Reading Time: 3 minutes [343 words]

JOHN HODGES. 179

upon a mind which virtuous inducements eould betray into
error; but in what way we can distort it into treason, I have
not yet been able directly to learn.

The conduct is in itself treasonable, says the chief justice:
it necessarily imports the wicked intention charged by the
indictment, The construction makes it treason because it
aids and comforts the enemy.

These are strong aud comprehensive positions; but they
have not been proved; and they cannot be proved until we
relapse into the gulf of constructive treason, from which our
ancestora in another country have long since escaped.

Gracious God! In the nineteenth century, to talk of eon-
structive treason! Is it possible that in this favored land—
this last asylum of liberty—blest with all that can render a
nation happy at home and respected abroad—this should be
jaw? No. I stand up as a man to resene my country from
this reproach. I sey there is no color for this slander npon
our jurisprudence. Had I thought otherwise I should have
asked for merey—not for law. I would have sent my client
to the feet of the president, not have brought him, with bold
defiance, to confront hia accusers, and demand your verdict.
He could have had a noli prosequi. I confirmed him in his
resolution not to ask it, by telling him that he was safe with-
out it. Under these circumstances I may claim some respect
tor my opinion. My opportunities for forming a judgment
upon this subject, I am compelled to say, by the strange tum
which this cause has taken, are superior to those of the chief
justice. I say nothing of the knowledge which long study
and extensive practice enabled me to bring to the considera-
tion of the case. I rely upon this—my opinion has not been
hastily formed—since the commencement of the trial. It is
the result of a deliberate examination of all the authorities,
of a thorough investigation of the law of treason in all its
branches, made at leisure, and under a deep sense of a fear-
ful responsibility to my client. It depended upon me whether
he should submit himself to your justice, or use, with the
chief magistrate, the intercession of the grand jury, which

Related Posts