Cantrill's trial has been continued; Anderson committed suicide, and Charles Travis Daniels escaped. The commission found a verdict against Daniels, but it has not yet been promulgated. The findings against G. St. Leger Grenfell have not yet been announced officially; but it is death, at such time and place as Gen. Hooker shall designate. The commission has been dissolved.
The Chicago Tribune, in speaking of the sentence, says:
The trial of the Chicago conspirators has ended, the sentences have been pronounced and approved, and the court has adjourned. Buckner S. Morris and Vincent Marmaduke are acquitted and Charles Walsh and Richard T. Semmes were found guilty of the entire charges and specifications, to wit: of conspiracy for the relief of the prisoners at Camp Douglas, and of conspiring to "lay waste and destroy" the city of Chicago. Walsh is sentenced to imprisonment for five years from November 7th, 1864, and Semmes to imprisonment at hard labor for three years from the date of sentence. The findings against G. St. Leger Grenfell have not been officially promulgated, but it is stated that he is found guilty and sentenced to death, at such time and place as Gen. Hooker shall designate. The penitentiary at Columbus, Ohio, is designated as the place of confinement of Walsh and Semmes. The trial has been long, mainly by reason of the course pursued by the defense, whose aim has been to protract it, so as to tire out the perseverance of the prosecution and the patience of the court and people. The court have performed their arduous duties with great ability and fairness. The result will doubtless be satisfactory to the people. It is proved that this great crime was in all its naked deformity and depravity actually committed. It follows that the Copperhead statement, published in the rebel organ in this city, charging that the entire plot and arrest of these Copperhead traitors and assassins were invented by the Union Republicans of Chicago as an electioneering trick, was the subterfuge of conscious guilt trying to cover up its tracks and to rub out the stains of its own attempted crimes. The same organ now impugns the "competency" of the Court. It may consider itself fortunate that it has not had an opportunity to argue the question of jurisdiction on its own behalf before a similar tribunal. Its opposition to such courts originates in a feeling of uneasiness about its own safety. For
"Thief ne'er felt the halter draw With good opinion of the law."
REV. DR. TIFFANY UPON COPPERHEADS.
At a public meeting held in Chicago, after the announcement of the assassination, Rev. Dr. Tiffany, in an able and eloquent address said:
"God alone is great. At rare intervals he sends us a man beyond the limit of our measure. Our attention has been directed to the excellences of the character which belonged to our late President, and to the spirit of the system which gave strength to the blow of the assassin. A more terrible topic is now to be discussed—our relation to that spirit—our responsibility for that blow.
We have been accustomed to say, "slavery is sectional, and freedom national," let those who elect slavery take the results of slavery to themselves; let them suffer, if their choice brings suffering; but as for us, we wash our hands in innocency, and hold ourselves guiltless of blood." And so we have been going on ever since the outbreak of slavery in the form of armed rebellion. "They are the guilty parties, let them suffer." But has all this been right? Have we had no responsibility? Is no guilt ours? We may not have owned slaves, but we may have made a common cause with men owners—may have brought condemnation upon ourselves by our tolerance, by our compromises.
Sad and almost disgraceful is the record which exhibits our complicity with this sin. We began by making free States wait at the door of the Union until slavery had a counterpoise, or balance adjusted in the form of slave State, to preserve the balance against freedom in the National Senate. We compromised the territories west of the Mississippi, by tolerating slaves there, and as one demand after another was made it was granted, till we even allowed slave rule in free States, by submitting to the Fugitive Slave law—these things could not have been done without our votes. When they threatened and blustered we fawned and cringed, until they knew and avowed their belief that the crack of a slave whip would bring the north to its knees. All they asked we granted, more than they demanded we offered. We held out our wrists for manacles. When we elected the great good man, who embodied our idea of nationality and freedom; and even after official announcement had been made of the position slavery occupied in their proposed nationalism, we guarded their slaves, and kept them secure to labor for the support of the masters who were fighting against us. When these slaves, acting on an intuition of freedom, came fleeing to us, we sent them back to chains and bondage. In all this we showed our complicity with the sin which struck the blow which killed our good President.
And after the slaughter of thousands in battle, and the death of as many more in hospitals, of fever, starvation and wounds, still was our hatred of the sin which caused them not deep enough. We talked of amnesty and non-humiliation, and God has permitted the sad cup to come to each lip in bitterness. Each one mourns to-day as if personally bereaved. The blackness of darkness is in our homes, and the whole nation mourns its first-born—its first-loved. May not—does not—a measure of responsibility rest upon us for this last sad event? Have we not been tolerant of the treason which has wrought this crime? Have we not been apologists for infamy under the name of different political opinions? Have we not spared when we should have punished—been merciful when mercy was but cruelty? We seem to have believed that because there were more serpents away from our homes, the few left here had no venom. We felt secure because the loyalists were more numerous than the traitors. But of the few who were here, and tolerated here, some plotted the escape of rebel prisoners, some the burning of our city, some the conflagration of New York, and some the murder of the Cabinet, while one has killed the good President. Had they all been driven out, or put under strict surveillance, there would have been none of these things from them. We have lost our President by tolerating traitors in our streets.