it for? He was either fleeing because he had aided in the death of Mr. Lincoln in this conspiracy, or because he had not. Which was it? Was he fleeing because he had not? You will hardly say that. Then it was because he had. He had been engaged in something which made him wish to flee. Where does he next go after leaving Mr. Porterfield's? Why, he goes in that carriage in the darkness of the night to a little place called Libiore, to the house of Boucher, whom you saw upon the stand. He is a priest-a priest who has not done any honor to his honored church. In this connection it will be remembered that when this government was in pursuit of this prisoner, Cardinal Antonelli, even before the government ever made a request, hastened to deliver him up in consequence of the enormity of this great crime. This priest will hear from the Pope and from his bishop before he is a year older. As I said, the prisoner went to this priest's house, and was there concealed, the priest tells you, until the following July. Let us see why he was being concealed in the house of this priest, where his friends visited him, and where he was enjoying himself in hunting; where many, from day to day, came as his visitors; and what was going on in this city at that time. A reward had been offered for his apprehension-a large reward, both by the city and by the government, and there he stays in concealment. And what else was going on? His own mother had been apprehended, and was on trial for her life. Where was her son? Concealed, visited by these people. And why concealed? Has the counsel explained to you why he was concealed? Not at all Why was he concealed? It was either because he was innocent or because he was guilty. Which was it? You will have to determine. Now let us turn a moment and see what was going on here during that time. The mother and the other conspirators were on trial The proceedings were reported every day in the newspapers, and the entire civilized world were thus notified of what was transpiring and were carefully observing it. Did not he know about it? He was here within thirty-six hours of this city and kept there concealed; changed the color of his hair, changed his garments, wore spectacles for disguise, was visited by his friends, who were traitors to his government. Did not he know what was going on? Let us see whether he did or not. I hold in my hand a very curious little paper; and let me say here that I never knew a trial of great magnitude, and where there was fraud or crime, that these things did not appear. They always do. I knew they would before this trial commenced, and at that time I had never heard of this paper. What is it? Here is a paper with a mark and a cross before it. "S," "P" and then a “C,” with a blank line between, and then the words "all right," "Toney," "No hurry," "G. A. Atzerodt," and addressed to Washington, D. C. Let us see what further there is about it. It is put into the post office in New York on the 15th day of May, 1865, soon after the trial of his mother and Atzerodt had commenced, and that trial continued, and the death warrant, the original of which I have here, was signed on the 5th day of July following. Yet he wrote that letter to one of his conspirators, and put it into the post office in the city of New York on the 15th day of May. Now they wanted to make some little question, I believe, about the handwriting. Gentlemen, here is the handwriting. I will show it to you. Here is the card that nobody denies. They are as much alike as any two things can possibly be. It is his own natural hand, and here is the letter which all admit to be his own. Here is this card and here is this writing. They are exactly alike. The writing is not even disguised in the least.

Now, what did all that mean? You heard Boucher's account here. I shall come to that in the progress of the examination of the evidence. He says the prisoner staid with him until the latter part of July, after the execution of these criminals. Then what did he do? He took him, secretly, to the house of another priest, named La Pierre, who had discretion enough not to come here and tell the world of his shame. I tell you again that this priest, Boucher, will

hear from his Pope and his bishop before he is a year older. The Catholic church never did sanction such a heinous crime as this; this is evident from the action of the Pope in this particular case, who hurried with unusual zeal to deliver up the fugitive in his dominions, although we had no treaty of extradition, the moment he heard that he was the one suspected of participation of this horrible crime. Well, he takes him up to La Pierre's, and there he is concealed, and concealed until when? He is concealed until the following September, receiving his friends, and amusing himself in the best way he could with safety to his life. In September, just five months after this murder, La Pierre takes him upon the steamer for Montreal, locks him up in a state-room, and takes him down, and from thence goes with him on board of the Peruvian, having first gone to Dr. McMillan, the surgeon of the ship, and told him he had a friend who was in some difficulty, and wanted to escape without his name being known. He is introduced to McMillan as McCarty, has on spectacles, and has his hair dyed. The steamer starts for the Old World, and now what happens? He had not been on that steamer thirty minutes after she started before he appeared startled, and looking around, says to McMillan, "that man is an American detective; he is after me." The wicked flee when none pursue; the righteous are as bold as a lion. He was not very bold, was he? He put his hand in his pocket and drew out his revolver, remarking, "but this will fix him." McMillan inquires, "Why do you think this gentleman to whom you refer is an American detective; and if so, why do you care?" Says he, "I have done such things that, if you should know them, it would make you stare." What were the things he had done? It is true he had run away from his mother; but good boys have done that before.

What were the horrid things he had done, which, if McMillan knew, would make him stare? Why did he startle at seeing an American detective, as he supposed, but who turned out to be a lumber merchant from Toronto? Why was he frightened whenever any one came near? He is innocent, they say. We will follow him on. Somehow or other, there was such a terrible burden weighing upon his heart that he could not keep it to himself, and he had every once in a while, for the purpose of unburdening his guilty soul, to go behind the wheel-house and talk to McMillan, (the only one he knew,) and from time to time to detail to him the scenes through which he passed-those which left such a horrid impression on his mind. Criminals tell us that they always find relief in thus unburdening their heavy hearts. Most criminals, sooner or later, if they are not brought to justice, will return to the place of their crime, in very madness and torment at their guilty ɛecret, and will tell all that they have done. They cannot retain it. When the prisoner got to old ocean, where only one whose name he knew was there, he could not help telling his awful secret. Now you know very well what it was. I shall come to what it was before I am done. He finally came to Ireland. When he came to Ireland, he hesitated whether he should land on the Irish coast, or whether he should wait until he got to Liverpool; and he consulted Dr. McMillan as to which he had better do. Says Dr. McMillan, "I cannot tell you.which you had better do. You can do just as you please." He replies, "I will go to Liverpool." Finally, as they neared the coast of Ireland, while coming into the bay, McMillau found him unexpectedly upon the deck, with his clothes on and a little satchel in his hand, ready to depart. The prisoner says, "I have changed my mind. It is now night, and dark, and I have concluded I will land here in Ireland." What then did he do? He wanted McMillan to go into the bar-room and drink. It being late at night, the bar was closed, but they found the bar-keeper and had it opened. What did he then do? He takes tumbler after tumbler of raw brandy, until he is made so drunk as scarcely to be able to walk, and Dr. McMillan calls an officer to watch him as he passed over the gang-plank. Why was that? We have now got him in Ireland. He had not been in that country long before

66

something seemed to whisper in his ear that this gallant land had no place for treason and murder, and he consequently vanished from there. Where next do we see him? Next he wanders about muffled in the darkness of the night in Liverpool. He had not been there long before something seemed to say that England's air could not be breathed by treason and by murder; and again he fled. Where next do we find him? In Rome; away from his language, his country, his kinsmen, his all. He changed his name there to Watson. He enlisted in the Papal zouaves and went away from Rome. Was not he safe then? Oh, yes, to be sure, he is all safe. He is in the disguise of a Roman zouave, and he is ordered away to Ferrara, far from Rome, where there are none that know him but those in his battalion. In that land all others are strangers to him. Now he is safe. Safe! God does not allow those who commit such deeds as his to be safe anywhere. It must have been an awful hour when he saw peering through the cap of the zouave the old familiar face of St. Marie, whom he knew in his school-boy days. Again I say, safety under such circumstances is not possible. God is wiser than that. What then happens? He walks down the road soon after, and says to St. Marie: Let by-gones be by-gones. I want to save my life. I escaped from Washington in the disguise of an Englishman on the morning or night of the assassination, and I got away and am here." And this disguise of an Englishman, and the courier's bag of an Englishman which he carried, and the handkerchief, are subjects to which I wish to call your attention when I come to the specific evidence. I am now speaking generally of what occurred. Then he heard from the Vatican, in no whispered tones, that the States of his holiness the Pope had no nook or corner in which treason and murder could be hid. In desperation he made a fearful leap at the peril of immediate death and escaped to Malta, and when he had reached that island in the Mediterranean sea, there something still haunted him and told him that there was no hiding place for treason and for murder, and from thence he vanished. Next we trace him into Egypt; that ancient of lands-the land of mystery and of eld, where the Pharaohs dwelt; where Joseph was a slave; where Moses lived; where by the power of devils and of God such miracles were wrought; where flows the wondrous Nile, upon whose banks are the grandest ruins of forgotten empire, and the pyramids, which are eternal; and there, even, the colossal sphynx, looking at him with her stony eyes, seemed to say, "what scourge for treason and for murder can this dark monarchy afford this traitor?" He fled no more. His knees smote together and his arms fell nerveless at his side. He resisted not at all. He gave himself up without a struggle; was placed upon a United States ship of war, and came over the long sea, and up the broad river to the city of his crime. Two years between the crime and the arraignmenttwo awful years. God grant that you nor your children may ever pass through such years as those. He is brought before the grand jury of your city, and is indicted for this crime. Now, this was the strange flight of an innocent man, as my learned friend says, or rather argues it was. Now, what do you think about it? Do you think that an innocent man would do those things? Do you think he fled because he did not engage in murder, or because he did-which? Let us see if we can unravel the mystery. It is certainly a mystery as it now stands that an innocent man should thus flee. I think that we can get at it. What was it? Let us come back in the history of time a little. You will remember that on the anniversary of that day on which the Saviour was crucified, the President of the United States was murdered, and that Secretary Seward was assassinated. It is a day that will ever be remembered in the history of this country. The enormity of the crime sent a shudder through the civilized world. For no cruelty, for no oppression, for no wrong, but simply for his holy devotion to liberty and the service of his country, was he thus foully murdered. As you well know, the pathway of his youth was not

smoothed with dalliance and with luxury, but it was rough, stony, and thorny, with affliction and with toil. He had always been a man of sorrows, and his acquaintance with grief had left a deeper melancholy in his face than could be seen in any other. A few weeks before he died, you will remember, he uttered these remarkable words:

"Neither party expected for the war the magnitude or the duration which it has already attained. Neither anticipated that the cause of the conflict might cease with, or even before, the conflict itself should cease. Each looked for an easier triumph, and a result less fundamental and astounding. Both read the same bible and pray to the same God; and each invokes His aid against the other. It may seem strange that any men should dare to ask a just God's assistance in wringing their bread from the sweat of other men's faces; but let us judge not that we be not judged. The prayers of both could not be answered; that of neither has been answered fully. The Almighty has His own purposes. 'Woe unto the world because of offences, for it must needs be that offences come; but woe to that man by whom the offence cometh.' If we shall suppose American slavery is one of the offences which, in the providence of God, must needs come, but which, having continued through His appointed time, He now wills to remove, and that He gives to both North and South this terrible war as the woe due to those by whom the offence came, shall we discern therein any departure from those divine attributes which the believers in a living God always ascribe to Him? Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray, that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondman's two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said, 'The judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.'

"With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation's wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow and his orphan; to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with

all nations."

And earlier, before the bloody sacrifice, he wrote to a poor woman who had sent all her sons to battle and to death, this short letter of condolence:

"EXECUTIVE MANSION, "Washington, November 21, 1864. "DEAR MADAM: I have been shown, in the files of the War Department, a statement of the adjutant general of Massachusetts, that you are the mother of five sons who have died gloriously on the field of battle. I feel how weak and fruitless must be any words of mine which should attempt to beguile you from the grief of a loss so overwhelming. But I cannot refrain from tendering to you the consolation that may be found in the thanks of the republic they died to save. I pray that our Heavenly Father may assuage the anguish of your bereavement, and leave you only the cherished memory of the loved and lost, and the solemn pride that must be yours to have laid so costly a sacrifice upon the altar of freedom.

Yours, very sincerely and respectfully,

"A. LINCOLN."

This, gentlemen, as I have already said, is a trial of one of those conspirators. It has this marked feature in it: it is the first judicial trial that has ever been instituted to try any of those conspirators. Our freedom-loving race and the sturdy blood from which we spring have always clung with exceeding fondness to liberty to the right of trial by jury in a court of law, and they have always been jealous of military power. When the other conspirators were tried it was claimed that as the head of the United States had been murdered in his camp, it was eminently fit that the trial of those conspirators should be held by military men. Many said that in the city of Washington there was so much feeling and sympathy for the rebel cause, there were so many enemies of our country here, that the chances were that a jury would not be found among whose number there would not be some one or two in sympathy with the traitor and the assassin, who would prevent a verdict. That argument was used in favor of the military tribunal, instead of a trial in the courts of law. I am one of those who at all times, and upon all occasions, have insisted that the civil courts, with a jury of twelve men, were competent to the trial of these crimes. I have always believed it. I believe it now. It is for the very reason that I believe it that I stand here. I have always proclaimed it. I do not stand here, called because I be

longed to the side of the republicans, for, as all know, I never did. The public office which I held was given me by democrats. The office which I now hold in the convention was from the democratic city of New York. I am called here because I believed, and because I ever insisted, that a jury of twelve honest men, when they find a man guilty, will say he is guilty; and that the court is competent to administer the law, and that the jury are competent and willing to administer justice. If you set at naught all my confidence, and if you prove to. the world that I am wrong, and that a jury of twelve men in the city of Washington will not find a man guilty of this great crime when he is proved to be guilty, then I will acknowledge that I have been mistaken, and bid farewell to the cherished dreams of my youth and of my manhood, which whispered that my country might continue to be free, for I know that no country can long be free that will not administer justice upon those who commit great crimes. Society will have protection; property will have protection; life will have protection; and if it cannot come through the civil tribunal, then every good man will hail the military. Then we will all join in saying that if our rights are thus to be swept away, let the useless ermine fall from the judge, let the sword write the record, and let the military commander execute the law.

I do not know what purposes the great Ruler of the world may have in this trial; but of one thing we may all be assured, that this is not an unmeaning trial. It is, as I have said, the only trial had before a court and jury of any of these conspirators. The whole civilized world is looking on. There is not a hamlet in this great country that has not already read the evidence. There is not a country in the wh le of Christian Europe that will not soon have read it. proved that liberty cannot exist in this happy land. Our enemies, who wish The whole world is listening to it, and our enemies are hoping that it will here be arbitrary power, would be delighted beyond expression if they could find that a jury in the city of Washington would not convict a criminal of this great crime when the evidence proved him guilty. Every lover of freedom, every lover of constitutional liberty, every lover of our free and blessed government is ready to fall upon his knees and pray that no such calamity may befall our country as to have a jury of twelve men, or one ont of the twelve, refuse to find a man guilty when the law and the evidence say that he is guilty. In a great country like this, of course, there are a variety of interests. There are many men who feel hostile, the one toward one political party and the other toward the other, in this country. We have been through with a civil war which tended to inflame the passions. Congress, as you know, has recently been in session here, and just left. Of course, these great political subjects are topics of conversation. A great many men from interested motives, some from political motives, and some possibly from patriotic motives, are very anxious to remove this capital from its present place. They say it does not belong here; that the people are not in sympathy and harmony with this great government; that it is full of people who hate the government, and therefore they would like to see it removed. They would like any excuse in order to get it removed. A great many others desire to have it retained here. Those who live on the other side of the mountains would seize on any ground to take up this capital and move it over there, where it is more central; and what every such man of all things wants to be able, at the top of his voice, to say in Congress, when they meet in November, is: "You see it is just as I told you. You cannot get justice in the city of Washington; a jury of the city of Washington refuses even to find guilty the assassin of the President, who is overwhelmingly proved to be guilty. We will remove the capital far hence. We will take it to a place where a public officer can be safe, and where those who are in power may be relieved from the dangers of assassination, which they cannot be if a jury of the country say it is right." As I said, great issues hang on this trial, it being the first and only trial of the conspirators before a civil court and a jury of twelve men. Its responsibility and