atre an assault was perpetrated upon
Mr. Seward, who was then confined to his bed by hurts lately received in
an accident. The assassin gained admission into the house under pretense
of bringing medicine; thus he reached the bedroom, and at once threw
himself upon the secretary, whom he stabbed about the face and neck;
then encountering in turn two sons of Mr. Seward and two men nurses, he
wounded them all more or less seriously, and escaped. But much as had
been done, as much or more was left undone; for there can be little
doubt that the plot also included the murder of the Vice-President,
General Grant, and Secretary Stanton; the idea being, so far as there
was any idea or any sense at all in the villainy, that the sudden
destruction of all these men would leave the government with no lawful
head, and that anarchy would ensue.

Not many days elapsed before the government had in custody seven men,
Herold, Spangler, Payne, O'Laughlin, Arnold, Atzerodt, and Mudd, and
one woman, Mary E. Surratt, all charged with being concerned in the
conspiracy. But though they had been so happily caught, there was much
difficulty in determining just how to deal with them. Such was the force
of secession feeling in the District of Columbia that no jury there
could be expected to find them guilty, unless the panel should be packed
in a manner which would be equally against honesty and good policy.
After some deliberation, therefore, the government decided to have
recourse to a military commission, provided this were possible under the
law, and the attorney-general, under guise of advising the
administration, understood distinctly that he must find that it was
possible. Accordingly he wrote a long, sophistical, absurd opinion, in
which he mixed up the law of nations and the "laws of war," and emerged
out of the fog very accurately at the precise point at which he was
expected to arrive. Not that fault should be found with him for
performing this feat; it was simply one of many instances, furnished by
the war, of the homage which necessity pays to law and which law repays
to necessity. That which must be done must also be stoutly and
ingeniously declared to be legal. It was intolerable that the men should
escape, yet their condemnation must be accomplished in a respectable
way. So the Military Commission was promptly convened, heard the
evidence which could be got together at such short notice, and found
all the accused guilty, as undoubte