"They, however, undertake to say that the crime of the murder of the President of the United States in time of war or great civil commotion, is not as henious a crime as it would be in England to murder the Chief of their country; and that there is no divinity about our government. What is its origin? All government is either of God or the devil, and they will have to take their choice. I say that the government is of God, and that no other government will stand. What says the civilized world upon this subject? I wrote a note to the Secretary of State two days ago, asking him to send me the letters that were transmitted from the different governments of the civilized world upon the subject of this murder, and what do you think he sent me? He sent me the note I hold in my hand and with it this large printed volume. It takes every line and word of that book, a book of 717 pages, closely printed, to contain the letters of condolence that were written to this government from the foreign governments of the world. Entire Christendom wrote, entire Christendom looked upon it as one of the most horrible of crimes—one that required every nation, even to the Turk, to write for the purpose of expressing their abhorrence of the crime. And, gentlemen, I hold in my hand the original paper sent by some 13,000 rebel prisoners, and our prisoners, at Point Lookout. Here is the paper in which these rebel prisoners, met together, passed their resolutions of condemnation, and their curse upon this crime. I would try this case before any twelve of those rebel prisoners, and feel certain of a verdict, and yet the gentlemen tell us this murder is like that of the commonest vagabond that ever walked the streets, and the crime no higher. Not so thought the rebels; not so thought any honorable man in arms against us; not so thinks any right-minded man upon the face of the earth."
The judge in giving his charge to the jury, addressing himself to this point, spoke as follows:—
"Historians and text writers on the law may treat of the heinousness of the crime of imagining the death of a weak or a wicked king or of a wise or benignant monarch, but you know, gentlemen, as well as you know that you exist, that to murder the duly elected President of the most powerful people on earth, is not less atrocious in its character than to compass the death of a king, or an emperor, albeit he may have sprang from the loins of the people, who have made him their representative head, and may have no royal blood coursing through his veins. You may be told that it is a crime surpassingly heinous to take or compass the life of him who has occupied a throne simply because he may be the king of an enslaved people, but that to take the life of the President of a free republic is an offense of no greater magnitude than to murder the 'veriest vagabond that walks your streets'; but an American jury will only believe this doctrine when the people have become so demoralized and corrupt, so devoid of the love of liberty and patriotic feeling, as to prefer to have a king and ruler foisted upon them by the accident of birth or fortunate adventure, rather than have the making of their own selection of him who is to execute their laws, and, for the time being, to stand as the representative head of their collective sovereignty.
"It is a mistake to suppose that a free people in any country will ever consider it a more henious crime to kill a king, or even to desire his death, than it is to assassinate a President. It is of no avail to tell you that to surround the life of a President of a republic with safeguards as sacred and powerful as those which, in monarchies, are thrown about a king, as you have been told in the argument, is a modern idea, 'entertained only by those whose eyes have been dazzled by visions of stars and garters, and who are desirous of changing our free institutions for a monarchical form of government.'
"On the contrary, they can only be opposed to guarding with sacred vigilance the life of the President of a free people who are themselves prepared to submit to the rule of a despot. Why should the people be less proud or less regardful of the life of a ruler selected by themselves, from among themselves, than they would be of the life of him who claimed to rule over them of his own right? When this question can be sensibly answered, I shall be willing to admit that the life of a President is less worth preserving than that of a king, and that to destroy the life of a President is a crime of less atrocity than to merely desire the death of a prince; but not till then; nor do I believe you will."
The practical legal bearing of this question on the trial was as to whether the prisoner, being proven to have been a member of the conspiracy which resulted in the death of President Lincoln by the hands of a fellow-conspirator, should be held as a principal in the crime, or only an accessory before the fact. In other words whether the court and jury could take cognizance of the official position of Abraham Lincoln without its being alleged in the indictment. If he could be regarded as a principal and not as an accessory he could be held equally guilty with Booth although he might not have been present and assisting in the assassination.
Practically, however, this was not a matter of any consequence in this trial, because it was proven beyond a doubt that the prisoner was actually present, acting a conspicuous part in the execution of the plot. It was also proven by the testimony of one witness whose testimony was in no way impeached that it was he, and not Spangler, who prepared and fitted the bar to the door to prevent Booth being followed into the box at the theatre. The summing up of the evidence by Judge Pierrepont in his concluding speech is one of the most admirable and masterly efforts that can be anywhere found. In the first place it is a model of judicial fairness and honesty. To him the prisoner was evidently a pure abstraction toward whom he had no feelings. His only effort was to weigh impartially the evidence in the case, and to give to it a fair and common sense interpretation. He brushed away all side issues and every effort of the prisoner's counsel to bring the trial under the influence of political and of religious prejudices, and held them strictly to the question of the guilt or innocence of the prisoner, as shown by the evidence. Again it was a model effort in its logical ability in bringing the evidence before the jury. He had so completely analyzed the testimony that he was able to present it in its logical connection as to time, purpose, and circumstances; tracing the plot through the evidence before him, from its incipiency to its completion, step by step, showing the bearing and relation that one thing sustained to another in a most conclusive and unanswerable way.
He had systematically and logically arranged the testimony, which had necessarily been presented in a most desultory and unsatisfactory way, from the fact that the evidence had to be taken just as witnesses were found to be present. By great care and labor the judge had arranged the evidence just in the order in which he would have chosen to introduce it had the witnesses all been at his command at the moment he would have chosen to use them. Having thus arranged the testimony, he simply read it to the jury, stopping when necessary to comment on it and interpret it. His fair, natural, common sense interpretation of the facts proven could not fail to bring conviction to every intelligent, and candid mind. That the proof before him had brought to the mind of this eminent and experienced advocate and jurist the most complete conviction of the prisoner's guilt, is shown throughout his argument. He did not, however, leave the matter of his own convictions to be the subject merely of inference, but left himself on record on this point as follows:—
"In this case I feel justified in saying, that the prisoner is proved to be guilty, and in as overwhelming a manner as any man was ever proven guilty in the history of jurisprudence. I appeal to any judge, any lawyer, any man who has had experience, if there was ever a case where the guilt of the party, was more clearly demonstrated. He is proven guilty not only beyond a reasonable doubt, but beyond the possibility of any doubt. There is not a man of you who can doubt it. It has been a strange case. It was a strange providence that brought the man back here to be tried. And now that he is here, you, the twelve men who in the providence of God have been selected to try the case, are to say whether what he has done is right or not right; whether he is guilty or not guilty.
"That is for you to say, not for me. I know he is proved guilty. About that there can be no doubt. I do not believe that any of you have any doubt whatever on that subject."