The Supreme Court Building is constructed on the very ground of
the Old Capitol buidling that became the emegency Old Capitol
Prison for traitors in the Spring of 1861.
For the next four years, Lincoln, Seward, Stanton and the Secret
Service Chief Lafayette Baker grabbed whomever they wanted without
a warrant, threw them into Old Capitol's dreary rooms, and forgot
about habeas coprus, indictments, trials for as long as was
useful.
Lafayette Baker's motto on his badge was "Death to
Traitors."
When some several of those very same traitors conspired to
murder Lincoln and Seward in April, 1865, Baker assigned his cousin
to track them down and bring them to the noose. Booth likely shot
himself, or was shot; but the Bakers bagged anyone they could argue
was attached to the plot and threw them into a hastily constructed
court in May, 1865, where the Attorney General and Provost Marshall
General engineered a speedy conviction. Some few of the culprits
were hanged at Old Capitol Prison.
Escaping the noose in 1865 were not a few former members of the
U.S. Senate who authored and paid for the plot against the U.S. and
Lincoln, includng the contemptible traitors ex-senators Davis,
Stephens, Benjamin, Mason, Slidell.
Just mentioning on this the day the Bush Administration explains
its decision to pursue enemies of the United States, including U.S.
citizens who trade with the enemy, to members of the United States
Senate -- one or more of whom is supect as betraying the NSA.
Quoting Lafayette Baker, "Death to Traitors."
topics:
Trade, Supreme Court, NATO
