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

486 X, AMERICAN STATE TRIALS.

else but words precede; but if from giving him such kind of
language, I proceed to take him by the nose, or fillip him on
the forehead, that is an assault, that is a blow; the law will
not oblige a man to stand still and bear it; there is the dis-
tinction; hands off, touch me not; as soon es you touch me,
if I run you through the heert it is but manslaughter; the
utility of this distinction, the more you think of it, the more
you will be satisfied with it; it is an assault whenever a blow
is struck, let it be ever so slight, and sometimes even without
a blow. The law considers man as frail and passionate;
when his passions are touched he will be thrown off his
guard; and therefore the law makes allowances for this
frailty, considera him as in a fit of passion, not having the
possession of his intellectual faculties; and consequently
does not oblige him to measure out his blows with a yard-
stick, or weigh them in a scale; let him kill with a sword,
gun, or hedge-stake, it is not murder, but only manslaughter.

December 4.

(Mr. Adams proceeded to a minute consideration of every
witness in the case, and endeavored to show, that the assault
upon the soldiers was sufficiently dangerous to justify them
in the course they took; at least, that it was sufficiently pro-
voking to reduce the crime to manslaughter.)

The soldiers were chained to the spot by the command of
their officer. They were bound by their oath to obedience,
They could not defend themselves against s0 many people as
were pressing on them. They had every reason to believe
their lives were in danger. They were a lawful assembly,
and the people attacking them were, by every principle of
law, a mob, We have been entertained with a great variety
of phrases, to avoid calling this sort of people a mob, Some
eall them shavers, some call them geniuses. The plain Eng.
lish is, gentlemen, most probably, a motley rabble of saucy
boys, negroes, and mulattos, Irish teaguea and outlandish
jack tars. And why we should scruple to eall such a set of
people # mob, I cannot conceive, unless the name is too