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of which the law has permitted you to exercise this trust, you each
said that you were not sensible of prejudice. But, can you say so
now -now that we stand at the end of this week of testimony, which
the Government have been pouring in upon us ? Are you sure that
you ever could say so, without an accurate and scrutinizing examina-
tion? What, safety is there in the fact that a man is not sensible of
prejudice, when we all know that it is the very essence and the very
quality of prejudice, to lurk unseen in the mind of man, blinding his
perceptive faculties, weakening his reasoning powers, distorting his
judgment, so that the very source to which we look for safety and
protection becomes a source of ruin. There is no safety in the fact
that a man is not sensible of prejudice. And I ask you to commence
the examination of this case, by discarding prejudice. No man can
be safe, without seeking to remove it. Why, if prejudice exists in a
single mind, it is contagious ; it is communicated by the intonation
of the voice; it flies from eye to eye, and is imparted, as by an elec-
tric shock, from hand to hand; and there is no safety. We ask you,
then, to search for it, and to extirpate it.
As between the prisoner and his Jury, as between man and man,
speaking as between friends, I do not pretend to say that we have
felt, or can feel, positive, that there is no man upon your panel un-
tainted by prejudice. By no means are we to forget, Gentlemen, or
are we to suppose that you have forgotten, the great, excitement
which existed in this city when it was first bruited abroad that George
Parkman was murdered. Do we now forget that men then quit their
avocations, -that they were clustered together in the corners, in
the doors, in the stores, the houses, and the churches,-and that their
conversation was upon this one point, and upon no other. Have we
forgotten the great indigynation that was excited in this community-
so creditable to the community, but so dangerous to the defendant-
when it was first announced that his body was found in the Medical
College, in the laboratory ? Have we forgotten the prejudice against
Prof. Webster? Have we forgotten these things? By no means!
They are burned into our memories, and,we shall not forget them.
Are we to say that it is a certain and fixed positive fact, that there
can be no prejudice? By no means! And therefore it is, that after
you have heard and listened to the Government evidence, we ask you,
in the name of the defendant, to examine your minds, and to examine
his side of the case free from all taint of prejudice.
I have thought, Gentlemen, that, in opening this case, I might per-
haps the best diminish the labors of the closing Counsel-instead of
stating to you minutely, or in detail, the circumstances which we
intend to prove here, in defence-by calling your attention, first, to
the rules of law which are descriptive of the offence charged; what it
is, Gentlemen; what the definition is of the offence, as the Govern-
ment have charged it against him.
Secondly, that I should call your attention to the rules of law,
as applicable to the manner in which that offence is charged ; that is,
to the indictment. Thirdly, Gentlemen, that I should call your atten-
tion to the nature of the Government's evidence, and to the rules of
law applicable to that kind of proof. Then, Gentlemen, that I should
state to you, with great brevity-and merely by scheduling together
in heads -what the facts are which we intend to give in evidence;
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