It was good enough for a morning dress, good enough for an ironing dress, good enough for a chore dress around the house in the morning. But the Thursday’s search had put them on their guard, and when, Saturday afternoon, the officers came there, they were prepared for the most absolutely thorough search that could be made in that house. Where was that paint stained bedford cord? Where was that dress with paint spots on it, so thickly covering it that it was not fit to wear any more? Where was it that the officers did not see it? Emma alone can tell us, and Emma tries to tell us that it was in that closet. Emma says that Saturday night she saw that dress upon the hook, and said to Lizzie “You’d better destroy this dress,” and Lizzie said she would. Nobody heard that conversation
but Lizzie and Emma. So we cannot contradict their words excepting by what followed. Mark the exact use of language. Alice Russell said that when she came down stairs that morning she went into the kitchen and Lizzie stood by the stove with a dress skirt in her hand and a waist on the shelf near by, and Emma turned round and said to her, “Lizzie, what are you going to do?” “I am going to burn this old thing up. It is all covered with paint.” There is scarcely a fact that is not incriminating against Lizzie. Mrs. Reagan has come on the stand and told upon her oath against a woman who is her friend, with whom she had no difficulties and who is of her own sex, against whom she can have no object of resentment or hatred, as to induce her to commit the foulest of crimes, has told a story which is extremely significant. I should have hesitated to express myself as to its significance were it not for the attestation of that fact by the agitation, the hurrying and scurrying, the extraordinary efforts put forth by her friends as soon as it was unadvisedly published to suppress and deny it. They saw its significance, they are unwilling witnesses to the character of the story and the way it bears upon the case. That thing took place. Mrs. Reagan has appeared before you and you are to judge whether you like her looks or not. You are to be judges of her evidence. Miss Emma, who knew what took place, never came to Mrs. Reagan, and said, “You have told a lie!” They were the ones to have denied it. They were the ones to have asked her to take it back. Miss Emma was in there the next day after the publication, and she never found it out in her heart to say to Mrs. Reagan: “Why, Mrs. Reagan, you have published an infamous and wicked lie about us!” It was these same self-constituted friends who have filled the newspapers with denunciations of delay in a trial of this cause because the appointed officer was lying sick at his home and could not attend to it, when the courteous and accomplished gentlemen, who had her interests in charge, my learned friends never complained and do not to this day complain, to their credit be it said.
I had intended, Mr. Foreman and gentlemen, at this point, to attempt to recapitulate these things to you. I do not think I will do it. If I have not made them plain they cannot be made plainer. Every one of them excepting the incident of the burning of the dress and the accuracy of the witnesses as to the dress that is produced, depend upon facts that there is no denial of. We find a woman murdered by blows which were struck with a weak and indecisive hand. We find that that woman had no enemies in all the world
excepting the daughter that had repudiated her. We find that that woman was killed at half past nine, when it passes the bounds of human credulity to believe that it could have been done without her knowledge, her presence, her sight, her hearing. We find a house guarded by night and by day so that no assassin could find lodgment in it for a moment. We find that after that body had been murdered a falsehood of the very essence of this whole case is told by that girl to explain the story to the father, who would revenge it and delay him from looking for her. We find her then set in her purpose turned into a mania, so far as responsibility is concerned, considering the question of what to do with this witness who could tell everything of that skeleton if he saw fit. He had not always told all he knew. He had forbidden telling of that burglary of Mrs. Borden’s things for reasons that I do not know anything about, but which I presume were satisfactory to him, but he would not have so suppressed or concealed this tragedy, and so the devil came to her as God grant it may never come to you or me, but it may. When the old man lay sleeping she was prompted to cover her person in some imperfect way and remove him from life and conceal the evidences, so far as she could in the hurried time that was left her. She did not call Maggie until she got ready. She had fifteen minutes, which is a long time, and then called her down, and without helping the officers in one single thing, but remonstrating with them for going into her room and asking her questions—those servants of the law who were trying to favor her, never opening her mouth except to tell the story of the barn, and then a story of the note, which is all she ever told in the world. We find that woman in a house where is found in the cellar a hatchet which answers every requirement of this case, where no outside assassin could have concealed it, and where she alone could have put it. We find in that house a dress which was concealed from the officers until it was found that the search was to be resumed and safety was not longer assured. The dress was hidden from public gaze by the most extraordinary act of burning that you ever heard of in all your lives by an innocent person.
We say these things float on the great current of our thought and tell just where the stream leads to. We get down now to the elements of ordinary crime. We get hatred, we get malice, we get falsehood about the position and disposition of the body. We get absurd and impossible alibis. We get contradictory stories that are not attempted to be verified. We get fraud upon the officers by the substitution of an afternoon silk dress as the one that she was wearing
that morning ironing, and capping the climax by the production of evidence that is beyond all question, that there was a guilty destruction of the dress that she feared the eye of the microscope might find the blood upon. What is the defense, Mr. Foreman? What is the answer to this array of impregnable facts? Nothing, nothing. I stop and think, and I say again, nothing. Some dust thrown upon the story of Mrs. Reagan which is not of the essence of the case, some question about time put upon the acts of Mr. Medley which is not of the essence of the case; some absurd and trifling stories about drunken men the night before and dogs in the yard the night before. Of men standing quietly on the street the same day of the tragedy, exposing their bloody persons for the inspection of passersby, of a pale, irresolute man walking up the street in broad daylight. Nothing, nothing. The distinguished counsel, with all his eloquence, which I can’t hope to match or approach, has attempted nothing but to say, “Not proven.” But it is proven; it is proven. We cannot measure facts, Mr. Foreman. We cannot put a yardstick to them. We cannot determine the length and breadth and the thickness of them. There is only one test of facts. Do they lead us to firm belief? if they do they have done the only duty they are capable of. You cannot measure the light that shines about you; you cannot weigh it, but we know when it is light because it shines into our hearts and eyes. That is all there is to this question of reasonable doubt. Give the prisoner every vestige of benefit of it. The last question to be answered is taken from these facts together. Are you satisfied that it was done by her? I have attempted, Mr. Foreman, how imperfectly none but myself can say, to discharge the sad duty which has devolved upon me.
He who could have charmed and entertained and inspired you is still detained by sickness, and it has fallen to my lot to fill unworthily the place of the chief lawgiver of this commonwealth. But I submit these facts to you with the confidence that you are men of courage and truth. I have no other suggestion to make to you than that you shall deal with them with that courage that befits sons of Massachusetts. I do not put it on so low a ground as to ask you to avenge these horrid deaths. O, no, I do not put it even on the ground of asking you to do credit to the good old commonwealth of Massachusetts. I lift you higher than that, gentlemen. I advance you to the altitude of the conscience that must be the final master of us all. You are merciful men. The wells of mercy, I hope, are not dried up in any of us. But this is not the time nor the place for the
exercise of it. That mighty prerogative of mercy is not absent from the jurisprudence of this glorious old commonwealth. It is vested in magistrates, one of the most conspicuous of whom was the honored gentleman who has addressed you before me, and to whom no appeal for mercy ever fell upon harsh or unwilling ears. Let mercy be taken care of by those to whom you have intrusted the quality of mercy. It is not strained in the commonwealth of Massachusetts. It is not for us to discuss that. It is for us to answer questions, the responsibility of which is not with you nor with me. We neither made these laws, nor do we execute them. We are responsible only for the justice, the courage, the ability with which we meet to find an answer to the truth. Rise, gentlemen, rise to the altitude of your duty. Act as as you would act when you stand before the great white throne at the last day. What shall be your reward? The ineffable consciousness of duty done. There is no strait so hard, there is no affliction so bitter, that it is not made light and easy by the consciousness that in times of trial you have done your duty and your whole duty. There is no applause of the world, there is no station of hight, there is no seduction of fame that can compensate for the gnawings of an outraged conscience. Only he who hears the voice of his inner consciousness, it is the voice of God himself saying to him “Well done, good and faithful servant,” can enter into the reward and lay hold of eternal life.