Dr. Mudd's Pardon (Unabridged‪)‬

Samuel Alexander Mudd (1833 –1883) was an American physician who was imprisoned for conspiring with John Wilkes Booth in the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln. Mudd worked as a doctor and tobacco farmer in Maryland, and the Civil War seriously wounded his business, especially when Maryland abolished slavery in 1864. Dr. Mudd was pardoned by President Andrew Johnson and released from prison in 1869. 

In this text, the president explains the steps that led to his decision on Dr. Mudd. There was limited complicity in the crime by Dr. Mudd, and plenty of appeals for clemency came from all over, including 39 members of Congress. 

"Thus, now, therefore be it known that I, Andrew Johnson, President of the United States of America, in consideration of the premises, divers other good and sufficient reasons me thereunto moving, do hereby grant to the said Dr. Samuel A. Mudd a full and unconditional pardon."