I have had hard work to keep within certain limits. There would words get into my mouth and insist on coming out, but I said: "go away; go away." I don't want to hurt people's feelings if I can help it. I don't want anyone unnecessarily humiliated, but I say whatever stands between you and justice must give way; and if you have to walk over reputations—and if they become pavement you cannot help it. You must do exactly what is right, and let those who have done wrong bear the consequences.

Now, gentlemen, I have confidence in you. I have confidence in this verdict. I think I know what it will be. It will be that the will is spurious, and that the will of 1880 revoked it, whether spurious or not. That is my judgment, and I don't think there is any man in the world smart enough or ingenious enough to get any other verdict from you as long as John A. Davis was afraid to swear that it was an honest will; as long as James R. Eddy, the forger, dare not take the stand; and they will never get a verdict in this world without taking the stand, and if they do take it, that is the end. There is where they are.

Now, all I ask in the world, as I said, is a fair, honest, impartial verdict at your hands. That I expect. More than that I do not ask. And now, gentlemen, I may never see you again after this trial is over—separated we may be forever—but I want to thank you from the bottom of my heart for the attention you have paid to the evidence in this case and for the patient hearing you have given me.

Note: The Jury disagreed and the case was compromised.

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ARGUMENT BEFORE THE VICE-CHANCELLOR IN THE RUSSELL CASE.

* Russell vs. Russell, before Martin P. Grey. V. C., Camden,
N. J., June 21, 1899. This was Colonel Ingersoll's last
appearance in public. The report of this argument has been
made from the stenographer's notes and therefore of
necessity incomplete. It was delivered without notes and the
proofs were not seen or corrected by the author. No
decision in this case has as yet been rendered, August 1,
1900

IF your Honor please: I agree with Mr. Pancoast at least in one remark that he made—I think about the only one—that John Russell is dead. I think there is no controversy about that. But as to the other remarks made and the positions taken by him, I fail to agree.

In the first place, for several hundred years the courts of England, and for more than a hundred years the courts of this country, have very jealously guarded the right of dower; and wherever a woman has by antenuptial agreement given up her right of dower, all the courts have decided—and I know of no exception, and Mr. Pancoast has brought forward none—that at the time she made the contract waiving her dower she must have been in the possession of all of the facts, so that she could act with absolutely full knowledge. And where a man seeks to make an agreement by virtue of which the wife, or the supposed wife, shall waive her dower, decision after decision says that he must tell the truth, and the whole truth, and that it is just as fraudulent to suppress a fact as to manufacture one. He must tell the absolute truth. The relation of the parties is such, and the dower right is such, that the courts will not take the right away from the woman unless she gives it freely, and, at the time she gives it, knows all the facts bearing upon the question as to whether she should or should not release or waive her dower.