ter.

of by-gone American Constitution and laws. despair, and hope for death to end his sufferings. And what is to be the fate of our offspring? The slave-driver has now become a butcher; Let us see. That it is criminal, let us reform the slaveholder a pillager; he who found divine it; that it is deluded, let us instruct it. But let authority to support slavery in sermons now us not destroy it, for therein we punish others finds it in action; he who was led by fanatical for our own crimes. Let the great American politicians is now led by fanatical generals; people rather speak thus: "For twenty years and he who had once only the instincts, has we have sent you to a wicked school, though we now the practice and habit of shedding Northknew not the wickedness thereof, until our own ern blood. These two years of carnage and child rebelled against us. Now we have torn suffering, from sixteen to eighteen, when the down the school-house and driven out the mas- character is mobile and pliable, and which he Hereafter you shall be taught in a better would have naturally spent at college among school, and we will not destroy you, because poets and mythologies and tutors, are spent on you learnt but as instructed." picket, with fierce veterans, in drunken quarII. But there is another school before him--rels, with cards, with oaths, in delirious charges, the school of war. At Richmond his regiment amid shot and shell, amid moaning wounded joined the army of Gen. Lee, and was joined to and stinking dead, until, at eighteen, he has the A. P. Hill's corps; with it he shared the fate of experience of a Cambronne, the ferocity of an the rebel army, passed through the Peninsular Attilla, and the cruelty of a Tartar. This, gencampaign, the battles of Chancellorsville and tlemen, is the horrible demoralization of civil Antietam. Here he heard that his two brothers war. It makes loyalty a farce, justifies perwere killed at Murfreesboro. Finally, on the jury, dignifies murder, instills ferocity, scorns 3d of July, 1863, in the charge upon the Federal religion and enjoins assassination as a duty. center, at Gettysburg, he was wounded, taken And whose fault is it that he was so demoralprisoner, and detailed as a nurse in Pennsyl-ized, and so educated in public vices, instead vania College Hospital.

of public virtues, on the field of war? Let us Let us pause again to consider the effect of be just, and not shrink from the inquiry. Was two years' campaigning as a private in the it our forefathers who sowed the seed of discord army of Gen. Lee upon the moral nature of the in the charter of Union? If so, then let their accused. He was one of that army who made memories pay the penalty; but spare the fruit trinkets and cups out of the bones of Union which has involuntarily ripened in the heart soldiers-an army where it was customary to of this boy. Was it the Southern leaders? starve prisoners by lingering agonies, which Then let them pay the penalty; but spare their supplied its wants by plundering the dead, ignorant and misguided tool. Was it Generals which slew men after surrender, that was com- Lee and Jackson and Hill, who were his immemanded by officers who had violated their sacred diate models and tutors in crime? Then punoaths to the United States, and who taught their ish them; but spare their pupil. Was it, persubordinates that such violation was justifiable; haps, fanatical malcontents among Northern an army who were taught by Jackson that God men who first lighted the torch of war? Then was the champion of their cause; an army that extirpate them from the land; but spare the held the enemy in quest of "booty and beauty;" boy whose passions caught fire, and burnt until an army which believed no means that helped they consumed him. Rest, then, the responsithe cause of Southern independence unjustifi- bility of this war with whom it will-with the able, but glorious; an army who for two years living or dead, with the vicissitudes of things or explained victory by the righteousness of the in the invisible plans of God-it is not with this cause-finally, an army that held the person and plastic boy, who came into the world in the year Cabinet of the President in holy execration. of the annexation of Texas, has lived but fouradSurely he could not pass through these two ter-ministrations, and is younger than the last comrible years without being in his moral nature promise with slavery. He is the moral product of the same as the army of which he formed a the war, and belongs to them who first began it. part. He is now eighteen, and the last two years have formed his character. He also abhors the President of the Yankees; he also believes that victory comes because God is just; he also believes that nothing is bad so the South be free; he also regards a Federal as a ravisher and robber; he also prays with Jackson to God for the victory. He further believes in Heaven to capture Washington, and put its Government and General Lee; dresses himself in the clothes of Union dead; stands guard over starving prisoners; also has his cup carved out of some Federal skull. Besides, he has learned the ordinary soldier's lessons, to taste blood and like it; to brave death and care nothing for life; to hope for letters and get none; to hope for the end of the war and see none; to find n victory no more than the beginning of another march; to look for promotion and get none; to pass from death and danger to idleness and corruption; to ask for furloughs and get none, and finally, to

Now, I hear it said, true, the boy has been a rebel soldier, and we can forgive him; but we can not forgive assassins. Let us, for a moment, compare a rebel soldier with the prisoner, and see wherein they differ. The best rebel soldiers are native Southerners. So is he. The best rebel soldiers have for four years longed

to the sword. So has he. The best rebel soldiers have fought on their own hook, after the fashion of the provincials during the Revolution, finding their own knives, their own horses, their own pistols. So has he. The best rebel soldiers have fired at Mr. Lincoln and Mr. Seward, have approached the city by stealth from Baltimore, and aimed to destroy the Government by a sudden blow. So has he. The best rebel soldiers have picked off high officers of the Government-Kearney, Stevens, Baker, Wadsworth, Lyon, Sedgwick. So has he.

"Felt as though himself were he

What, then, has he done that every rebel | But I hear a student of history reply: True; soldier has not tried to do? Only this: he has but they must have been oppressors. Granted; ventured more; he has shown a higher courage, but who is to be the judge? There can be no a bitterer hate, and a more ready sacrifice; he one but the assassin himself. It is he, and he has aimed at the head of a department, instead only, who takes the risk of becoming a delivof the head of a corps; he has struck at the erer, or a foul and parricidal murderer. Let head of a nation, instead of at its limbs; he us, then, see what these people were, against has struck in the day of his humiliation, when whom he aimed his blow and what they apnothing was to be accomplished but revenge, peared to him. In truth, if you seek for charand when he believed he was killing an op- acters in history, you will find none further pressor. As Arnold Vinkelried was braver removed from the oppressors than our late Presithan all the combined legions of Switzerland, dent and the Secretary of State. The one was when he the great emancipator, the deliverer of a race from bondage, the great salvator, the deliverer of a nation from civil war. The other was the great pacificator, the savior from foreign war, the uniter of factions, the constant prophet and messenger of good will and peace. This is how they seemed to us; but such were they not in the eyes of this boy, or of five millions of his fellow-countrymen. To them, the one appeared a usurper of power, a violator of laws, a cruel jester, an invader, a destroyer of life, liberty and property; the other a cunning timeserver, an adviser in oppression, and a slippery advocate of an irrepressible conflict. These Southern men had long borne power, and, in their obscurity, felt the envy for greatness which once cried:

On whose sole arm hung victory;"

as Leonidas, who threw himself in the gap of Thermopyle, was braver than all the Grecian hosts; as Mucius Seaevola was the bravest of the Roman youth when he approached Porsena with intent to assassinate, and said: "Hostis hostem occidere volui; nec ad mortem minus animi est, quam fuit ad cædem. Et facere et pati fortia, Romanum est;" so was this youth braver than all the rebel hosts when he came to offer up his life by killing the chief of the enemy.

As Harmedius and Aristogeton were more careless of their lives than the rest of the Athenian youth when they killed Hippias and Hipparchus, as Brutus said on the market place: "As I slew my best lover for the good of Rome, I have the same dagger for myself when it shall please my country to need my death;" so was this boy more ready to offer up his life for what he believed to be the good of his country. And as Gerard was the bitterest Catholic of the Netherlands when he slew the Prince of Orange; Ravaillac the bitterest enemy of the Protestants when he slew Henry IV.; as Jacques Clement was the bitterest Catholic when he killed Henry III; as Orsini was the most bitter Italian when he tried to kill Louis Napoleon, so this boy, remembering his two slaughtered brothers, was the bitterest Southerner of all that defied the Government.

This was his idea of Mr. Lincoln and Mr. Seward. This was what he heard in Florida, among the village politicians. This was what he read in the Richmond papers, in the orders of the generals, in the gossip of the camp-fire, in the letters that he got from home. Every farmer by whose well he filled his canteen told him that; every Southern lass that waved her Courage, then, martyrdom, inextinguishable handkerchief toward him repeated it; his mother hate for oppression, are his sins. Now, if in mourning told it; every prisoner returned courage be a crime, then have you and I, and from Northern prisons told it; every wayside all of us, who have braved death, been crim- cripple but confirmed it. Lincoln, the opinals? Then are the emblems of valor, which pressor, was in the air, it was in the echo of the a grateful country has placed upon your shoul- drum, it was in the whizzing of the shell, it ders and breasts, but marks of crime. Is came on every breeze that floated from the readiness to be sacrificed for the common good North. Wonderful was his error; strange, ina crime? Then are the millions of heroic youths, deed, is it that charity and liberty should be who have left the plow and girded on the sword thus misconstrued. Let us, then, remember that for four years, but criminals; then is our ban- if he was wrong he erred on the side of courage, ner but the flag of crime; then are our battle- on the side of self-sacrifice, and on the side of fields but loathsome scenes of general fratri- hatred to what he believed to be oppression; cidal murder. Is, then, undying hatred for that he differs from the Southern army simply what is believed to be oppression a crime? because he surpassed it in courage; that he Then was our Revolution but successful crime. differed from a patriot and a martyr, simply Then were the struggles of Tyrol, of Hungary, because he was mistaken in his duty. of Venice, of Greece, but unsuccessful crimes. If, then, you praise men because they kill Then was Byron a traitor to Greece, Garibaldi such as they believe oppressors, you must praise a traitor to Austria, Kossuth a traitor to Aus- him; if you praise men who are ready to die tria, Hofer a traitor to Austria, and Washing- for their country, you will praise him; and if ton a traitor to England. Mark, throughout you applaud those who show any courage suthe history of the world, there is no lesson perior to the rest of mankind you will applaud him. taught in clearer language than that the noblest III. But there is a third school before him. deed of men is to free the world of oppressors. From Gettysburg he was sent to West Building

Hospital, Pratt street, Baltimore, and remained | ward none, for the salvation of the State and until October, 1863, when, seeing no hope of an for liberty. But the wail of woe and lamenexchange, he deserted for his regiment, and, tation is not the less piercing; the thirst for a walking through Winchester, met a regiment dire, bitter and consuming revenge, is not the of cavalry at Fauquier. Not being able to get less keen. As the woes of Normandy brought through our lines, he was joined to this arm of Charlotte Corday to the chamber of Murat, as the service, and remained in that service until the humiliations of France brought Louvel to January 1, 1865. On that day, as we see by the side of the Duke de Berri, as the ravages the narrative of Mrs. Grant, he saved the lives in Thuringia brought Stapps to Napoleon at of two Union soldiers. About the same time Schonbronn, so is the prisoner at the bar the he, like many of the Southern soldiers, began messenger of Virginia's sorrow and bitterness to despair of the Confederacy, came to Alex-to the chamber of the Secretary of State. And andria, sold his horse, gave his name as Payne, how are we to meet those woes and bitterness took the oath of allegiance as a refugee from and their deluded messenger? In anger? Fauquier, went to Baltimore, took a room at the That were only to confess that we were wrong house of Mrs. Branson, the lady he had met at in inflicting them. No; rather let us say, Gettysburg, and resolved to wait for the return" What we have done was more in love than in of peace. Now, let us see what he learned in the third school.

hate. Let us forget the past. For your sorrows there is sympathy-for your bitterness The rebel cavalry of Northern Virginia, as there is charity. From henceforward let there we now know, was considered, in the Southern be peace, and let the great sacrifice which we army, the elite of their horsemen. Dismounted have paid you make us forever even." cavalrymen of the army of the Potomac were IV. But there is a fourth school before himsent to Northern Virginia, re-mounted and the school of necessity. then returned to their commands. In the spirit Arrived at Baltimore and having taken up of war, however, they differed materially from his residence with Mrs. Branson, he looked the rest of the Southern forces. First, they around for something to do. He had no trade came intimately in contact with the people of or profession. The period in which he would Loudon and Fauquier, who had suffered most have learned one was spent in the army; and from the war, and whose hatred of Northern we know how abhorrent it was to men of the troops was more bitter, so that they fought South to engage in manual labor; and as his rather from personal hate, and in individual hands attest, he has never engaged in any. contests, than from political sentiments, and Accordingly, in perplexity about his futurein battle. Accordingly, whatever edge of acri- for the little money he got for his horse was mony was wanting in the temper of Powell he fast going-he whiled away the time in readgained at the houses of ruined slaveholders in ing medical books and brooding in his chamLeesburg, Aldie, Middleburg, and Upperville. ber. While in this condition, unable to get It was also the custom of those soldiers, and home, unable to see how he was to live at Balesteemed honorable from their stand-point, to timore, the fracas occurred by which he was capture quartermasters and paymasters, lie arrested, brought before the Provost Marshal, in wait for bearers of dispatches and import- and ordered north of Philadelphia. ant generals, and to make sudden attacks and Picture to yourself the condition of this unhurried retreats. Accordingly, if he wanted a fortunate victim of Southern fanaticism, sudcertain feline intrepidity in planning and es-denly again cast into the street and exiled from caping a capacity to approach by stealth, exe- Baltimore, a stranger, sundered from his only cute with rapidity, and hurry off before his friends, in a strange land. He thinks of his victims had recovered from their consterna- own home in far-off Florida, but between him tion-we may well believe that he learned it in and it are a thousand miles and a rebel army this third school. And who is responsible for on whose rolls he is a deserter. He thinks of the third school? His Colonel? Then let him rejoining that army, but between him and it is be punished. His Captain? He is now at lib-a Union army. He thinks of the unknown erty. General Lee? Then let him abide the North into which he is banished, but his fingers consequences. Jefferson Davis, who commis- refuse the spade; he thinks of a profession, but sioned them? Then let the blow fall on him. the very dream of one is now a mockery; he This boy comes here with no marvellous spirit thinks of going where no one knows him, but of fury, that we should wonder and say, where he fears that after all the curse of secession has he learnt all this? Where among men are will follow him; he thinks of eluding the ausavages formed like this? He comes here fresh thorities and staying at Baltimore, but then from Northern Virginia, with all its sorrow and he is afraid of compromising his friends, and all its bitterness. On the tablets of his mem- leaves them. Everywhere the sky is dark. ory are written curses of many a ruined mas- Among Northern men he is persecuted, for he ter; in his ears are ringing the cries of women is a rebel; among Southern men at Baltimore and children, and the moans of dying men. he is despised, for he is a recreant Southerner; Before his eyes are visions of burning barns, among Southern men at home he is a by-word, ravaged fiells, a people prostrate, humble, for he is a deserter. The earth seems to reject starving, homeless-a land once beautiful, now him, and God and man to be against him. a barren waste, peopled by famine, disease, and Now, if there be any man in this Court who ruin and these have brought him here to seek has ever wandered, penniless, houseless, frienda quick revenge. We know that we have done less, in that worst of solitudes, the streets of these things righteously, with malice to- a strange city, with hunger at his stomach, and

a great sense of wrong at his heart, in rags, V. The education of our farmer's boy is now and these very rags betraying him as a thing complete. He has been in four schools. Slavery to be despised and spurned; afraid of meeting has taught him to wink at murder, the Southat every corner the peering eyes of a Govern- ern army has taught him to practice and justiment detective; too proud to beg, and, when fy murder, cavalry warfare has taught him to hunger overcame pride, rejected with a frown, love murder, necessity has taught him resoluthat man will understand how the prisoner tion to commit murder. He needs no further felt in the beginning of March, 1865. If there education; his four terms are complete, and he be any man who has ever been hunted down by graduates an assassin! And of this college misery in his youth, and before much sorrow we, the re-united people of the United States, had made the burden easy, until he wondered have been the stern tutors, guides and professwhy he was born, and hid his face in his hands, ors. It needs now only that some one should praying to God to end his pain forever, he also employ him. can understand how, in the fulness of suffering, he has been brother to the accused.

who exchanges the penalties of assassination for suicide; that he should sit here like a statue, and smile as one who fears no earthly terrors, and should tell the doctors, calmly and stoically, that he only did what he thought was right-all these things are as certain to follow as use, education and employment necessity.

I need not pursue this dolorous history further. You know the rest. If you did not know Well, indeed, had it been for him if some it, you could infer it from what has gone beangel of mercy had on that day, as he wan- fore. That he should meet Booth at Barnum's dered a hungry specter through the streets of Hotel, enter into his plans eagerly, and execute Baltimore, with flashing eyes and disordered them willingly, are matters of course. That he hair, stretched forth her hand and said: "Here should care nothing for money, but only for reis bread; take, eat, and live." A loaf of bread venge; that he should hate the Lincoln Govmight have saved him; a single word of kind-ernment like a slaveholder; that he should enness might have saved him; the gracious lick ter the house of a cabinet officer like a guerof a friendly dog might have saved the glow rilla; that he should try to murder, and justify of a once generous heart from going out for- his murder like a Southern soldier; that he ever. We have all, my friends, had these turn- should then give himself up willingly, as one ing points in our lives, and we all reckon back to a time when we stood in the midst of gloom, and suddenly it was glorious day, for we found a plank and reached the shore. His Creator, in His inscrutable wisdom, thought it good there should be no ray of light, no beckoning hand, no hope for the prisoner. Perhaps it had been better if he had dragged himself to the pier Now, in considering the condition of Powell and ended his career in suicide. It was ordered at this crisis, I do not ask you to believe he was that his very weakness should make him the insane. That is a declaration of mental disprey of a human devil. We can already fore- ease of which I am no judge. I only ask you see the consequences. He is desperate, anxious to believe that he was human-a human being for death, only he is a soldier, and he will not in the last stage of desperation, and obeying die ingloriously, after having faced death an self-preservation, nature's first law. It is aohundred times. He is pursued by the Government in which he had confided, and for which he had deserted his own; pursued, tracked, followed like an outlaw among mankind. He will show that Northern Government that he is not a dog, and that Southern Government that he is not a traitor; and give him but a chance, and he will, with one stroke, pay off the scores he owes the abolitionists, restore himself in the eyes of his comrades in arms, and throw himself into the arms of a pitiful eternity.

knowledged by all that the possession of reason only makes man responsible for crime. Now, there are two ways in which reason is vanquished. One is when the passions make war against reason and drive her from her throne, which is called insanity. Another is when the necessities of the body overcome the suggestions of the mind, a state in which the reason is a helpless captive. And if you find that while his reason was so in captivity, he surrendered to temptation, I am sure you will set it to the credit, not of reason, but of the body, whose wants were imperious while there was yet no reason in it, in childhood, and which will again exist without reason after death.

And who is to blame that he was urged to desperation and consequent revenge? I answer, this civil war. The civil war took him from the magnolias and orange groves of Florida, and left him a waif upon the pavements of At the beginning of the war, Powell, one a Northern city. The civil war took the inde- night, secured a pass and went to the theater at pendent farmer from his fields, and left him a Richmond. It was the first play that Powell beggar among strangers. The civil war took ever saw, and he was spellbound with that maghim from honest pursuits and professions, and ical influence wielded by the stage over such, left him to make his living without any other to whom its tinsel is yet reality. But he was accomplishments than dexterity in murder. chiefly attracted by the voice and manner of The civil war forbade him a home among one of the actors. He was a young man of Northern men, after it had taken him away about twenty-five, with large, lustrous eyes, a from his home in the South. The civil war made him an outcast and a fugitive on the face of the earth; took the bread out of his mouth, and gave him the alternative of dying obecurely by his own hand, or notoriously by the death of a public officer.

graceful form, features classical and regular as a statue, and a rich voice that lingered in the ears of those who heard him. Although only a private soldier, Powell considered himself the equal of any man, and after the play was over sought and gained an introduction to the actor.

Never were two natures thrown together so different, yet so well calculated, the one to rule, the other to be ruled. The soldier was tall, awkwark, rough, frank, generous and illiterate. The actor was of delicate mold, polished, graceful, subtle, with a brilliant fancy, and an abundant stock of reading. Each was what the other was not, and each found in the other an admirer of the other's qualities. The actor was pleased to have a follower so powerful in his muscles, and Powell was irresistibly drawn to follow a man so wondrously fascinating and intellectual. They saw enough of one another to form a close intimacy, and confirm the control of the actor over Powell, and parted, not to meet for nearly four years.

earth, except by rendering a great service to the South. He touched upon his melancholy, and said if he must die, he should offer up his life in a manner that would bequeath his name as a blessing to posterity. Powell now awoke from the depth of despair to the highest pinnacle of agonized excitement. It was as if he had been breathing that subtle Eastern poison, wherein the victim sees swimming before his eyes a vision of more than celestial felicity, but far off and unattainable. What wonder he swam in dreams of delicious pain! Instead of that former melancholy, he felt an eager desire to live. Instead of that long torpor, he felt all the old wounds bleeding again, and burned to avenge the South. Instead of laboring like a negro, he saw a vague vision of rolling in boundless wealth. Instead of being cursed by his kinsmen, he was fired with zeal to be cherished as one of her chief martyrs. Instead of being the toy of fortune, he dreamed of being her conqueror. But yet he saw no avenue to all this, and, spell-bound as he was, turned to his tormentor, who held him as firmly as ever Genii did their fabled imps, for the explanation, for the means and quick road to happiness. Booth saw his victim was ready, and hastened to impart his mysterious plans. The first plan was to go to Washington, take a ride with confederates, on horseback, to the Soldiers' Home, capture the President, and deliver him to the Rebel authorities. This failed. The second plan was to kill the heads of the State-a plan first broached to Payne on the evening of the 14th of April, at eight o'clock.

Booth, on the evening of the 14th, at eight o'clock, told him the hour had struck; placed in his hands the knife, the revolver, and the bogus package of medicine; told him to do his duty, and gave him a horse, with directions to meet beyond the Anacosta bridge; and he went and did the deed. I have asked why he did it. His only answer is: "Because I believed it my duty."

In the twilight of that memorable day in March, which I have described, Powell was dragging himself slowly along the street past Barnum's Hotel-a poor creature overcome by destiny. Suddenly a familiar voice hailed him. Looking up the steps, he saw the face of the Richmond actor. The actor on his side expressed astonishment to find Powell in such a plight for the light in the eyes of a desperate man needs no translation-and in that distant city. Powell answered him in few words: "Booth, I want bread-I am starving." In ordinary circumstances, I do not doubt but Booth would have said, come in and eat; but just now he was filled with a mighty scheme, for he had just been to Canada, and was lying in wait for agents. So he did not give him to eat; he did not tell him to go and die, but he seized with eagerness upon this poor man's hunger to wind about him his accursed toils, saying, "I will give you as much money as you want, but first you must swear to stick by me. It is in the oil business." An empty stomach is not captious of oaths, and Powell then swore that fatal oath, binding his soul as firmly to Booth as Faust to Mephistopheles, and went in and feasted. Next morning Booth gave him money enough to buy a change of clothing and keep him for a week. Powell now became anxious to know what plan it was that was to make him rich, but Booth answered evasively that it was in the oil business. He knew well enough that he had to do with a desperate man, but he knew, also, that any proposition of a guilty character might as yet be rejected. He must get full control of this desperate tool, and instil into his nature all the subtle monomania of his own. Accordingly he proceeded to secure every thought and emotion of Powell. With a master pencil he painted before the eyes of this boy the injuries of the South and the guilt of her oppressors. He reminded him of devastated But there is another type of assassination homes, negroes freed, women ravished, the and of so-called assassins. That comes to pass graves of his brothers on a thousand hillsides. when a fanatic, religious or political, deems He reminded him that he was a traitor to the it his duty to offer up his life in exchange for the Southern cause, and that it was necessary he life he believes to be a public enemy. This is the should regain the favor of his country. He Sand of Kotzebue, the Corday of Murat, the Count pointed out to him his desperate condition- -a fugitive from his friends, and an exile among strangers. He touched him upon his pride, and showed him how he was born a gentleman, and ought to live as a gentleman. He touched upon his helplessness, and showed him that there was no hope for him, in peace or war, in heaven or

VI. Now, let us not be deceived by the special name of assassination, and confound it with the conscientious killing of what is believed to be an oppressor. When we read of assassination we involuntarily bring to mind examples of men hired by statesmen to make away with princes. There is the Italian perfumer, Rogeri, of Catherine de Medici; there is Orloff, of Catherine, and Alexander, of Russia; we think of the tools used by Tiberius, by Richard III, Philip the II, by Mary of Scotland, by Louis XI, and our minds are filled with associations with State murders accomplished by tigers in human shape killing for gold.

Ankerstroem of Gustavus III, the Brutus of Casar, the Gerard of Orange, the Ravaillac of Henry IV-men who may ally themselves with others, but who receive their orders immediately, as they believe, from God himself.

The first order kills for money, it is hired by princes, it would for money kill its em