George,

I don't know if this is the original source, but I found this on a website:

"I picked up another book, written by Burke Davis [no relative to Jeff that I know of,] and entitled "The Long Surrender." It dealt with much of what happened and with the characters involved during the final days of the Confederacy, when Richmond fell and the Confederate government fled the city and tried to set up somewhere else to carry on the struggle.

"After Jeff Davis was captured, the vindictive radical Yankee Secretary of War Edwin Stanton ... "wanted to implicate Davis both as a co-conspirator in Lincoln's assassination and as a traitor for leading the secessionist government in Richmond, even though secession had not been original with Davis. Try as they might, the radical Republicans in Washington couldn't quite bring it off. Burke Davis notes, on page 204 of his book, a quote by Chief Justice Salmom P. Chase, telling Stanton "If you bring these leaders to trial, it will condemn the North, for by the Constitution, secession is not rebellion....His [Jeff Davis'] capture was a mistake. His trial will be a greater one. We cannot convict him of treason. Secession is settled. Let it stay settled." Burke Davis continued on page 214 of the book, noting that a congressional committee proposed a special court for Davis' trial, headed by Judge Franz Lieber. Davis noted: "After studying more than 270,000 Confederate documents, seeking evidence against Davis, this court discouraged the War Department: 'Davis will be found not guilty,' Lieber reported, 'and we shall stand there completely beaten'."