Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 10.djvu/192

180 PBDEBAL BEPORTEB. �the idea kept pressing on him; that he waa horrified; kept throwing it off ; did not want to give it attention ; tried to shake it off ; but it kept growing upon him, so that at the end of two weeks his mind was thoroughly fixed as to the necessity for the president's removal and the divinity of the inspiration. He never had the slightest doubt of the divinity of the inspiration from the first of June. He kept praying about it, and that if it was not the Lord's will that he should remove the president there would be some waj' by which His providence would intereept the act. He kept reading the newspapers, and his inspiration was being confirined every day, and since the first day of June he has never had a doubt about the divinity of the act. �In the cross-examination he said : If the political necessity had not existed the president would not have been removed — there would have been no necessity for the inspiration. About the first of June he made up his mind as to the inspiration of the act, and the necessity for it ; from the sixteenth of June to the second of July he prayed that if he was wrong, the Deity would stop him by His providence ; in May it was an embryo inspiration — a mere impression that possibly it might have to be done ; he was doubting whether it was the Deity that was inspiring him, and was praying that the Deity would not let him make a mistake about it; and that at last it was the Deity, and not he, who killed the president. �Again, the confirmation that it was the Deity, and not the devil, who inspired the idea of removing the president, came to him in the fact that the newspapers were all denouncing the president. He saw that the political situation required the removal of the president, and that is the way he knew that his intended act was inspired by the Deity; but for the political situation, he would have thought that it came from the devil. �This is the substance of all that appears in the case on the sub- ject of inspiration. �It is proper to call your attention to some variations in the prison- er's statements at different times. �In two of the papers of July he says it was his own conception, and he took the entire responsibility. �In the conversations reported by Dr. Gray, in November, he did not connect the Deity with the inception of the act. The conception was his own, and the inspiration came after he made up his mind ; but he does not explain what he meant by the inspiration, unless it was that it was a pressure upon him, or, as he expresses it, the duty of doing it was pressing upon him. ��� �