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176 X. AMERICAN STATE TRIALS.

addressing a tribunal where these considerations have their
full weight, and I expect with confidence that the court will
vindicate the doctrines which I have had the honor to ad-
‘vance,

Dovatn, C. J. The Court would have been better satisfied
if the whole case had been gone through in the usual way, but
as the District Attorney has prayed an opinion on the law, I
am willing to give him mine,

Hodges is accused of adhering to the enemy, and the overt
act laid consists in the delivery of certain prisoners, and I am
of opinion that he is guilty. When the act itself amounts to
treason, it involvea the intention, and such was the character
of this act. No threat of destruction of property will exeuse
or justify such an act. Nothing but a threat of life, and that
likely to be put into execution, will justify. The jury are not
bound to conform to this opinion, because they have a right,
in all criminal cases, to decide on the law and the facts,

Houston, J., said he did not entirely agree with the Chief
Justice in any, except the last remark.

Me, Pivewey. Gentlemen of the jury: The opinion which
the Chief Justice has just delivered is not, and I thank God
for it, the law of this land. If you have the slightest doubt
on the subject, I will undertake to remove it—to show you
that the cases have been misconeeived, and that the conclu-
sions drawn from them are erroneous.

No man can feel for the learned judge who has just given
you his instruction, a reverence and affection more sincere,
than I do, But reverence and affection for him shall not
stand in the way of the great duty which I owe to a fellow
citizen who relies on me to shield his innocence from the charge
of guilt, and his life from an attainder for treason. I had
hoped that, since his motives were admitted, on all hands, to
be entitled to praise, since the grand jury had associated with
their indictment a certificate of the purity of his views, and
a solemn recommendation that the prosecution should ba
abandoned, he would at least have been left by the district
attorney, and the court, to obtain from you, as he could, a de-

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