exalted humanity of the righteous judge. It is only thus that upon this memorable occasion, and by this grand inquest of the State, an ex ample can be exhibited, ennobling the judicial character and honoring the State. Be sure, your honors, that whenever principles of law are disregarded in the administration of justice, when the innocent citizen sinks beneath pre judiced judgment, the most stable institutions of our land are stricken with fatal blows. I repeat the belief, that individual and national safety depends upon the integrity of the bench, and the pure and bold administration of the law. Many dangers assail us; we are travelling fast in the footsteps of the old republics. Luxury and corruption are eating into the foundations of society. Bribery and fraud poison our elective system, and infect our representative halls. But if our courts are true to their mission, firm in principle and uncontaminated by the venality and frauds of modern politics, the patriot need not fear. Political judges are the great danger of the republic. In the name of my client, on this rare proceeding, when a victim is sought for the bench beside you, I have a right to invoke the highest and purest exercise of your judg ment. Your honors, shielded by these principles and protected by these ordinary presumptions, I again demand proof of the guilty purpose of this respondent. I care not how technically erroneous and faulty you may find him; guided by superior wisdom and broader experience, you may discover many faults; but I still demand clear and convincing proof of corruption. I would, your honors, I could address you in the spirit and with the language of the learned advo cates from whom I have quoted; that with their noble and inspired oratory I could adjure you to regard the rights of my client, the privileges of citizenship, the purity of the law; and in their language demand from you, before conviction, not surmise and conjecture, not uncharitable and condemnatory presumption, but satisfactory proofs, — such proof as you would require in the administration of justice in any other court than this. Although, your honors, from this evidence, just and good men might indulge suspicions, if you, in the pure and honorable instincts of your nature, might suspect wrong, are you then to condemn? Such is not the teaching of the illustrious advocates to whom I have referred.
You have no right to disregard the presumptions of law, and upon mere suspicion render a dis astrous judgment. I pray your honors to follow the ancient paths of justice. I speak to judges and learned senators, practised and experienced. They have no right to yield to the common and vulgar prejudices which so often mislead and betray human judgment. We look to them for a higher exercise of wisdom. You are bound to decide wisely and justly. You are bound to resist these insidious assaults of error, come from whatever quarter they may. "I am sure, may it please the court, that I do not overstep the limits of advocacy when I thus emphatically and repeatedly address these ap peals to the conscientiousness of each of its members." 1
- i Messrs. Managers, could you not have spared
this respondent that other cruel and unnatural attack? You represent the independence and dignity of the Assembly for New York. You are vested with its prerogatives and powers. Oh, in the charitable instincts of your nature, could you not have spared him the imputation that he left the bed of his dying mother at the beck of Fisk and Gould? My learned friends have rung the changes upon this accusation. They know how to appeal most touchingly to the sentiments, — the blessed and holy senti ments of our nature. They knew how it would touch the hearts of this court and the com munity, could they fasten upon this respondent the unfilial crime of deserting the dying pillow of his mother to render corrupt service to dis honest men. But they have perverted the sen timent. They have played ingeniously, but falsely, upon the hearts of this court. Oh, at that hallowed name of mother, how many gentle and fervent emotions arise, — how we are carried back to the days of our childhood; how we re member her gentle care and cheering encourage ment; how we recall the days when, at her knee, we learned to lisp those infant prayers which, if we have any purity within us, have been its origin and its stay! And I thank God that with many of us, unlike this respondent, we are not driven ' To pine for the touch of a vanished hand, For the sound of a voice that is still.' " 2 1 Official Report, p. 1903.
2 Ibid., p. iqoS.
