Lincoln’s resolve may have been stiffened by Charles Sumner, who told him that Gordon must be executed in order to “deter slave traders,” to “give notice to the world of a change of policy,” and to demonstrate “that the Govt. can hang a man.” The New York World agreed: “A more deliberate, cold-blooded, nefarious, accursed, infernal crime it is not possible for a human being to commit. If we are to cheat the gallows of such guilt, we may as well at once abolish the gallows altogether.” A Massachusetts antislavery militant, John Murray Forbes, asked: “Is he [Gordon], like the rattlesnake in camp … to be released? The great want of the hour is to see one spy … hanged. … But if this wish of the nation must not be gratified, can we not at least hang one of the pirates who have sacrificed such hecatombs of Africans?”
Source: Abraham Lincoln ∶ A Life ▫𓂃
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