Truth
The editor of the New York Tribune was summoned to court by the United States Government for a newspaper article that described bribes paid to customs officials to permit the smuggling of gems and evasion of tax.
The summons was not in pursuit of the punishment of the guilty rather it was an effort to have the editor reveal the source of the information from within the US Treasury Department. The year was 1915.
In front of the grand jury the editor, Mr Burdick, refused to reveal the source. After a recess Mr Burdick was presented with an unconditional pardon signed by President Wilson to provide the equivalent of immunity.
Mr Burdick invoked his Fifth Amendment rights against self-incrimination and refused the pardon. The grand jury held him in contempt, the judge fined him $500, and turned him over to the US Marshalls to be locked up until he came to his senses.
In the landmark Supreme Court verdict that followed, Burdick v United States, 1915, the court held that Mr Burdick did not have to accept the Presidential pardon that "imputed" a confession and admission of guilt in the act of acceptance, or, in other words, a plea of guilty and waiver of the right of trial by a jury, the Fifth and Sixth Amendment rights.
There are substantial differences between legislative immunity and a pardon; the latter carries an imputation of guilt and acceptance of a confession of it, while the former is non-committal and tantamount to the silence of the witness
Mr Burdick chose the suspension of his liberty in doing the next right thing. He did not admit guilt to tell the truth or to protect the source of the truth behind impunity.
His standard is an example for those that wait in line for the blessings of wrongs in the mistaken belief that a pardon today is immunity for life without consequence. The truth is that a pardon offered today when accepted requires an admission of guilt. The complication is that the preening innocence of impunity does not require a pardon unless the preen and the conscience know more than is being let on.
In that case the pardon, accepted, is for conduct unbecoming in respect of federal laws but will provide no protection against the inquiring minds and subpoenas of the States Attorney General.
Welcome the pardon, encourage it, as an invitation to the cocktail party of federal guilt, real or imagined, and a predicate for the revelation of truth and the impunity at the hands of state prosecutors.
Mingo Creek
The exception to pardon pursuit for the fiction of innocence were those issued by George Washington for two of the seventeen thousand earnest farmers who objected to a tax foisted on their currency, whisky, derived from excess barley, corn and rye. These farmers expressed their opinion of the tax in the early years of the young republic with the application of the choicest tar and feathers for federal collectors who were then hung by the nearest post in the town square.
The taxes were not being evaded just objected to in what has come to be known as the Whisky Rebellion of 1791 that required President Washington to dispatch federal troops to quell. President Washington would pardon two of the one hundred fifty farmers that were tried for treason because the trials lacked evidence and willing witnesses. President Jefferson would repeal the tax.
The pardons were offered as part of the greater good of maintaining the Union of the country in its youth to those with a legitimate concern and a truth in time that would be recognized. In their minds John Mitchell, Philip Weigel, and seventeen thousand of their brethren were doing the next right thing against impunity.
One hundred and sixty-five years later the home to the Whisky Rebellion would produce a young man who would go on to quarterback the San Francisco 49ers to four Super Bowls. Today the Joe Montana Bridges stand over Mingo Creek adjacent to the Monongahela River, the lifeblood of the steel industry.
Montana is known for much but the team's journey to excellence ran through the defending champion Dallas Cowboys in a playoff game at Candlestick Park. The Cowboys thought little of Montana until he beat them on the last play of the game on a signal moment in sports history, The Catch.
Montana missed the celebration of the play because he was standing in front of the Cowboys sidelines punctuating the play, the performance, and the truth that his team had tarred and feathered the Cowboys as offspring of those farmers one hundred sixty-five years earlier should.
Invite the truth.
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