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To Edward Bates1Jump to section
In speaking of the discretion which the District Attorney might use, I alluded to such discretion as is conferred by the law; and I certainly did not mean to say, I would undertake to confer an enlarged discretion upon him. A. LINCOLN
May 9. 1863.
Annotation
[1] AES, DNA GE RG 60, Papers of Attorney General, Segregated Lincoln Material. Lincoln's endorsement is written on a letter from Charles W. Prentiss, New York attorney, May 7, 1863, endorsed by Solomon Foot in concurrence, asking that the president put in writing a verbal statement made to Prentiss to the effect that U.S. District Attorney E. Delafield Smith was ``at liberty to use his discretion'' in settling the case of the John Gilpin, a vessel seized as a prize for running the blockade loaded with cotton. Welles' Diary on May 12 records the cabinet discussion on the case, ``There has been a good deal of outside engineering in this case. Chase thought if the parties were loyal it was a hard case. I said all such losses were hard, and asked whether it was hardest for the wealthy, loyal owners, who understood to run the blockade with their cotton, or the brave and loyal sailors who made the capture and were by law entitled to the avails, to be deprived. I requested him to say which of these parties should be the losers. He did not answer. I added this was another of those cases that belonged to the courts exclusively, with which the Executive ought not to interfere. All finally acquiesced in this view.''