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In reply to the discussion: NC lawmaker calls Abraham Lincoln a tyrant like Hitler [View all]Yupster
(14,308 posts)They were never put on trial.
Lee was okay with that. His health wasn't too good and he just wanted a peaceful retirement.
Davis spent the next 20 years loudly demanding his right to a speedy and open trial.
His defense team was a high powered group of northern lawyers. His defense was that secession was perfectly Constitutional,. and would the north kindly leave his unhappy country so he could get on the job of rebuilding it.
President Johnson and Jefferson Davis were bitter personal enemies from long before the war. Johnson would have loved to put Davis on trial, but the risk was too great. The Supreme Court was pretty conservative. What if they ruled the Tenth Amendment made secession legal?
Better to just never give him his trial. He spent the rest of his life indicted but was never given a trial.