“The Conspirator”: A Lesson in Integrity From America’s History

“The Conspirator” is a film directed by Robert Redford and starring Robin Wright-Penn and James McAvoy.  It is based on the military tribunal that sentenced Mary Surratt and three of her boarding house’s patrons to death by hanging in the aftermath of President Abraham Lincoln’s assassination at the Ford Theatre on April 15, 1865.  Not to spoil the ending, but it is history after all.

The themes of character and integrity are wrought throughout the film.  An example, one of the most memorable lines of the film is delivered by Mary (Wright-Penn) who asks her attorney Frederick Aiken (McAvoy) if he’s ever fought for something bigger than himself.  He responds, jaw clenched, that he spent four years on the battlefield doing just that.  She replies, “Then we’re not so different.”  Whether this was written into the script to refer to her being willing to die to protect her son (friend of John Wilkes-Booth) who is in hiding while his mother faces the gallows (rather than give him up to the Union) or perhaps referring to her loyalty to the confederacy is hard to tell.

Even the moviegoer gets to experience his or her own inner dialogue trying to discern whether or not Mary Surratt was, in fact, a conspirator or merely guilty by association and circumstance.  Was she a loving mother or loyal secessionist?  Unfortunately, thanks to a shaken government anxious to give peace of mind to the citizens, we will never actually know.  Mary Surratt (along with Lewis Powell, George Atzerodt, and David Herold) was denied a fair trial by a jury of peers.  Regardless of the crimes accused, the union government decided the tribunal would be sufficient to give a swift verdict.  This way the already unstable nation and her people could recover.  The needs of the few disregarded for the needs of the many.

So in this respect, the main focus of questioning integrity in this film (and history itself) is sharply on our government.  Of course Aiken’s character is integrious, he risks losing everything (and pretty much does) to fight for Surratt’s rights.  He gives her innocence until proven guilty a fighting chance against his initial bias.  Surratt herself is poised and noble in how she handles her fate and how she suffered in prison from an almost immobilizing illness and clung to her faith and beliefs.  But the government was given a lesson that it may not have properly learned.  This writer is neither republican nor democrat, just American.  But I picked up a subtler message being conveyed by Mr. Redford’s work that pointed out a lot of similarities between post-Civil War America and today.  Just as how anyone then seemed the least bit tolerant of the enemy (confederates) was side-eyed and loyalty doubted, the same thing has happened repeatedly in the decades since.  Japanese-American internment after Pearl Harbor, McCarthyism, and post-9/11 attitudes toward Islam.

I think to illustrate my point best, I should end this with two questions for you to pose to your own integrity; whatever your answer to the first question should be your answer to the second.  (Keep in mind: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights”.  Unalienable being the emphasis.)  First: do you feel it is integrious to judge on emotion and hold an entire group of people responsible for the actions of a select few?  Second: even when your peace of mind and possibly life are being threatened?

“I may not agree with what you have to say, but I’ll defend to the death your right to say it.” — Voltaire