May it please your honors and gentlemen of the Jury.
It has been said by one of the most eminent statesmen that ever lived, that "civil wars strike deepest into the manners of the people,—they vitiate their politics; they corrupt their morals; they pervert the natural taste and relish of equity and justice."
If this be so, one would think that this was a singularly unfortunate time for the Government to bring on the trial of these prisoners at your bar, who are entitled to that right which the Constitution offers to the meanest citizen—that of a fair and impartial trial.
Is it to obtain that fair and impartial trial that the case is brought on now, when the flame of civil war lights the land, and when, in every stage and condition of society, the bitterest sentiments of hostility prevail?
Is it in order to afford the prisoners a fair and impartial trial that the case is brought on now, when tender infancy and gentle woman unite with stern and selfish man in uttering the deepest imprecations on their enemies?
Is it in order to obtain a fair and impartial trial that the case is brought on now, when, on God's holy day, in his holy temple, his chosen ministers officiating at his holy altar, utterly unmindful of the injunction of their meek and lowly Master, "to forgive their enemies, and to pray for those who despitefully use them"—offer up to Heaven prayers for its severest vengeance upon the heads of their enemies?
If so, gentlemen, I beg at least, (as one of the counsel,) to offer my dissent.
It does, indeed, seem to me that this is a singularly unfortunate time to bring on this trial. But yet, gentlemen, I feel buoyed up with hope, because I know the unbending integrity of the Judges that officiate, and I know that the Jury, which sits in judgment over the lives of these men, is chosen from the citizens of New York—a city in which, if any city in the world possesses large, liberal, and enlightened views, we may hope to find them. But, still, the officers of the Government must excuse me for saying that I think it unfortunate, and somewhat illiberal in them, considering the character of the charge made against these men, to try them now. It does seem to me that it is, at best, but trying treason with an odious name.
Gentlemen, this is no new thing. Years ago this very question, as to the propriety of trying men situated as these men are, was brought before the mind of that liberal and enlightened statesman, Edmund Burke—the long-tried and faithful friend of America; and I trust that I may be pardoned for referring to his words on this occasion, and for reading to you a passage from his celebrated letter to the Sheriffs of Bristol, in 1777, which, perhaps, will more fully illustrate my views than anything I can say. Speaking about American privateersmen, then in the same position as these men now are, he says:
"The persons who make a naval warfare upon us, in consequence of the present troubles, may be rebels; but to treat and call them pirates is confounding, not only the natural distinction of things, but the order of crimes; which, whether by putting them from a higher part of the scale to the lower, or from the lower to the higher, is never done without dangerously disordering the whole frame of jurisprudence.