The indictment had also named Robert E. Lee as guilty of the same crime.
Grant lifted his mailed fist and told the Government he would fight if
necessary to protect the man who had surrendered in good faith to his
army. The peanut politicians dropped Lee's name.
When the tall, emaciated leader of the South stood erect before his
accusers in court he faced a scene which proclaimed the advent of the
new Democracy in America which must yet make good its right to live.
On the Judge's bench sat John C. Underwood, a crawling, shambling,
shuffling, ignorant demagogue who had set a new standard of judicial
honor and dignity. He had selected one of the handsomest homes in
Virginia, ordered it confiscated as a Federal judge, and made his wife
buy it in and convey it to him after warning other bidders to keep off
the scene. The thief was living in his stolen mansion on the day he sat
down beside the Chief Justice of the United States in this trial. When
Chase had warned the Government that no charge of treason could stand
against Davis, Underwood assured the Attorney General that he would fix
a negro jury in Richmond which could be relied on to give the verdict
necessary. He had impaneled the first grand jury ever assembled in
America composed of negroes and whites.
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