212 Slide – American State Trials 1918 Volume X Leo Frank Document

180 X. AMERICAN STATE TRIALS.

could not have failed to be successful. You are charged with
his life and honor, because I assured him that the law was
a pledge for the security of both. I declared to him that I
would stake my own life upon the safety of his; and I de-
elare to you now that you have as much power to shed the
blood of the advocate as to harm the client whom he defends.

If the mere naked fact of delivery constitute the crime of
treason, why not hang the man who goes under 8 flag of
truce to return or exchange prisonerat According to the
doctrine of the chief justice, this man is equally guilty with
him who stands at the bar, if you are forbidden to examine
his mind, but are commanded by the law to look only to his
acts, I ask you to consider this, in the spirit of Stone’s case:
that doctrine, I pledge myself, goes through every nerve and
artery of the law,

If the doctrine of the chief justice be the law of the land,
every man concerned in the deeda of blood that were acted
during our recent war, was a murderer. Our gallant soldiera
who met and repulsed the hostile step whenever it trod upon
our shores: our gallant tars who unfurled our flag, and ac-
quired for us a name and a rank upon the ocean, which will
not soon be obliterated—these are all liable to be arraigned
at thia bar. These men have carried dismay and death into
the ranks of the foe: blood calls for blood. You dare not in-
quire into the causes which produced the circumstances
which attended the motives which prompted these deeda of
earnage. The act, you are told by the chief justice, and such
is the reasoning of the attorney, involves the intent!

Gentlemen! this desolating doctrine would sweep us from
the face of the earth. Even when we deserved to be crowned
with laurela, we should be stretched upon a gibbet. I trem-
ble for my children, for my country, when I reflect upon the
consequences of these detestable tenets, which reduces indis-
cretion and wickedness to the same level. Which of you is
there that in some unguarded moment may not, with honest
motives, be imprudent? Which of you can hope to pass
through life without the imputation of crime, if your motives