And he "enforced" the "silence" up to the day of his death.
But we ask what reason had the "Great War Minister" "to perpetrate so pitiless an outrage?" Why, in the days of the trial of John H. Surratt, why, in the days of his stern enmity towards the President, when his removal furnished the main ground of impeachment, did he not once speak out for his slandered servant, or even unlock the sealed lips of the obedient Bingham and suffer him to tell the truth?
General Holt, in 1883, on affirming in the text of his article that "Messrs. Seward and Stanton declared the truth to Judge Bingham," adds the following explanatory note:
"This praise was certainly due to Mr. Seward, but not, in strictness, to Mr. Stanton, since on making the communication to Judge Bingham, he endeavored and successfully, to prevent him from giving it publicity.
"The fear of Andrew Johnson's resentment, added to a determination on his part to leave my reputation--then under fire from his silence--to its fate, sufficiently explain his otherwise inexplicable conduct."
But does it? Is this in truth a sufficient explanation?
Stanton, the stern War Minister, fear the resentment of Andrew Johnson! When was he taken with it? When he bearded the President in his Cabinet? When he defied him in the War Department, and scattered his missive of removal to the winds? Or did he wait to begin to fear him until the President retired to private life, just escaping conviction by impeachment, and shorn of all popularity North or South? The preposterous nature of the cause assigned casts suspicion upon the assignor himself. As to the second cause, we are at a loss to conceive why Mr. Stanton should harbor such motiveless malignity against the reputation of his former colleague, then his pliant subordinate, and always his friend. We need, in this regard, an explanation of the explanation. If it be true, it settles the character of Stanton for all time.
But, it appears, in the words of General Holt, that "while he (Stanton) lived, this enforced silence was scrupulously obeyed." Again we ask why?
Why should Bingham have obeyed the "advice," even if given by Stanton so long before? Why should the associate of Holt, in the prosecution and execution of Mrs. Surratt, have ministered to the malignity of Stanton, scrupulously obeyed his base injunction, and never even told his beloved fellow-laborer on the field of courts-martial, that he possessed such secret sacred testimonials in his favor?