revealed that Booth learned during his last New York visit of a plot by his Confederate associates to kill the President by blowing up the Executive Mansion: "Booth said he had met a party in New York who would get the prest. [president] certain.  They were going to mine the end of the pres. [president's] House.  They knew an entrance to accomplish it through."  The dispatch from Richmond that reached Montreal on April 6, carried by John Surratt and Sarah Slater, most likely authorized activation of the bombing plot. The capture of the Confederate explosives expert assigned the task of planting the bombs the Executive Mansion, Thomas Harney, on April 10 must have prompted Booth to begin planning his own attempt on Lincoln's life.  By April 11, his mind was made up.  After to listening to Lincoln speak from the balcony of the Executive Mansion on his plans for reconstruction, Booth--according to Thomas Eckert who interviewed Powell in prison--turned to Lewis Powell and said, "That is the last speech he will ever make!" By April 13, Booth was casing both Ford's Theatre and Grover's National Theatre, anticipating that the President would soon take a night out--his last. At Garrett's farm, Colonel Everton Conger found on the body of John Wilkes Booth a small red book, which Booth kept as a diary.  In an entry written sometime between the assassination and his capture, Booth wrote: "For six months we had worked to capture, but our cause being almost lost, something decisive and great must be done. But its failure was owing to others, who did not strike for their country with a heart."  The prosecution did not introduce Booth's diary into evidence in the 1865 trial.  In 1867, it turned up in a forgotten War Department file with eighteen pages missing. Note: **In Booth's diary, he insisted he shouted "Sic semper tyrannus!" ("Thus to tyrants!") before he shot Lincoln.  Most accounts of the assassination report that Booth broke his leg upon landing on the stage.  Eyewitnesses, however, did not report that Booth limped across the stage and one historian, Michael Kaufmann, argued that Booth injured his leg in his hurried attempt to mount his horse after exiting Ford's theater. ************************************************************************************* FOR PERSONS DESIRING ANOTHER OVERVIEW OF THE CONSPIRACY AND THE EFFORTS TO TRACK DOWN AND TRY THOSE INVOLVED, A LINK TO THE ACCOUNT OF H. L. BURNETT--ONE OF THOSE WHO SERVED WITH THE MILITARY COMMISSION THAT TRIED THE CONSPIRATORS--IS PROVIDED: Account of assassination, investigation, trial and aftermath by Brig. Gen. H.L. Burnett The Conspiracy Trial: Questions for Discussion

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