The Lost Indictment of Robert E. Lee by John Reeves

Author:John Reeves
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781538110409
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers
Published: 2018-05-22T16:00:00+00:00

After having been sworn in, Lee sat in a chair facing Senator Jacob Howard, who started the questioning. Like Thaddeus Stevens, Howard had been born in Vermont. Later, he moved to Detroit, Michigan, to practice law, and eventually entered the Senate in 1862. Known as “Honest Jake” back home, he was described as “an excellent debater and a bitter partisan.”42 Howard was also recognized as one of the leading constitutional lawyers in the Senate.

Unsurprisingly, Lee was guarded and not especially forthcoming in many of his answers. Unlike most of the previous witnesses, he believed Virginians were supportive of Johnson’s “policy in regard to the restoration of the whole country.” Lee always used the word “restoration” instead of “reconstruction.” He hoped that Virginia’s relations to the Union could be similar to those that existed before the war.

The exchanges between Howard and Lee on the question of treason would have been especially helpful for those lawyers who might be involved in a future prosecution of Lee. Composed and careful in his language, the former Confederate general in chief would have been a formidable opponent in a courtroom. He also reiterated the view that a Virginia jury would be unlikely to return a guilty verdict in a treason case. The following is a fascinating back and forth between Howard and Lee on this subject:

Question: You understand my question: Suppose a jury was impanelled in your own neighborhood, taken up by lot; would it be practicable to convict, for instance, Jefferson Davis for having levied war upon the United States, and thus having committed the crime of treason?

Answer: I think it is very probable that they would not consider he had committed treason.

Question: Suppose the jury should be clearly and plainly instructed by the court that such an act of war upon the United States, on the part of Mr. Davis, or any other leading man, constituted in itself the crime of treason under the Constitution of the United States; would the jury be likely to heed that instruction, and if the facts were plainly in proof before them, convict the offender?

Answer: I do not know, sir, what they would do on that question.

Question: They do not generally suppose that it was treason against the United States, do they?

Answer: I do not think that they so consider it.

Question: In what light would they view it? What would be their excuse or justification? How would they escape in their own mind? I refer to the past.

Answer: I am referring to the past and as to the feelings they would have. So far as I know, they look upon the action of the State, in withdrawing itself from the government of the United States, as carrying the individuals of the State along with it; that the State was responsible for the act, not the individual.

Concluding this line of questioning, Howard asked Lee how he personally saw the question of treason:

Question: State, if you please, (and if you are disinclined to answer the question you need not,

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