September 7, 2011

For the lawyer as well as the soldier, there is an equally imperative command. That duty is to shelter from injustice the innocent, to protect the weak from oppression, and, when necessity demands, to rally to the defense of those being wronged.

After the most thorough investigation in our nation’s history, the government’s entire case against Mary Surratt rests on three cases: one, her acquaintance with Booth, two, her alleged instructions to Lloyd, and, three, her nonrecognition of Lewis Payne.

It is these three acts that constitute the sum total of Mary Surratt’s part in this traitorous and murderous conspiracy. By themselves, they constitute no crime. Any one of you or I might have done the same, but the government insists she did them with evil intent, largely based on the testimony of two men, John Lloyd and Louis Weichmann. Yet, at best, the actions of these men undermine their credibility, and, at worst, they have gained their freedom by falsely accusing another of their crime.

There can be no doubt as to the principal and real reason that Mary Surratt is here today. It is John Surratt, her son. He invited Booth into her home. She did not. And he hid rifles and ammunition in Lloyd’s Tavern. She did not.

If John Surratt was part of this conspiracy, I pray to God that he receives every punishment known to man, but if his mother can be convicted on such insufficient evidence, I tell you none of you are safe.

Members of the Commission, do not permit this injustice to Mary Surratt by sacrificing our sacred rights out of revenge.

Too many of us have laid down our lives to preserve them.

Frederick Aiken, in defense of Mary Surratt upon accusation of conspiring and aiding John Wilkes Booth in Lincoln’s assassination

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The Conspirators Quote History

January 21, 2012

L’Homme au Masque de Fer (The Man in the Iron Mask). Anonymous print (etching and mezzotint, hand-colored) from 1789. According to the caption on the original (not seen here) the Man in the Iron Mask was Louis de Bourbon, comte de Vermandois, an illegitimate son of Louis XIV.

L’Homme au Masque de Fer (The Man in the Iron Mask). Anonymous print (etching and mezzotint, hand-colored) from 1789. According to the caption on the original (not seen here) the Man in the Iron Mask was Louis de Bourbon, comte de Vermandois, an illegitimate son of Louis XIV.

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Man in the Iron Mask Movie History Art

January 26, 2012


Hartheim Castle in 2005

The Hartheim Euthanasia Centre was a Nazi killing centre that was part of their euthanasia programme, since also referred to as Action T4. In all it is estimated that a total of 30,000 people were murdered at Hartheim. Amongst the killed were the sick and the handicapped as well a prisoners from concentration camps. The killings were carried out using carbon monoxide poisoning.

To prevent the families and the doctors of the patients tracing them, they were often sent to transit centers in major hospitals where they were supposedly assessed before being moved again to “special treatment” centers. Families were sent letters explaining that owing to wartime regulations it would not be possible to visit relatives in these centers. In fact most of these patients were killed within 24 hours of arriving at the centers, and their bodies cremated. For every person killed, a death certificate was prepared, giving a false but plausible cause of death, and sent to the family along with an urn of ashes (random ashes, since the victims were cremated en masse). The preparation of thousands of falsified death certificates in fact took up most of the working day of the doctors who operated the centers.


Collection bus and driver

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Nazi Hartheim History