ency. He tells you that his object was to save Joseph, and to hurt no one, and least of all the prisoner at the bar. He had probably told Mr. White the substance of what he heard at the prison. He had probably told him that Frank confirmed what Joseph had confessed. He was unwilling to be the instrument of harm to Frank. He therefore, at the request of Phippen Knapp, wrote a note to Mr. White, requesting him to consider Joseph as authority for the information he had received. He tells you that this is the only thing he has to regret, as it may seem to be an evasion, as he doubts whether it was entirely correct. If it was an evasion, if it was a deviation, if it was an error, it was an error of mercy, an error of kindness—an error that proves he had no hostility to the prisoner at the bar. It does not in the least vary his testimony, or affect its correctness. Gentlemen, I look on the evidence of Mr. Colman as highly important; not as bringing into the cause new facts, but as confirming, in a very satisfactory manner, other evidence. It is incredible that he can be false, and that he is seeking the prisoner's life through false swearing. If he is true, it is incredible that the prisoner can be innocent.

Gentlemen, I have gone through with the evidence in this case, and have endeavored to state it plainly and fairly before you. I think there are conclusions to be drawn from it, the accuracy of which you cannot doubt. I think you cannot doubt that there was a conspiracy formed for the purpose of committing this murder, and who the conspira

tors were:

That you cannot doubt that the Crowninshields and the Knapps were the parties in this conspiracy.

That you cannot doubt that the prisoner at the bar knew

that the murder was to be done on the nigh of the 6th of April:

That you cannot doubt that the murderers of Captain White were the suspicious persons seen in and about Brown Street on that night:

That you cannot doubt that Richard Crowninshield was the perpetrator of that crime:

That you cannot doubt that the prisoner at the bar was in Brown Street on that night.

If there, then it must be by agreement, to countenance, to aid the perpetrator. And if so, then he is guilty as PRINCIPAL.

Gentlemen, your whole concern should be to do your duty, and leave consequences to take care of themselves. You will receive the law from the court. Your verdict, it is true, may endanger the prisoner's life, but then it is to save other lives. If the prisoner's guilt has been shown and proved beyond all reasonable doubt, you will convict him. If such reasonable doubts of guilt still remain, you will acquit him. You are the judges of the whole case. You owe a duty to the public, as well as to the prisoner at the bar. You cannot presume to be wiser than the law. Your duty is a plain, straightforward one. Doubtless we would all judge him in mercy. Toward him, as an individual, the law inculcates no hostility; but toward him, if proved to be a murderer, the law, and the oaths you have taken, and public justice, demand that you do your duty.

With consciences satisfied with the discharge of duty, no consequences can harm you. There is no evil that we cannot either face or fly from, but the consciousness of duty disregarded. A sense of duty pursues us ever. It is omni.

present, like the Deity. If we take to ourselves the wings of the morning, and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, duty performed, or duty violated, is still with us, for our happiness or our misery. If we say the darkness shall cover us, in the darkness as in the light our obligations are yet with us. We cannot escape their power, nor fly from their presence. They are with us in this life, will be with us at its close; and in that scene of inconceivable solemnity, which lies yet further onward, we shall still find ourselves surrounded by the consciousness of duty, to pain us wherever it has been violated, and to console us so far as God may have given us grace to perform it.

CALHOUN

JOHN CALDWELL CALHOUN, the grandson of an Irish Presbyterian whe

founded the Calhoun settlement in the district of Abbeville, South Carolina, was born in that place in 1782. After graduating at Yale College, he spent eighteen months at the Litchfield Law School, whence he returned to practice at the bar in his native district of Abbeville. While there, in June, 1807, Calhoun drew up for a public meeting a resolution expressing indignation at the searching of the frigate “Chesapeake" by a British warship, and supported the resolution in a speech of such power that he was soon afterward elected a member of the State Legislature. In November, 1811, he became a member of the Federal Congress, and there gave a vigorous support to the war party. For several years, beginning with 1817, he acted as Secretary of War under President Monroe. In 1825 he became Vice-President of the United States under John Quincy Adams, and four years later was re-elected to the same office under General Jackson. Although he had supported the protective tariff of 1816, he now stood forth as an eager advocate of free trade, and as a strenuous defender of the institution of slavery. In both capacities he came to be looked upon as the champion of the Southern States. He was the author, or rather sponsor, of a doctrine to which the Civil War may be traced, to wit: the doctrine of nullification first embodied in the Kentucky and Virginia resolutions of 1798, according to which any State has the right to reject any act of Congress which it deems unconstitutional. This view was in 1829 adopted by the Legislature of Calhoun's native State, and set forth in a document mainly prepared by him which was known as the "South Carolina Exposition," and which was approved by Virginia, Georgia and Alabama. In 1832 the South Carolina Legislature put the theory in practice by passing laws nullifying the obnoxious tariff of that year; but its opposition was crushed by the firmness of President Jackson, who declared that he would resort to force, if necessary. The most important of Calhoun's other political acts are his defence of the right of veto which is lodged by the Constitution in the President; his advocacy of the annexation of Texas, and his maintenance of the cause of peace, when war with Great Britain was threatened by the claim of the United States that the northern boundary of Oregon must not be placed further south than 54° 40′. Calhoun died at Washington on March 31, 1850.

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