Mr. Bliss. Whose name is expressed in the memorandum?
Mr. Ingersoll. Why did you not say that to the jury? You dared not do it. That is like what was said here the other day before this jury, and taken out of the record. We will come to it. These are the gentlemen who did not wish to stain the names of citizens. These are the gentlemen who did not wish to bring anybody into this case that had not been indicted. And yet Mr. Bliss, in his opening, said that he would show you at least one Senator who was the paid agent of these defendants; and now, having failed to do it, he stands here before you and asks whose name was on the pencil memorandum, meaning that J. H. Mitchell was the paid agent of these defendants.
Ah, gentlemen, I would not, for the sake of convicting any man on this earth, stain the reputation of another in a place and in a way where that other could not defend himself. I would not do it. I do not think there is any crime beyond that. It is as bad to stab the reputation as it is to stab the flesh; it is as bad to kill the honor of the man as to put a dagger into his heart.
There are so many things in these papers that I would never get through, if I commented upon them all, if I talked forty years. I now refer to page 4509. I have to change from one of these lawyers to the other. Now, on this subject of subcontracts, showing how we are endeavoring to cheat and defraud the Government, Mr. Ker says, at page 4509:
Acting upon Stephen W. Dorsey's advice he put in this clause giving the subcontractors sixty-five per cent, of the increase. I want you to remember the sixty-five per cent., because I will show you some subcontracts with that amount in, but I do not want you to think for one moment that the subcontractors ever got a dollar out of it.
Gentlemen, the evidence is that the subcontractors were paid the amount mentioned in their subcontracts. I believe all of them are on file in this case, and on all that were filed in the department the money was paid directly to the subcontractor. And yet Mr. Ker tells you that he does not want you to think for a moment that the subcontractors ever got one dollar out of it. Is it possible, gentlemen, that there is any necessity for resorting to such statements? Can you conceive of any reason for doing it, except that they are actually mistaken, except for the fact that they know they have not the evidence to convict these defendants?
We are not begging of you. We are not upon our knees before you. But we do want to be tried according to the evidence and according to the law. We do not want your mind, nor yours, nor yours [addressing different jurors] poisoned with a misstatement. We want to be tried, and we want the verdict rendered by you when every fact is as luminous in your mind as the sun at mid-day. We want every fact to stand out like stars in a perfect night, without a cloud of doubt between you and the fact. That is the kind of a verdict we want. We want a verdict that comes from a clear head and a brave heart. We do not want a verdict simply from sympathy. We want a verdict according to the evidence and according to the law. And when the verdict is given we want every one of you to say, "That is my verdict; I found it upon the evidence and upon the law; dig beneath it and you will not find used as the corner-stone a misstatement, or a mistake, or a falsehood; it stands upon the rock of fact, upon the foundation of absolute truth."
Do you know that if I were prosecuting a man, trying to take from him his liberty, trying to take from him his home, trying to rob his fireside and make it desolate, and if I should succeed and afterwards know that I had made a misstatement of the evidence to the jury, I could not sleep until I had done what was in my power to release that man; and after he was released, or even if he were not released, I would go to him when he was wearing the prison garb, and I would get down on my knees and beg him to forgive me. I would rather be sent to the penitentiary myself, I would rather wear the stripes of eternal degradation, than to send another man there by a misstatement or a mistake that I had made. That is my feeling. I may be wrong.
It may be that I am guilty, according to Colonel Bliss, of sneering at everything that people hold sacred. But I do not sneer at justice. I believe that over all, justice sits the eternal queen, holding in her hand the scales in which are weighed the deeds of men. I believe that it is my duty to make the world a little better, because I have lived in it. I believe in helping my fellow-men. I do no not sneer at charity; I do not sneer at justice, and I do not sneer at liberty. And why did he make that remark to you, gentlemen? Is it possible that for a moment he dreamed that he might prejudice your minds against the case of my client, because, I, his attorney, am not what is called a believer? Is it possible that he has so mean an opinion of a Christian that a Christian would violate his oath when upon the jury, simply to get even with a lawyer who happened to be an infidel? Is that his idea of Christianity? It is not mine; it is not mine. I stand before you to-day, gentlemen, as a man having the rights you have, and no more; and I am willing to work and toil and suffer to give you every right that I enjoy. And I know that not one of you will allow himself to be prejudiced against my client because you and I happen to disagree upon subjects about which none of us know anything for certain. I do not believe you will. And yet, that remark was made, gentlemen—I will not say that it was made, but may be it was—hoping that it would lodge the seed of prejudice in your minds, hoping that it might bring to life that little adder of hatred that sleeps unknown to us in nearly all of our bosoms. I have too much confidence in you, too much confidence in human nature to believe that can affect my client.
Now, gentlemen, there is no pretence, there is no evidence that every subcontractor did not get the per cent, mentioned in his subcontract, except one, and that was Mr. French, on the route from Kearney to Kent; and the evidence there is that Miner settled with him, I believe, and gave him a certain amount of money in lieu of expedition. That is the solitary exception.