The events of January 6, 2001 at the U.S. Capitol have been widely described as a violent insurrection. The roots of that attempt to overturn the 2020 presidential election—our government—in no small part, can be traced right here to Wisconsin. If then-State Senator Scott Fitzgerald reserved the space in our own State Capitol for a group of Republican fake electors involved in a conspiracy to craft fraudulent documents intent on overthrowing the legitimate election of an American president-elect, he joined the insurrection as a co-conspirator. This was a conspiracy to overthrow a duly and fairly elected government.
History reminds us of another attempt to overthrow our government. In April, 1865 John Wilkes Booth murdered President Abraham Lincoln. But Booth was part of a larger conspiracy to kill not just Lincoln, but Vice President Andrew Johnson, Secretary of State William Seward, and General Ulysses Grant as well. It was a plot to overthrow the government. Many involved in that conspiracy were soon apprehended, tried, and in July 1865, four of them were executed. Among those found guilty and hanged for their part in the conspiracy was Mary Surratt. Ms. Surratt owned the boarding house in which the conspirators met and organized the plot to overthrow the government. She knew of the plot. As then-President Andrew Johnson said, “she kept the nest that hatched the egg.”
Ms. Surratt and Mr. Fitzgerald appear to have much in common.
Anthony Gulig,
Fort Atkinson
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