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

178 X. AMERICAN STATE TRIALS.

Stone was acquitted. Has any answer been given to that
authority? Has any been even attempted?

This indictment charges Hodges with having done cer-
tain things wickedly, maliciously, and traitorously, Must
not the United States prove what they allege? When the
law allows even words to be given in evidence, as explana-
tory of intention, to exculpate, it admits that exculpation
may be made out by proof of innocent motives :—that overt
acts alone do not furnish a criterion—that concomitant
facts, illustrative of the state of the heart, must not be
neglected.

A military foree levies contributions. If you pay them, for
the purpose of saving the country from further mischief, al-
though there be no fear or danger of death, the law says this
is not treason. By the doctrine of the chief justice, however,
it is treason, and consequently his doctrine is unsound.

‘On this oceasion the enemy were in complete power in the
district where the transactions occurred, which are com-
plained of in the indictment. They were unawed by the thing
which we ¢alled an army, for it had fled in every direction.
They were omnipotent. The law of war prevailed, and every
other law was silent. The domestie code wags suspended.
They menaced pillage and conflagration; and, after they had
wantonly destroyed edifices which all civilized warfare had
hitherto respected, was it to ‘be believed that they would spare
& petty village, which had renewed hostilities, before the seal
of its capitulation was dryf There was menace—power to
execute—probability—nay, certainty, that it would be exe-
cuted.

How, then, ean you find a wicked and traitorous motive in
the breast of my client?

There is not only the absence of any wicked motive, but
there is the visible presence of those which are laudable; an
attachment to Dr, Beanes—anziety for the defenseless people
about him—a desire to preserve the country from the afitie-
tions which hung over it. In conduct so characterized, s0
produced, we discover the operations of an excellent heart,