all mankind, throughout all generations.

The

latter, of less universal obligation, is still retained in our system, although other States, as intelligent and refined, as secure and peaceful, have substituted for it the more benign principle that good shall be returned for evil. I yield implicit submission to this law, and acknowledge the justice of its penalty, and the duty of courts and juries to give it effect.

In this case, if the prisoner be guilty of Murder, I do not ask remission of punishment. If he be guilty, never was murderer more guilty. He has murdered not only John G. Van Nest, but his hands are reeking with the blood of other and numerous, and even more pitiable victims. The slaying of Van Nest, if a crime at all, was the cowardly crime of assassination. John G. Van Nest was a just, upright, virtuous man, of middle age, of grave and modest demeanor, distinguished by especial marks of the respect and esteem of his fellow citizens. On his arm leaned a confiding wife, and they supported, on the one side, children to whom they had given being, and, on the other, aged and venerable parents, from

whom they had derived existence. The assassination of such a man was an atrocious crime, but the murderer, with more than savage refinement, immolated on the same altar, in the same hour, a venerable and virtuous matron of more than three score years, and her daughter, the wife of Van Nest, mother of an unborn infant. Nor was this all. Providence, which, for its own mysterious purposes, permitted these dreadful crimes, in mercy suffered the same arm to be raised against the sleeping orphan child of the butchered parents and received it into heaven. A whole family, just, gentle, and pure, were thus, in their own house, in the night time, without any provocation, without one moment's warning, sent by the murderer to join the assembly of the Just; and even the labouring man, sojourning within their gates, received the fatal blade into his breast, and survives through the mercy, not of the murderer, but of God.

For William Freeman, as a murderer, I have no commission to speak. If he had silver and gold accumulated with the frugality of Croesus, and should pour it all at my feet, I would not stand

an hour between him and the Avenger.

But for

the innocent, it is my right, my duty, to speak. If this sea of blood was innocently shed, then it is my duty to stand beside him until his steps lose their hold upon the scaffold.

I am arraigned before you for undue manifestations of zeal and excitement. My answer to all such charges shall be brief. When this cause shall have been committed to you, I shall be happy indeed if it shall appear that my only error has been, that I have felt too much, thought too intensely, or acted too faithfully.

I plead not for a murderer. I have no inducement, no motive, to do so. I have addressed my fellow citizens in many various relations, when rewards of wealth and fame awaited me. I have been cheered, on other occasions, by manifestations of popular approbation and sympathy; and where there was no such encouragement, I had at least the gratitude of him whose cause I defended. But I speak now in the hearing of a people who have prejudged the prisoner, and condemned me for pleading in his behalf. He is a convict, a pauper, a negro, without intellect, sense, or

emotion. My child, with an affectionate smile, disarms my care worn face of its frown whenever I cross my threshold. The beggar in the street obliges me to give, because he says "God bless you," as I pass. My dog caresses me with fondness if I will but smile on him. My horse recognizes me when I fill his manger. But what reward, what gratitude, what sympathy and affection can I expect here? There the prisoner sits. Look at him. Look at the assemblage around you. Listen to their ill-suppressed censures and their excited fears, and tell me where among my neighbours or my fellow men, where even in his heart, I can expect to find the sentiment, the thought, not to say of reward or of acknowledgment, but even of recognition. I sat here two weeks during the preliminary trial. I stood here between the prisoner and the Jury nine hours, and pleaded for the wretch that he was insane and did not even know he was on trial: and when all was done, the Jury thought, at least eleven of them thought, that I had been deceiving them, or was self-deceived. They read signs of intelligence in his idiotic smile, and of cunning and malice in his

stolid insensibility. They rendered a verdict that he was sane enough to be tried, a contemptible compromise verdict in a capital case; and then they looked on, with what emotions God and they only know, upon his arraignment. The district attorney, speaking in his adder ear, bade him rise, and reading to him one indictment, asked him whether he wanted a trial, and the poor fool answered, No. Have you Counsel? No. And they went through the same mockery, the prisoner giving the same answers, until a third indictment was thundered in his ears; and he stood before the Court, silent, motionless, and bewildered. Gentlemen, you may think of this evidence what you please, bring in what verdict you can, but I asseverate before Heaven and you, that, to the best of my knowledge and belief, the prisoner at the bar does not at this moment know why it is that shadow falls on you my instead of his own. I speak with all sincerity and earnestness; not because I expect my opinion to have weight, but I would disarm the injurious impression that I am speaking merely as a lawyer speaks for his client. I am not the prisoner's lawyer. I am