Charles Sumner again met with President Lincoln on the Smiths ' behalf . The president asked Sumner to review the lengthy report from the Navy Secretary which identified the key elements in the court-martial , then render an opinion . Senator Sumner studied the document overnight and wrote an opinion which summarized the treatment of Franklin Smith : It is hard that citizens enjoying a good name , who had the misfortune to come into business relations with the Government , should be exposed to such a spirit ; that they should be dragged from their homes , and hurried to a military prison ; that , though civilians , they should be treated as military offenders ; that they should be compelled to undergo a protracted trial by courtmartial , damaging their good name , destroying their peace , breaking up their business , and subjecting them to untold expense , — when , at the slightest touch , the whole case vanishes into thin air , leaving behind nothing but the incomprehensible spirit in which it had its origin . Of course , the findings and sentence of the Court ought , without delay , to be set aside . But this is only the beginning of justice . Some positive reparation should be made to citizens who have been so deeply injured . After reflection , the president wrote his decision to Welles , the court-martial board and the Navy : I am unwilling for the sentence to stand and be executed , to any extent , in this case . In the absence of a more adequate motive than the evidence discloses , I am wholly unable to believe in the existence of criminal or fraudulent intent on the part of one of such well-established good character as is the accused . If the evidence went as far toward establishing a guilty profit of one or two hundred thousand dollars , as it does of one or two hundred dollars , the case would , on the question of guilt , bear a far different aspect . That on this contract , involving from one million to twelve hundred thousand dollars , the contractors should attempt a fraud which at the most could profit them only one or two hundred , or even one thousand dollars , is to my mind beyond the power of rational belief . That they did not , in such a case , strike for greater gains proves that they did not , with guilty or fraudulent intent , strike at all . The judgment and sentence are disapproved and declared null , and the accused ordered to be discharged . Lincoln never got the opportunity to " lay my long hand upon them " who pursued the Smiths . A few short weeks after the president vacated the sentence , he was killed by an assassin 's bullet
killed by an assassin 's bullet
Assassination of Abraham Lincoln
Franklin W. Smith