In new Rome there walked three men, a Judas, a Brutus and a spy.Each planned that he should be the king when Abraham should die.One trusted not the other but they went on for that day,waiting for that final moment when, with pistol in his hand,one of the sons of Brutus could sneak behind that cursed manand put a bullet in his brain and lay his clumsey [sic] corpse away.As the fallen man lay dying, Judas came and paid respects to one he hated,and when at last he saw him die,he said, “Now the ages have him and the nation now have I.”But, alas, fate would have it Judas slowly fell from grace,and with him went Brutus down to their proper place.But lest one is left to wonder what happened to the spy,I can safely tell you this, it was I. (Lafayette C. Baker)
The confession is extraordinary on two counts. In the first, it is breathtaking that he would confess to being a participant to a murder of the president. One must assume that he thought that his encrypted message would never be decrypted.
On the second count, it puts to death the notion that Booth was a lone nut acting alone to murder the president. It clearly shows the vast, deep river of hatred many felt toward Lincoln.
But let's add a bonus count. This interpretation fits well with long standing suspicions of Stanton which historian Don Thomas describes so well in his book The Reason Lincoln Had to Die, in which he accuses Stanton as one of Lincoln's assassins.
The interpretation of the poem is obvious, though some have stumbled over it. Baker identifies 3 primary players, Judas, a Brutus, and a Spy. Without any more knowledge than we have provided, one could deduce Baker as the spy, and if that were too difficult, he admits to it in the concluding line.
Judas is very easy to discern as well, the give away clue being an allusion to Stanton's gnothic acclamation, "Now he belongs to the ages" (though alternative readings have been provided.) Thus Judas is unquestionably Stanton.
The final character, Brutus, might be the most difficult. At first we considered John Booth to be Brutus since it was Brutus who assassinated Caesar. Also, John was the son of Edward Brutus Booth, and as such fits well the description "...one of the sons of Brutus could sneak behind that cursed man and put a bullet in his brain..."
But clearly Booth could have had no expectation to be king, unless the brains of the conspiracy had promised him a royal prize for his actions - something which might have appealed to his delusions of grandeur. However, it is hard to imagine Booth thinking that he would be king "when Abraham should die" or that "...But, alas, fate would have it Judas slowly fell from grace, and with him went Brutus down to their proper place..." After all, the wide spread belief was and is that Booth died at Garret's farm, coming to a rather abrupt end. So how could he go with Judas (Stanton) "slowly" down to his place?
One could say that Booth's descent may have been his fall from a leading star, c. 1863, to his alleged demise in 1865, but Baker seems to imply a parity between Judas and Brutus.
The key to the puzzle is in the first line where Baker speaks of "a Brutus." Clearly Booth was "a Brutus," for he fits well the descriptions of the assassin. But he was not the only Brutus. We believe, with no adamancy or pontification, that Baker refers to more than one Brutus in his poem. Booth clearly fulfills the role of a Brutus, but we need another "a Brutus."
We believe that Andrew Johnson fulfills the role of the other Brutus. Johnson was certainly well placed to "be the king", having the most to gain from Lincoln's murder. In fact there was no way that Johnson could have gained the presidency in his own right. He had so many personal defects that it is a wonder that he even got on the 1864 ticket as vice president.
If Johnson is "a Brutus," then he was the leading catalyst for recruiting Stanton and other Radical Republicans into his orbit. As such, he is the one who commissioned Booth to "...put a bullet in his [Lincoln's] brain..." While Booth was the trigger man, Johnson was the puppet master pulling the strings.
There is much weight against this theory of Johnson being part of the plot. The royal battles which Johnson and Stanton fought against each other suggests that Johnson was the innocent bystander and victim of Stanton's egomaniacal drive for supremacy . How could Johnson be involved with someone who nearly caused his conviction from impeachment?
Perhaps the answer lies here, "...Each planned that he should be the king when Abraham should die. One trusted not the other..." Events clearly showed that each man did not trust the other. In fact Johnson caught Baker red handed spying on him at the White House, a fact which Baker admitted in his biography, but which he said was done under Stanton's orders.
Each man fulfilled "But, alas, fate would have it Judas slowly fell from grace, and with him went Brutus down to their proper place." Stanton became victim of Johnson's determination to dismiss him, and Johnson in his turn barely survived his presidency, and failed abysmally in his attempt for his party's nomination in 1868. Thus the two came to their "proper place."
Stanton died in 1869 possibly by suicide as we reported in a previous Chronicle. Johnson died in 1875 apparently from afflictions of old age. But Baker's demise is more mysterious. There are some theories that he faked his own death, fearing - we believe - that Stanton was intent on rubbing him out.
The poem assures us that Baker, in fact, faked his death, because he tells of the fall of both Stanton and Johnson. Baker "died" in 1868, the year Johnson was acquitted, and the year before Stanton was finally evicted from office. The two scorpions in a bottle battled it to the bitter end - they "...slowly fell from grace..."
2 comments:
There were three assassins. one for Lincoln, ne for Lincoln's Sectary and one for Johnson. The man booth picked to kill Johnson was a drunkard and did not complete that job of killing Johnson. If he had killed Johnson, Stanton would have been President. Baker said there were 85 people involved. Eleven Congressmen, Three military officers,some high ranking bankers and business men. When Stanton said he now belongs to the ages and I to the Nation he was with Lincoln and did not know Johnson had not been killed. History will never know who were pulling the strings. A professor checked Bakers remains and found he was poisoned. Stanton was appointed to the Supreme Court. He was killed. John
wilks Booth's wife said he left the Garrett farm two weeks before the Federal troops arrived. Booth did not trust the people who hired him. Who was killed that day? Senator Hale's daughter is the one who identified the person killed as booth. Booth's wife said some men attack booth and she never saw him after that. Three of the people involved in Lincoln's death were murdered to keep them from talking. Stanton would never commit suicide scheduled to go to the Supreme Court in January of 1869. Baker said after he testified to the supreme Court that eighteen pages of booth's diary were missing he was in fear for his life. One thing is clear the South had nothing to do with Lindcoln's assignation.
Only Booth and Powell were assassins. Johnson was never a target as he was one of the leaders of the coup along with Stanton. There is no evidence that Stanton was with Lincoln at the time of his death. However, Stanton's statement was cleaned up and attributed to him as Baker testifies.
Baker was indeed poisoned by either Stanton's orders - most likely - or by a group of other conspirators. The two men had a long love-hate relationship. Baker started to prove troublesome when he revealed the existence of the diary, but it was his life insurance policy which, in the end, proved futile.
We addressed the myth of Hale's daughter. She was never aboard the Montauk and would never have been allowed. Booth escaped - another topic we addressed at length.
Yes, many people were murdered to keep silence and made scapegoats. We also addressed the topic of Stanton's murder in another Chronicle.
Finally, the murder itself was ordered in London by the Rothschilds. Judah Benjamin was a Rothschild agent along with Augustus Belmont (if I have his first name correct - I am going from memory). Rothschild finger prints, including Salmon Chase, are all over the murder. In fact it was Rothschilds who elevated Lincoln to the presidency to start the war.
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