THE CONSPIRATOR
Frederick Aiken is wounded in the Civil War. Two years
later he, his wife Sarah and friends William Hamilton and Nicholas Baker
celebrate the end of the war at the Century Club. That night President Lincoln
is shot by John Wilkes Booth, Lewis Payne stabs Secretary of State Seward, but
George Atzerodt doesn’t try to kill Vice-President Johnson. Mary Surratt and
others are arrested. John Wilkes Booth is trapped and killed. Lincoln is
mourned by the nation as a train carrying his body crosses the nation, finally
arriving at his hometown of Springfield Illinois on May 3, 1865. [16:11 to
16:26] Senator Johnson has agreed to represent Mary Surratt and talks Aiken
into assisting. The Senator is upset at civilians being tried in military
courts. Aiken is ordered to defend her alone after the Senator(who’s from
Maryland) quits the defense, telling Aiken that only with a northern lawyer
like him will Mrs. Surratt have a chance.
The prosecution’s first witness is Lewis Weichmann, who lived in Mrs.
Surratt’s boardinghouse. His weak
testimony is further attacked by Aiken who showed that he had visited Richmond,
capital of the Confederacy. The Senator tells Aiken if he can prove Mrs. Surratt
is guilty, he can quit. Mrs. Surratt admits her son John and Booth conspired to
kidnap Lincoln, but swears on the Bible that she did not conspire to kill
Lincoln. There is testimony that Mrs. Surratt denied knowing Lewis Payne, one
of her boarders, but Aiken shows she has poor eyesight. Secretary of War
Stanton tries to get Senator Johnson to give up on defending Mrs. Surratt, but
he refuses. Senator Johnson advises
Aiken to implicate John Surratt if necessary to save Mrs. Surratt, as he thinks
she has been arrested to try an ‘smoke out’ her son, who had escaped to
roundup. The prosecutor Holt next calls John
Lloyd to the stand and he testifies that on the day of the assassination
Mary Suratt brought him a set of binoculars and told him to have guns and
whisky ready that night for two men , one of whom was Booth. Mrs. Surratt
denounces this testimony as a lie and Aiken tries to show Lloyd is a drunk. An
army officer lies to Aiken and then gives damaging testimony at the trial. Aiken is tossed out of the Century Club and
his wife leaves him. Aiken tries to get Stanton to do the right thing and free
Mrs. Surratt, but he refuses. Aiken calls Anna Surratt to establish it was her
brother John and not their mother who was involved in the conspiracy. Mrs.
Surratt is convicted and sentenced to hang. Aiken gets Judge Wylie to issue a
writ of habeus corpus so she can get a civilian trial, but the President
suspends the writ. She is hung. 18 months later John Suratt is caught, but
acquitted in a civilian court.
A good courtroom procedural and
historical drama with lessons for today. The Constitution was trampled on to
get these defendants convicted. As Benjamin Franklin said “They who can give up
essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty
nor safety.”
Mrs. Lincoln: A Life by Catherine Clinton
(HarperCollins, New York, 2009) at page 251 gives the date Lincoln’s funeral
train reached Springfield.
Director - Robert Redford
Producer - Robert Redford, Brian Falk, Bill Holderman, Greg
Shapiro and Robert Stone
Starring –
James McAvoy as Frederick Aiken
Robin Wright as Mary Surratt
Justin Long as Nicholas Baker
Evan Rachel Wood as Anna Surratt
Johnny Simmons as John Surratt
Toby Kebbell as John Wilkes Booth
Tom Wilkinson as Senator Reverdy Johnson
Norman Reedus as Lewis Payne
Alexis Bledel as Sarah Weston
Kevin Kline as Edwin Stanton
Danny Huston as Brig. Gen. Joseph Holt
Stephen Root as John M. Lloyd
Jonathan Groff as Louis Weichmann
John Cullum as Judge Wylie
Brent F.G. Feasel as Lord Dundreary
Kirk Sparks as Edmund Spangler
Colm Meaney as Maj. Gen. David Hunter
Shea Whigham as Capt. Cottingham
James Badge Dale as William Hamilton
Jim True-Frost as Brig. Gen. John F. Hartranft
Gerald Bestrom as Abraham Lincoln
Screenplay - James D. Solomon
Released - September
11, 2010
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