James Copeland was executed in 1857. His life and the history of the clan were published in 1858. The sale of the work was progressing wonderfully when a ruinous prosecution commenced against the author in Mobile, in another State, Alabama, for libel on several parties by the names of Messrs. Overall, Moulton and Cleaveland; the former being the principal actor in this prosecution, at least overtly so. This circumstance, in connection with the crippling of the author’s pecuniary resources, together with the all-absorbing questions involved in the late internal war, through which we have just passed, prevented any but the first edition from appearing, which only circulated in a very limited extent of territory.
The obstacles here referred to are now pretty much out of the way. Opportunity is offered for republication on a far broader basis than before. Time is the corrector of errors and excesses. Heated passions give way to sober reason. In the enlarged edition which will shortly appear, impartial minds will at once discover that the principal object is to do justice to all—injury to no one; but this course will not exclude the guilty from exposure, yet it will endeavor to exonerate the innocent who may have been accused through misnomer or by inadvertent mistake.
Great and influential men league together, sometimes for worthy purposes, but often for unworthy ones. It is very easy to entertain the idea that a young man just setting out in the public walks of life without the prestige of the distinguished, can easily be broken down, no matter how foully the means resorted to for accomplishment. It is strange that Governor McWillie, of the State of Mississippi, should have so tamely and willingly given up the author to the laws of another State, and more especially to the particular locality where the designing influence of the prosecutors so widely extended, while well knowing that the author could have had no motive or interest in accusing or misrepresenting any—not previously knowing anything, either of name or person, in relation to the prosecuting parties, either of good or bad—only publishing in substance the unaltered revelations as made by the convict himself, the truth of which he sealed with his last dying breath on the scaffold; and while Governor McWillie, with hundreds of others, have known from previous experience the truth of the principal particulars as related by Copeland himself. This notorious clan was not only a terror to almost every part of this State, but also of many others. But all this belongs to the past, and is only now alluded to in order to give a right understanding of all the facts and circumstances connected with the whole affair from beginning to end.
Truth and justice, by oppression and by forces foul, may be held down for awhile, but the increasing and progressive power of the springs will break and throw off the impediments—again bursting forth in vigor and strength not to be crushed nor repressed by sophistry nor by the influences of money and distinguished officials.
G. Y. Overall was the principal open prosecutor of the three. It was clearly evinced on trial that there were other Overalls, and, to the satisfaction of the jury, it was to one of these whom Copeland referred to in his confessions; consequently, the public sentiment was in no way changed or weakened by the proceedings of the trial; but, on the contrary, was largely strengthened in favor of the substantial truths of the confessions.
Hon. P. Walker, the counsel for defense, maintained the same; and, further, that G. Y. Overall had not a shadow of right on his side for instituting the prosecution.
The author is frank to confess, from the testimony produced on trial, that G. Y. Overall established his innocence so far as he was concerned in point of time as specified in Copeland’s confessions. But if this had been his only object, why not have rested satisfied with a verdict in his favor which could not have failed to have been rendered without any injury to either the author or the “confessions?” Why did he, in combination with others, resort to means so disreputable, as will afterwards be shown, to crush the author or publisher, who before did not know him, and could not have had any enmity or sordid motive against him, as well as for the purpose of destroying the “confessions,” the major parts of which were well known to be strictly true? Why one part of the witnesses so infamous and in every way so suspicious? Why the strange and oscillating conduct of the Judge in varying his charges to the Jury at different stages of progress? Why, contrary to all modern usage, hold confined the jury for six long days and nights with an express and determined resolve not to release when there appeared to be no prospect of an agreement on a verdict? Why so many cunning inlets to and tampering with parts of the jury? Why, when it was worn out by fatigue and loss of rest, was the last stratagem resorted to for delusion to the effect that it was hardly worth while holding out when the penalty, if any at all, would be nothing more than a slight fine? Why the low, the despicable, and the underground agencies set at work to poison the mind of a then intended wife, and to sever the agreement of marriage which had been made in good faith on both sides? If G. Y. Overall had meant nothing more than the establishing of his own innocence as regards the confessions made, and which he unwarrantedly applied to himself, why so many mysterious forces at work and so much of corruption put in play? By endeavoring to establish too much, reaction often follows which sometimes satisfies that too little has been effected to produce any benefit to the complainer.
Public disapproval of the verdict, universal sympathy which followed the author everywhere, even within the confines of his prison—a stranger in Mobile, yet on every hand met with kind treatment both in this city and elsewhere from afar, all giving testimony against this uncalled for and malignant prosecution. Mr. Overall and company’s victory was dearly bought, and left them in a far worse condition than before they commenced.
For proving too much, a miserable subterfuge was tried to make appear that Copeland was deranged, was a maniac, and his statements entirely unworthy of credit. A more signal failure could not have been attempted. If he was non compos mentis, the law grievously erred in causing his execution. Those who knew him well, those who visited him long and often in his prison, can testify to his extraordinary strength of mind. Brave and undaunted, affable in deportment, a tenacious memory, with all other indications of mental vigor, the chances are very small of making impressions touching his insanity. And all this in the face of those localities which suffered so much from the depredations of the clan, which localities can vouch for the truth of his confessions. But the jury of inquest, on an artful plea raised at the time of his trial settles this question. A man with certain death before his eyes, with not even the remotest hope of any possibility of escape, is not governed as other men are under ordinary circumstances of business and duplicity. If, to the double-dealers and the reserved, his conduct appears strange in the exposure of his associates, how much more so in the reflections on his own mother? The testimony of a dying man, given freely and without any deceptive or compulsory force, is generally considered reliable. The circumstances under which he made his confessions, having in view his fast approaching end to all earthly scenes, the internal evidences of truth which they bear, the numerous localities which can confirm the facts as in them contained, all tend to produce convictions as to the substantial accuracy of his narrations. In his last moments before the fatal drop launched him into an endless eternity, in reference, read the following certificate, correctly transcribed, as given by an eye witness in reply to an application from the author:
Mobile, Ala., July 31st. 1873.