WHY WASN'T JEFFERSON DAVIS CHARGED AND EXECUTED BY KANGAROO COURTS LIKE CHAMP FERGUSON, MAJOR WIRZ  AND MARY SURRATT? 

Jefferson Davis and Confederate officers were often referred to as traitors, but never charged with treason?   Why?  The Chief Justice of the Supreme Court in a privately delivered opinion said. “If you bring these leaders to trial it will condemn the north, for by the Constitution, secession is not rebellion.” Lincoln appointee Chief Justice Salmon P. Chase, July 1867 (Foote, The Civil War, Vol. 3, p. 765)

The government appointed three separate attorneys to take on the case against Jefferson Davis, but all three eventually declined when they decided the case was “doomed to failure.”  The following quote is attributed to one of those attorneys.  “Gentleman, the Supreme Court of the United States will have to acquit that man under the Constitution, when it will be proven to the world, that the north waged an unconstitutional warfare against the south.” 

  

Because the case against Jefferson Davis was so flimsy, President Johnson was prepared to offer him a pardon in order to avoid embarrassment.   Davis refused a pardon on the grounds that, to accept a pardon is to admit guilt.  Davis wanted a trial to settle the issue of secession, once and for all, in a court of law.

President Johnson choose to give amnesty to the entire South, Davis included, shelving the issue, unresolved.

The fact is, they didn't dare bring President Davis or Vice President Stephens (a brilliant attorney) to trial because together, they would have destroyed the governments case against them.  

 ~Robert~