	id AA11556; Sun, 5 Feb 95 18:44:26 CST
Subject: Conspiracy Nation -- Vol. 3 Num. 80


              Conspiracy Nation -- Vol. 3  Num. 80
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                    ("Quid coniuratio est?")
 
 
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The Lincoln Conspiracy
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
 
By David Balsiger and Charles E. Sellier, Jr.
 
*****************************************************************
*                                                               *
* Did John Wilkes Booth act alone in the assassination of       *
* Abraham Lincoln or was he a pawn of higher-ups?               *
*                                                               *
* Was the man shot at Garrett's farm and identified as John     *
* Wilkes Booth actually Booth, or was he a substitute?          *
*                                                               *
* Why was the existence of Booth's diary hidden until long      *
* after the famous 1865 Conspiracy Trial, and when revealed,    *
* why had 18 pages been cut? Who removed those 18 pages, and    *
* when?                                                         *
*                                                               *
* A surprising collection of newly discovered (c. 1977),        *
* unpublished, historical documents answers these and many      *
* more questions, solving the most famous political             *
* assassination mystery in American history.                    *
*                                                               *
*****************************************************************
 
The massive cover-up effort by government officials to prevent 
the American public from ever learning the real truth about the 
assassination of Abraham Lincoln, suppressed evidence which 
presumably had gone to the graves of those connected with the 
murder conspiracy, is now [c. 1977] surfacing and answers many of 
the questions still surrounding Lincoln's assassination.
 
-- Was there an organized government conspiracy to get rid of 
Lincoln?
 
-- Why, despite countless threats and known plots, did the War 
Department not provide Lincoln with adequate protection?
 
-- Why did so many invited guests refuse to accept Lincoln's 
invitation to Ford's Theatre on the night of April 14?
 
-- Why was the President's single bodyguard absent from his post 
during the murder, and never punished or even questioned?
 
-- Why were all the escape routes out of Washington closed except 
the route Booth used?
 
-- Who, for hours after the murder, blacked out commercial 
telegraph lines from Washington?
 
-- Why was the existence of Booth's diary hidden until long after 
the famous 1865 Conspiracy Trial, and when revealed, why had 18 
pages been cut out?
 
-- Who removed those 18 pages, why and when?
 
 
Traditional historical writers have perpetuated a cover-up by 
*unquestioningly* relying on 1865 government data and documents 
as if they were gospel. In writing this book, Balsiger and 
Sellier have adopted the premise that official government 
statements from that time might not be true. Instead, the 
authors' approach to re-examining the Lincoln assassination was 
to try to locate local private unpublished document collections 
in the possession of the heirs of significant Lincoln era 
decision makers. They reason that if official government 
statements from that time are, in fact, true, then they can be 
authenticated through papers in private collections.
 
The documents used by the authors to re-construct events that 
took place before and after the assassination include secret 
service documents, congressmen's diaries, old letters, book 
manuscripts, deathbed confessions, secret cipher-coded messages, 
and purported missing pages of the John Wilkes Booth diary.
 
 
Among the experts consulted during the writing of this book were:
 
1) Dr. Ray A. Neff, a professor at Indiana State University [c. 
1977] and author of a scholarly book on Lincoln entitled *Wounded 
in the House of Friends*.
 
2) Dr. Richard D. Mudd, grandson of Dr. Samuel Mudd who was 
sentenced to life in prison as a Booth co-conspirator.
 
3) Theodore Roscoe, author of *Web of Conspiracy*, which suggests 
that the Secret Service may have been indirectly involved in the 
assassination.
 
 
Among the primary sources used in the writing of the book, 
probably the most sensational and valuable document consists of 
the missing Booth diary pages, discovered in 1974 by Americana 
collector and appraiser Joseph Lynch. The authors acquired a full 
transcript of the contents of the missing pages and had the 
contents evaluated by historical experts, but have not [c. 1977] 
been able to acquire copies of the actual pages to authenticate 
the handwriting.
 
The recently discovered [c. 1977] pages from Booth's diary 
delineate Booth's involvement in the conspiracy plot with trusted 
Lincoln friends, Confederate leaders, War Department Secretary 
Stanton, and northern businessmen.
 
In this book, the authors have attempted to re-construct as 
accurately as possible the conspiracy events prior to the 
assassination and during the following cover-up. What you are 
about to read is a synopsis of their unraveling of the most 
shocking political assassination in American history.
 
Normally, a state of war heightens and centralizes the power of 
the ruling group. Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton held a great 
deal of power during the Civil War. "The War Secretary controlled 
the nation's military news through the nationalization of the 
wires. He also controlled the transportation system. Under his 
direction... control over private citizens was almost complete... 
Lincoln himself was denied the right to see telegrams that came 
into the War Department in cipher to be decoded."
 
Moreover, Stanton was not noted for speaking well of Lincoln. He 
had referred to him as "the original gorilla," a "long-armed 
baboon," and as "that giraffe."
 
The authors, Balsiger and Sellier, state that a raid planned at 
that time (1864) by Lincoln, Stanton, and others associated with 
Lincoln's presidency gives evidence of an atmosphere of plotting 
and distrust within that small group. The "Dahlgren Raid," as 
planned by Lincoln, had as its ostensible purpose the freeing of 
Federal prisoners being held in Richmond, Virginia, at that time 
the capital of the confederacy. In addition, Lincoln wanted 
posters to be placed everywhere along the path of the raid 
promising amnesty to any confederates who would take the oath of 
allegiance to the Union.
 
According to the authors, however, and unbeknownst to Lincoln, 
the true purpose of the Dahlgren Raid was to assassinate 
confederate president Jefferson Davis and his cabinet. Besides 
Stanton, certain operatives of various special police forces, 
including the newly formed secret service, were also aware of the 
true nature of the plan. Prominent among these operatives was 
"Col. Lafayette Baker, a man of highly questionable integrity, 
[who] headed the North's National Detective Police (NDP), an 
undercover, anti-subversive, spy organization under the direction 
of Secretary of War Stanton."
 
The Dahlgren Raid failed and its leader, Colonel Dahlgren, was 
killed. On his body, the confederates found two documents. One 
document directed that Dahlgren and his soldiers were to free 
federal prisoners being held near Richmond. "The second document, 
unsigned, seemed to be an order: 'Once in the city [Richmond], it 
must be destroyed, and Jeff Davis and cabinet killed.'"
 
When this news became widely known in the confederacy, 
southerners were furious. "Gen. Robert E. Lee... officially asked 
his Union counterpart, Gen. George Meade, if the Union's true 
motives were contained in the papers."
 
The authors claim that John Wilkes Booth met with a Colonel 
William A. Browning, secretary to future (2nd term) vice- 
president Andrew Johnson during the summer of 1864. They claim 
that Booth worked as a special envoy for secret peace 
negotiations being attempted at the time. "Booth quietly made the 
trip to Richmond with proper military passes issued by both Union 
and Confederate governments." Unfortunately, while on his mission 
in the south Booth saw proof that the Dahlgren Raid had had as 
one of its goals the murder of Jefferson Davis and his cabinet. 
Infuriated by what he had learned, Booth resigned from his 
assignment as special envoy.
 
Because the great drama of the Civil War takes center stage, most 
people are not as aware that in "...1864, the Union was close to 
dictatorship."
 
"All the elements were in motion: transportation and 
communications were nationalized, the writ of *habeas corpus* 
suspended. Military tribunals had replaced civilian trials... 
Dictatorship was an evil lurking behind the scenes. [However] the 
name of the would be dictator was not discernible to the public."
 
The previously mentioned National Detective Police (NDP) 
constituted a force of 2,000 "detectives" which acted as a law 
unto itself. Under the leadership of the already mentioned 
Lafayette Baker, it operated without judicial constraint under 
the direction of Secretary of War Stanton. "Baker held 
authority... because a highly placed Lincoln cabinet official 
[Stanton] had set in motion all machinery necessary to become 
dictator of the nation."
 
"But first, Abraham Lincoln had to be removed from office."
 
During the summer of that year [1864], Lincoln faced mounting 
dissension within his own political party. A powerful faction 
within his party, known as the "Radical Republicans," did not 
want Lincoln to seek re-election. That summer a group of them 
introduced the Wade-Davis Bill to the 38th Congress.
 
The Wade-Davis Bill was "...a version of postwar reconstruction 
diametrically opposed to the President's proposal." Lincoln 
favored a "soft" peace plan, "designed to bind up the nation's 
wounds with all possible speed so that the nation could move 
forward and leave the events of the tragic war behind." Since the 
president had the right to pardon, Lincoln reasoned that he could 
offer a general amnesty to all who would take a loyalty oath to 
the Union.
 
However, "under the Radicals' Wade-Davis Bill each seceded state 
was to be treated as a conquered country... [The Radicals were] 
demanding Rebel property be confiscated and proposed that the 
conquered South should be considered a prize of war." [B.R. -- 
Thus, a *lot* of money was at stake in the argument.]
 
This was a tough time for Lincoln. He was up for re-election and 
it was the general opinion that there was little chance of his 
being re-elected. The war was dragging on and the casualties were 
multiplying. In addition to the dissent within his own political 
party, there was the constant threat of assassination. During 
that summer of 1864, there were incessant rumors of assassination 
plots.
 
The authors assert that during that summer of 1864, in Maryland, 
"...a group of planters had gathered to discuss ways of ending 
atrocities [by Federal troops] in the counties of Prince Georges, 
St. Marys, and Charles. Among the Maryland planters were Patrick 
C. Martin... Dr. William Queen, and Dr. Samuel Mudd." The authors 
contend that at this meeting a plot to kidnap Lincoln was 
discussed and that it was suggested that John Wilkes Booth would 
be a good person to bring in on the plot.
 
 *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *
 
{ Sources used for this section include, but are not limited    }
{ to the following:                                             }
{                                                               }
{ Barbee, David Rankin, "The Murder of Mrs. Surratt"            }
{   (Speech at the Emerson Institute, Washington, D.C.,         }
{   Feb. 25, 1950). Margaret K. Bearden Collection,             }
{   Rochester, NY                                               }
{                                                               }
{ Benedict, Michael Les, *A Compromise of Principle: The        }
{   Politics of Radicalism* (W.W. Norton & Co., New York, 1974) }
{                                                               }
{ Committee on the Conduct of the War research files.           }
{   Dr. Richard D. Mudd Collection, Saginaw, MI                 }
{                                                               }
{ Lamon, Ward Hill, *Recollections of Abraham Lincoln*          }
{   (University Press, Cambridge, MA, 1895)                     }
{                                                               }
{ Schlesinger Jr., Arthur M. *History of American Presidential  }
{   Elections, Vol. II, 1848-1896 (McGraw-Hill, New York, 1971) }
{                                                               }
{ Unpublished Voluntary Statement of Michael O'Laughlin,        }
{   April 27, 1865, originally in the Benn Pitman Collection,   }
{   Cincinnati, OH  Ray A. Neff Collection                      }
{                                                               }
{ Missing Booth Diary Pages. In the private collection of       }
{   Stanton descendants. Released in 1976 through the efforts   }
{   of Americana appraiser, Joseph Lynch of Worthington, MA     }
 
 
                  [...to be continued...]
 
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Aperi os tuum muto, et causis omnium filiorum qui pertranseunt.
Aperi os tuum, decerne quod justum est, et judica inopem et 
  pauperem.                    -- Liber Proverbiorum  XXXI: 8-9 

 Brian Francis Redman    bigxc@prairienet.org    "The Big C"
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    Coming to you from Illinois -- "The Land of Skolnick"        
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