Dallas Morning News Jan 1, 1900. Page 12.
A CELEBRATED BAIL BOND
Instrument which Opened the Prison Door of PRESIDENT JEFFERSON DAVIS.
A HISTORIC DOCUMENT SEEN BY FEW.
(listing the prominent gentlemen who each gave $5000 each {$100,000 total} in GOLD to have Davis released from prison. Horace Greeley, Cornelius Vanderbilt, Gerrit Smith, Augustus Schell, and others)
It Is Given from a Fac Simile Copy Signed By Twenty Prominent Citizens of the Country.
(Bottom of the article)
Salmon P Chase: “Can a man not be tried for treason unless he is a citizen of the country can he?”
“’Certainly not,’ was the answer of every judge.
“’Then Mr Davis can not be tried for treason unless he is a citizen of the United States?’
“’Assuredly not,’ was the again the answer.
“’Can you show me under authority of the Constitution or any law of Congress where any man is a citizen of these United States? The people of this country are citizens of the respective states in which they reside and not citizens of the United States.’
“This position was assented to by the other members of the court and Mr. Davis was never brought to trial, and this led to the fourteenth amendment to the Constitution making the people of the country citizens of the United States.”
***
Like I said, the men of the Confederacy were still well respected men after the Civil War. The most beloved General in the USA was not Grant, Sheridan or Sherman, but Robert E Lee.
If his decisions were any indication, Chase believed that Davis had always been a citizen of the US.
However, he may have believed that being stripped of his right to vote by the 14th Amendment may have constituted a punishment to Davis and that further punishment would be double jeopardy. That's one theory.
Political considerations, though, were probably the most important reason why the case didn't go forward.
I’m afraid it gets worse. While shopping for Christmas presents for my 5 young grandchildren I have spent time in several toy stores. I can find the Dukes of Hazzard’s “General Lee”................ But the friggin confederate flag is no longer on it! Ironically, little models of the mini-cooper do have the Union Jack.
Borders, language and culture. The biggest part of our culture is our heritage! Our shared common American Heritage. Beautiful for spacious skies, ugly for other reason, the good, the bad, the ugly all have been part of Our fabric. All of it, every bit of it. There must not be the destruction of any memorial that the people of the time thought enough about to erect. The ***holes who want to tear them down should rather accomplish something for which they can get their own damn friggin memorials!!