FORTY-EIGHT: THE LINCOLN AFFAIR
So we are now in a time when bloodshed, which is newsworthy and can be reported to generations following, begins to give way to influence, which tends to go unnoticed except by the most observant.
As we walk through these years, we walk slowly and deliberately, looking but not touching. Much cannot be proved. Allow me to lay out some observations, you see what sense can be made of it. Having read the following, you may wish to start an investigation of your own.
First to keep in mind is that there is no change in the Papal position about one-world government under Roman supervision. And in the western hemisphere of the 1800's only the United States stands in the way of such dominion.
Let's return to Pius IX, who reigned in Rome from 1846-1878. His statements made in encyclicals of 1863-64 are most illuminating to one who would understand the era. As you read the following keep in mind that in 1863 was our "Emancipation Proclamation" and in 1865, the assassination of Lincoln (to the two events many can see a link).
"It is necessary to remember again and to condemn the very serious error into which some Catholics miserably fall, who think that men who live in error and are strangers to Catholic faith and unity can reach eternal life..."
"Catholics [should] be always eager to try to free [men] from the darkness of their error,...and bring them back to Catholic Truth, and to their most loving mother, the Church."
Regarding Mary:
"...during the pontificate of Gregory XVI, our Predecessor of happy memory, there was in the entire Catholic world a most ardent and wondrous revival of the desire that the most holy Mother of God - the beloved Mother of us all, the immaculate Virgin Mary- be finally declared by a solemn definition of the Church to have been conceived without the stain of original sin..."
Whence comes this doctrine?
"...the widespread piety of the Christian people so fervently desires to have accorded to the Most Holy Virgin by a solemn decree and by the authority of the Church and the Holy See."
And where did the people get their ideas? Certainly not from the revealed Word to the apostles. They just "believed " it, because , as I pointed out in Parts I and II, the teachings about "the virgin" were handed down from paganism, and brought into the church when "paganism disappeared."
Why now?
"From our earliest years nothing has ever been closer to Our heart than devotion to the most blessed Virgin Mary."
Nothing? Not even devotion to her Son? What about faith in Jesus?
"Great indeed is Our trust in Mary. The resplendent glory of her merits, far exceeding all the choirs of angels, elevates her to the very steps of the throne of God. Her foot has crushed the head of Satan [ to see the measure of deception being leveled at the people of God here, read Genesis 3:15 for yourself and see who is to bruise the head of Satan!]. Set up between Christ and His Church, Mary...has always delivered the Christian people from their greatest calamities [look up the word "Jesus" or the Hebrew "Yeshua" and see for yourself what it means!] and from the snares and assaults of all their enemies, ever rescuing them from ruin..."
Blasphemy! A thousand times hear it! He has placed the woman above the Son of God. He shows himself here to be a true Babylonian, descended not from Peter, but from Nimrod!
More to the point at hand, the Lincoln crisis. Pius quotes Gregory's 1832 Encyclical, calling insane the notion that
"the liberty of conscience and of worship is the inalienable right of every man, which should be proclaimed by law, and that citizens have the right to all kinds of liberty...by which they may be enabled to manifest openly and publicly their ideas, by word of mouth, through the press, or by any other means."
Is my history sense dull, or did I just hear the Pope of Lincoln's day call the preamble to our Constitution a thing insane? Aggravated, the Pope cries out further against those who dare to believe
"that the will of the people, manifested by what they call public opinion, or in any other way, constitutes the supreme law, independent of all divine and human right...that the Church can decide nothing which may bind the consciences of the faithful in the temporal order of things..."
"How contrary is this doctrine," he says, " to the Catholic dogma, of the plenary power divinely conferred on the Sovereign Pontiff ...Therefore do We, by our apostolic authority, reprobate, denounce, and condemn...[such] evil doctrines." (emphasis mine)
The Pope seems worried. What he does not understand is that when the will of the people is infused by the will of God, popular rule is a good thing. And when the rule of the sovereign is the rule of Babylon and Babylon's Master, it is an evil thing.
"...Venerable Brethren, you see clearly enough how sad and full of perils is the condition of Catholics in the regions of Europe...Nor are things any better or circumstances calmer in America..."
True. Oh, very true. Things are far from calm in America. Please keep the Pope's words in mind as we talk of that period of American history, immediately following the Civil War.
Is it plausible that a monarch so opposed to American ways, and American interference to his global plans, might try to do something to end that government? Of course, in the final analysis, it doesn't matter who starts something, in Rome's eyes. Recall that Babylon is pictured as riding a beast, not necessarily summoning him to his various tasks. Whenever she finds a strong back to support her, she will hop on.
So do plots, conspiracies, actions subtly performed through another's influence, exist? Is there a reader still so naive as to deny the possibility of such? Throughout the ensuing compilation of evidence keep in mind that my investigation contains many question marks. But the facts are there...
You will find in the Congressional Record of 1916, April 25 to be exact, that one Senator Owen inserted in full a copy of the "Secret Treaty of Verona." The subject on the floor that day was "women's suffrage," the right of a woman to vote. The senator on this day suggests that the basis of such suffrage is representative government and the sovereignty of the people, well-known American ideals. The treaty, written only 40 years before our Civil War, shows the philosophy governing the powers who could easily have been interested in subverting American democracy. Here is that entry.
"THE SECRET TREATY OF VERONA"
"The undersigned, specially authorized to make some additions to the treaty of the Holy Alliance, after having exchanged their respective credentials, have agreed as follows:
"ART. 1. The high contracting powers being convinced that the system of representative government is equally as incompatible with the monarchial principles as the maxim of the sovereignty of the people with the divine right, engage mutually, in the most solemn manner, to use all their efforts to put an end to the system of representative governments, in whatever country it may exist in Europe, and to prevent its being introduced in those countries where it is not yet known.
"ART. 2. As it cannot be doubted that the liberty of the press is the most powerful means used by the pretended supporters of the rights of nations to the detriment of those of princes, the high contracting parties promise reciprocally to adopt all proper measures to suppress it, not only in their own States but also in the rest of Europe.
"ART. 3. Convinced that the principles of religion contribute most powerfully to keep nations in the state of passive obedience which they owe to their princes, the high contracting parties declare it to be their intention to sustain in their respective States those measures which the clergy may adopt, with the aim of ameliorating their own interests, so intimately connected with the preservation of the authority of the princes; and the contracting powers join in offering their thanks to the Pope for what he has already done for them, and solicit his constant cooperation in their views of submitting the nations.
"ART. 4. The situation of Spain and Portugal unite unhappily all the circumstances to which this treaty has particular reference. The high contracting parties, in confiding to France the care of putting an end to them, engaged to assist her in the manner which may the least compromise them with their own people and the people of France by means of a subsidy on the part of the two empires of 20,000 francs every year from the date of the signature of this treaty to the end of the war.
"ART. 5. In order to establish in the Peninsula the order of things which existed before the revolution of Cadiz, and to insure the entire execution of the articles of the present treaty, the high contracting parties give to each other the reciprocal assurance that as long as their views are not fulfilled, rejecting all other ideas of utility or other measure to be taken, they will address themselves with the shortest possible delay to all the authorities existing in their States and to all their agents in foreign countries, with the view to establish connections tending toward the accomplishment of the objects proposed by this treaty.
"ART. 6. This treaty shall be renewed with such changes as new circumstances may give occasion for, either at a new congress or at the court of one of the contracting parties, as soon as the war with Spain shall be terminated.
"ART. 7. The present treaty shall be ratified and the ratification exchanged at Paris within the space of six months.
"Made at Verona the 22nd November, 1822."
For Austria:Metternich
For France: Chateaubriand
For Prussia:Bernstet
For Russia :Nesselrode
Interesting reading, don't you think? Here's an excerpt from Mirari Vos, encyclical of Pope Gregory XVI in 1832:
"...that absurd and erroneous opinion, or better, that product of delirium, that it is necessary to extend and guarantee liberty of conscience to everyone. The path to this most pestilent error is being prepared by the full and unlimited freedom of opinions which is being widely diffused, to the misfortune of religion and civil society, while some keep saying with extreme impudence that religion will derive some advantage from it...Experience has proved from earliest times that states distinguished for wealth, for power, for glory, have perished from this single evil, unrestrained freedom of thought, freedom of speech, and the love of novelties. To this is related that deadly freedom, never adequately to be execrated and detested, the liberty of the press."
But we were speaking of plots. In the case of one Abraham Lincoln, for example, a quick trip to Chicago's Museum of Science and Industry will expose one to a newspaper clipping dated April 15, 1864, the day after Lincoln's assassination, describing how already people were talking about a "plot."
History either "happens" or it is planned. In the case of Lincoln, no serious investigator rules out the conspiracy. There are many variations on the theme, but a conspiracy did take place. For what reasons and by whom I will leave with you... after I have shared a few lesser-known facts.
Did you realize that on the same night Lincoln was shot, Secretary of State Seward was likewise attacked, while on his sick bed? Others, like General Grant, had also been targeted. These are matters of commonly known but not often reported history. No secrets here. The complete overthrow of the United States Government was on the agenda.
And who was involved in this comprehensive plan to overthrow the government? Surely you will recognize the name of John Wilkes Booth. Most know he was an actor, and that he spoke some dramatic words as he pulled the trigger. Yes, those words were in Latin. But jump to no conclusions yet.
A much smaller group of Americans have heard the name Surratt. Few have heard of Mary Surratt, and fewer still know of her son John. Now, Mary's name can still be found in a couple of encyclopedias, John's I could not find.
Mary Surratt was a well-known lady of her day. We will say for now that it is only incidental that she was a Roman Catholic. Her home was frequented by quite a mix of people, including Catholic priests, and others implicated in the assassination plot, such as John Wilkes Booth. After Lincoln's death, the evidence brought against her and other conspirators was so convincing that all were hung. Did you know that?
After the fact, it is fair to say that many felt the trials were rushed, that the evidence for Mrs. Surratt's guilty sentence was not strong enough. Miscarriages of justice do occur.
So a Roman Catholic was involved in killing the President? If a fact, it is still not terribly conclusive by itself. To my mind, the intriguing thing about that horrid evening is the presence, flight, and especially the route, of her son, John. In an out-of-print book by Burke McCarty called The Suppressed Truth About the Assassination of Abraham Lincoln, John Surratt is named as the master mind of the whole event.
Once more to be fair to subsequent discoveries, witnesses at John's trial "prove" he was in Elmira, New York, on the night of the assassination. Now, other witnesses swear they saw him outside the theater where Lincoln was shot. But of his flight route, there is no question. And the reason for his flight? Though some say he is not guilty, it is maintained that he fled because of his association with John Wilkes Booth (a very real association, I might add).
All witnesses and evidence can trace John's flight first to Canada, then to England, in both of which places he is housed by Catholic clergy. Then, lo and behold, John turns up in Vatican City, where he is personally received by the Pope! Shortly thereafter we see him dressed in Papal costume, a part of the Pope's military operations, a light infantry corps known as the Zouaves.
All of this is traceable fact.
The United States, after a long and costly, not to mention contested, delay, finally requests that the Vatican release Surratt. Outward compliance is immediate.
But wouldn't you know it! He "escapes" from the ones who are bringing him on one leg of the journey home. Later he is caught and brought to trial.
Brought to trial, I say, but you must decide whether he was brought to justice. The records of the trial are available for perusal. Due to one of the many loopholes in America's legal system, the "hung jury", and a later decision to drop the case, Surratt is released, and many years later dies in America, a successful businessman.
Let's back up a bit. After staying in Montreal awhile, and supposedly being ordered by the bishop there not to return to Washington where his mother is about to be hanged (since there is no justice in Washington, it is implied), Surratt is shipped off to England. But the ship's doctor, one L.J. McMillan, supposedly seeking the reward being offered for Surratt's capture, befriends John.
Surratt becomes wary, gets off the ship in Londonderry, Ireland, and finds his own way to Liverpool. Meanwhile, McMillan has reported to the vice-consul , Wilding, of his finding. Wilding contacts Washington:
"No. 538 United States Consulate
Liverpool
September 27, 1865
Sir: yesterday, information was given to me that Surratt, one of the persons implicated in the conspiracy to murder Mr. Lincoln, was in Liverpool, or expected there within a day or two. I took the affidavit of the person who gave me the information...
A.Wilding, Vice-Consul"
No response. Let's try again.
"No. 539 United States Consulate
Liverpool
September 30, 1865
Sir: Since my dispatch no. 538, the supposed Surratt has arrived in Liverpool, and is now staying at the oratory of the Roman Catholic Church of the Holy Cross. His appearance indicates him to be about twenty-one years old, tolerably good looking. According to reports Mrs. Surratt was a devout Catholic, and I learn that clergymen of that persuasion on their way to and from America frequently lodge at the Oratory...
I can, of course, do nothing further in the matter without Mr. Adams' instructions and a warrant. If it be Surratt, such a wretch ought not to escape...
Wilding"
Finally the reply. Note it well. Five months has changed the mood of Washington:
"No. 476 Department of State
Washington
October 13, 1865
Sir: Your dispatches...have been received. In reply to your No. 539 I have to inform you that, upon a consultation with the Secretary of War, and the Judge Advocate General, it is thought advisable that no action be taken in regard to the arrest of the supposed John Surratt at present...
W. Hunter,
Acting Secretary
Something fishy here? Later, at the Surratt Trial, Judge Pierrepont is forced to say these words:
"My friends on the other side have undertaken to arraign the government of the United States against the prisoner. They have talked very loudly and eloquently, about this great government of twenty-five or thirty millions of people, being engaged in trying to bring a conviction on one poor young man, and have treated it as though it was a hostile act, as though two parties were litigants before you, the one trying to beat the other.
"Is it possible that it has come to this, that in the City of Washington, where the President has been murdered, that when under the form of law, and before a court and jury of twelve men, an investigation is made, to ascertain whether the prisoner is guilty of this great crime, that the government is to be charged as seeking his blood, and its officers as lapping their tongues in the blood of the innocent? I quote the language exactly. It is a shocking thing to hear. What is the purpose of a government? What is the business of a government?
"According to the gentleman's notion, when a murder is committed the government should not do anything towards ascertaining who perpetrated the murder, and if the government did undertake to investigate the matter and endeavor to find out whether the man charged with the crime is guilty or not...the government and all connected with it, must expect to be assailed as 'bloodhounds of the law, ' and as seeking to 'lap their tongues in the blood of the innocent.' What is government for? It is constituted for your protection...What would you do without it?"
McCarty summarizes the trial proceedings:
"There were eighty-five witnesses and ninety-six in rebuttal...the hearing began June 17th, 1867, and closed July 26th, 1867...the case went to the jury August 7th. The jury brought in a report that they stood about even for conviction and acquittal, with no prospect of reaching an agreement. Surratt was remanded to jail.
"His attorneys asked that he be released on bail which was refused by the court. The following September...he was indicted on the charge of engaging in rebellion. He was admitted to bail on this charge in the amount of $20,000, which still stands.
"A second indictment was found against him, but the district attorney entered a nolle prosequi on this. The prisoner was finally released and permitted to go free on a technicality- an omission of the three words in the indictment, viz.: 'was a fugitive.' "
So that's why he's not in the encyclopedias. An amazing story. But the Secretary of War and a host of others disagree with the dissenting jurors, the various judges, the whole legal system.
McCarty's book can be balanced out by Confederate Courier, a novel-style book that weaves the opinion of the author(Helen Jones Campbell,1964,St. Martin's Press) into a believable tale that makes the reader sympathize with "Little Johnny." But Ms. Campbell, in her acknowledgements, lists several Catholic priests as the source of her documentation for the story. It would seem that this is not the way to find the ultimate in objective facts. Perhaps the modern jury, called society, will remain divided on John's innocence. But the agreed-upon facts will suffice us:
There was a conspiracy. The Surratts were involved in it, and were close to John Wilkes Booth. Catholic priests protected and helped to escape, one whom they knew to be charged with conspiracy to murder the President of the United States. He was placed in a military position by the Pope of Rome following his escape. At the end of his life, John Surratt burned all the records involving this matter.
What do you make of it? Pure coincidence? An all-out plot by the Vatican to destroy America? A plot used and approved of by Rome? Something to think about.
FORTY-NINE: OF DOUGLAS, DAVIS, AND PIUS IX
Slavery. Lincoln's position is classic American history. Rome's? We talked about that in reference to the Jews and others who were the serfs of the Dark Ages. Slavery was a part of Babylonian ways of thinking from its earliest days.
When Chris Columbus first saw a native American tribe, he wrote in his journal about how useful these people would be as servants! It was part of the mentality. I do not mean to be derogatory here, only stating known facts.
On the other side of the great Lincoln-Douglas debates regarding slavery was Stephen Douglas, whose wife was Roman Catholic.
And, in Doctrines of the Jesuits by Gury (p.71) we are told that
"slavery does not really constitute a crime before any law...divine or human...when one thinks of the state of degradation in which the lords of Africa live...the slave trade may be considered as a providential act..."
Oh really? Don't leak this to the NAACP, or to descendants of John Newman, author of "Amazing Grace," whom God saved from a life of degradation which included the trading of human lives for profit.
We are all aware that God takes the most horrendous of actions and uses them for His good. That is God's prerogative. But we must never whitewash the ugliness of the human spirit that created that action. That is man's depravity.
Jefferson Davis, who has been given the Presidency of the Confederate Union when the southern states break from the northern Union, is another piece of the puzzle.
A Roman Catholic? Absolutely not! But a memoir of Davis, published by his wife after his death reads thus:
"Mr. Davis's early education had always inclined in the Roman Catholics..."
Then Davis speaks:
"The Kentucky Catholic school called St. Thomas College, when I was there was connected with the church. The priests were Dominicans. They held large property: productive fields, slaves, flour mills, flocks and herds. As an association they were rich. Individually they were vowed to poverty and self-abnegation. They were diligent, in the care, both spiritual and material, of their parishioners' wants. When I entered the school, a large majority of the boys belonged to the Roman Catholic Church. After a short time I was the only Protestant boy remaining, and also the smallest boy in the school. From whatever reason, the priests were particularly kind to me. Father Wallace, afterwards bishop of Nashville, treated me with the fondness of a near relative."
Davis's pro-Catholic attitude led to even stronger ties during his Presidency. The following is a letter from him addressed to reigning Pope Pius IX:
Richmond,Virginia
September 25, 1863
"Very Venerable Sovereign Pontiff:
The letters you have written to the clergy of New Orleans and New York have been committed to me, and I have read with emotion the deep grief therein expressed for the ruin and devastation caused by the war, which is now being waged against the States and the people who have selected me as their president, and your orders to your clergy to exhort the people to peace and charity. I am deeply sensible of the Christian charity which has impelled you to this reiterated appeal to the clergy. It is for this reason I feel it my duty to express personally and in the name of the Confederate States our gratitude for such sentiments of Christian good feeling and love, and to assure your Holiness, that the people threatened even on their own hearts, with the most cruel oppression and terrible carnage is desirous as it has always been, to see the end of this impious war; that we have ever addressed prayers to heaven for that issue which your Holiness now desires; that we desire none of our enemies' possessions, that we merely fight to resist the devastation of our country and the shedding of our best blood, and to force them to let us live in peace under the protection of our own institutions and under our laws, which not only insure to everyone the enjoyment of his temporal rights but also the free exercise of his religion.
"I pray your Holiness to accept on the part of myself and the people of the Confederate States our sincere thanks for the efforts in favor of peace.
"May the Lord preserve the days of your Holiness and keep you under His divine protection."
Jefferson Davis
The reply:
"Illustrious and honorable President,
"Salutation.
"We have just received with all suitable welcome the persons sent by you to place in our hands your letter dated the 25th of Sept. last. Not slight was the pleasure we experienced when we learned from those persons and the letter, with what feelings of joy and gratitude, illustrious and honorable president, as soon as you were informed of our letters to our venerable brother, John, Archbishop of New York, and John, Archbishop of New Orleans, dated the 18th of October last year, and in which we have with all our strength exerted and exhorted those venerable brothers that in their episcopal piety and solicitude they should endeavor with the most ardent zeal and in our name, to bring about the end of that fatal Civil War which has broken out in those countries in order that the American people may obtain peace and concord and dwell charitably together.
"It is particularly agreeable to us to see that you, illustrious and honorable President, and your people, were animated with the same desires of peace and tranquility which we have in our letters inculcated upon our venerable brothers. May it please God at the same time to make other people of America and their rulers reflecting seriously how terrible is civil war and what calamities it engenders, listen to the inspirations of a calmer spirit and adopt resolutely the part of peace.
"As for us, we shall not cease to offer up the most fervent prayers to God Almighty that He may pour upon all its people of America the spirit of peace and charity, and that He will stop the great evils which afflict them. We at the same time beseech the God of Pity to shed abroad upon you, the light of His grace and attach you to us by a perfect friendship.
"Given at Rome, at St. Peter's the 3rd day of December, 1863, of our Pontificate Eighteen."
Pius IX
Curiouser and curiouser,as Alice (of Wonderland fame) said. Were you ever taught that the South's President was a personal friend of the Pope?
Be assured that the British government, in an ultimatum to the same Davis, did not call him President, nor illustrious, and not even honorable.( They refer to his new responsibility as the "so-called Confederate States.") Nor did Mr. Lincoln.
It leads us even further down this entangled side path, from which we must retreat soon.
Is it possible that a pro-Roman south would be advantageous to a Pope even then trying to put Mexico back in his pocket? A block of Catholic power reaching from South America through Central America, through Mexico, through Texas, on up to the Virginias, and someday up to Maine? (By way of Baltimore, of course.) Surely that had to be going through the minds of some Catholic elite. Maybe more than a few...
We must avoid trying to sound sensational and we must likewise keep far from the un-documentable. We must in fact learn to say, "I really don't know," on a host of issues.
But, let me remind myself and my reader what I have set out to describe:
Her name is Babylon. She is the mother of all abominations. In her is found the blood of all who are slain on earth. And if her daughters are not outright offspring, we can know that they are at least adopted for her own purposes.
Satan takes other forms and has other projects going on the planet. But before it is all over, all human roads do indeed lead to Rome...that is, Babylon.
This concludes Part Three. As we plod further into the 19th century, and half-way through the 20th, in Part Four, we will trace the Babylonian connection through two world wars, discover how both Hitler and Mussolini were politically tied to Vatican City, discuss Communism, Papal attitudes toward the West in our day, and more.
