"You will consider your verdict, gentlemen, and make up your minds according to the law and the evidence, not forgetting the explanation I have given you."
There is a delightful frankness about the address submitted to the electors by a candidate who solicited their support for the position of sheriff in one of the provinces of the United States, but its honesty cannot be questioned:
"Gentlemen, I offer myself a candidate for sheriff; I have been a revolutionary officer; fought many bloody battles, suffered hunger, toil, heat; got honourable scars, but little pay. I will tell you plainly how I shall discharge my duty should I be so happy as to obtain a majority of your suffrages. If writs are put into my hands against any of you, I will take you if I can, and, unless you can get bail, I will deliver you over to the keeper of the gaol. Secondly, if judgments are found against you, and executions directed to me, I will sell your property as the law directs, without favour or affection; if there be any surplus money, I will punctually remit it. Thirdly, if any of you should commit a crime (which God forbid!) that requires capital punishment, according to law, I will hang you up by the neck till you are dead."
RUFUS CHOATE, LEADER OF THE MASSACHUSETTS BAR.
Rufus Choate was designated the leader of the Massachusetts Bar—a distinctive title which long outlived him and marked the sense of esteem in which he was held by his brother lawyers, as well as indicating his outstanding ability and success.
In 1841 a divorce case was tried in America, and a young woman named Abigail Bell was the chief witness of the adultery of the wife. Sumner, for the defence, cross-examined Abigail. "Are you married?"—"No."—"Any children?"—"No."—"Have you a child?" Here there was a long pause, and then at last the witness feebly replied, "Yes." Sumner sat down with an air of triumph. Rufus Choate was advocate for the husband, who claimed the divorce, and after enlarging on other things, said, "Gentlemen, Abigail Bell's evidence is before you." Raising himself proudly, he continued, "I solemnly assert there is not the shadow of a shade of doubt or suspicion on that evidence or on her character." Everybody looked surprised, and he went on: "What though in an unguarded moment she may have trusted too much to the young man to whom she had pledged her untried affections; to whom she was to be wedded on the next Lord's Day; and who was suddenly struck dead at her feet by a stroke of lightning out of the heavens!" This was delivered with such tragic effect that Choate, majestically pausing, saw the jury had taken the cue, and he went on triumphantly to the end. He afterwards told his friends that he had a right to make any supposition consistent with the witness's innocence.