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fat. At all times, and under all circumstances, a feeling of indescribable
solemnity attaches to
the utterance of the stern voice of retributive justice, which consigns a
fellow-being to an un-
timely and ignominious death,. but when we consider all the circumstances
of your past lifo,
your various relation, to society, the claims upon you by others, the hopes
and expectations
you have cherished, with your present condition and the ignominious death
which awaits you, we
areoppressed with grief and anguish, and nothing but a sense of imperative
duty, imposed
on us by the law, whose officers and ministers we are, could sustain us to
pronouncing such a
Judgment against the crime of wilful murder, of which you stand convicted-a
crime at which.
humanity shudders-a crime every where, and under all forms of society,
regarded with the
deepest abhorrence. The law has pronounced its severest penalty in these
few and simple, but
solemn and impressive words, °1 Every person who shall commit the crime of
Murder shall Buf-
fer the punishment of death for the same."
The manifest object of this law is the protection and security of human
life, the most important
object of a just and paternal government. It is made the duty of this Court
to declare this pen-
alty against any one who shall have been found guilty in due course of the
administration of
justice of having violated the law. It is one of the most solemn acts of
judicial power which an
earthly tribunal can be called upon to exercise. It is a high and exemplary
manifestation of the
sovereign authority of the law, as well in its stern and inflexible
severity, as in its protecting and
paternal benignity. It punishes the guilty with severity in order that the
right to the enjoy-
ment of life, the moat precious of all rights, maybe more effectually
secured. By the record be-
fore us it appears that you have been indicted by the Grand Jury of this
County for the crime of
Murder, alleging, ,that on the 23d of November last, you made an assault on
the person of Dr.
George Parkman, and' by acts of violence deprived him of life with malice
aforethought. This is
alleged to have .been done within the apartments of a public institution in
this city,, the Medical
College, of which you were Professor and Instructor, upon the person of a
man of mature age,
well known, and of exten$ive connections in this community, and a
benefactor, to that Institution.
The charge of an offence so aggravated, under such circumstances, in the
midst of a peaceful
community, created an instantaneous outburst of surprise,:alarm and terror,
arid was followed
by a universal and intense anxiety to learn, by. the result of a judicial.
proceeding, whether this-
charge was true. -
The day of trial. came.. A Court was organized to conduct it. A Jury,
almost of your own
choosing, was selected in the manner beat calculated to insure intelligence
and impartiality.
Counsel was appointed to assist you in conducting, your defence, who have,
done all that learn.
ing, eloquence, and skill could accomplish in presenting your defence in
its best aspects, a
very. large number, of, witnesses were carefully examined, and . after a
-very laborious trial of
naprecedented length, conducted, as we hope, with patience and fidelity,
that Jury have pro-
nounced you guilty. To this verdict, upon a careful revision of the whole
proceedings, I am
constrained to s9y,a6 behalf of th® Court,, that they can see.no just or
legal ground of exception
-Guilty ! How much under all these thrilling circumstances, cluster around
the case, and:
throng our memories in the retrospect, does this single word import. The
wilful, violent, and'
malicious destruction of the life of a fellow-man, in the face of God, and
under the protection of
the law. Yes, of one in the midst of life, with bright hopes, warm
affections. mutual attach-
ments, strong; extensive and numerous friends, making life a. blessing to
.himself and others .
We allude thus to the injury you have inflicted, not for the prpose of
awakening one unneces--
snry pang in a heart already lacerated, but to remind you of the
incomparable wrong done to
the victim of your cruelty. In sheer justice to him whose voice is now
hushed in death, and-
wliose wrongs dan only be indicated by the''living actions of the law.
If, therefore, you may at any moment think your case a hard one, and your
punishment too;
heavy-if one reproving thought arises in your mind, or one murmuring word
seeks utterance
from your lips, think, oh, think of him, instantly deprived of life by your
guilty hand, then. ,
if not lost to all sense of retributive justice, if you have any
compunctious visiting of conscience,
you may be ready to exclaim, in the bitter anguish of truth, °° I have
sinned against heaven and
my own soul. My punishment is just. God be merciful to me a sinner!" God
grant that your
e;ample may afford a solemn warning to all, especially to the young. May it
impress deeply on
every mind the salutary lesson it is intended to teach to guard against the
indulgence of unW-
lowed or vindictive passions, and to rest temptation to any and every
selfish, sordid and wicked
purpose-to listen to the warnings of conscience and yield to the plain
dictates of duty; and
while they instinctively shrink with abhorrence from the first thought of
assailing the life of an-
other, may they learn to reverence the laws of God and of society, designed
to secure, protection
to their own.
W e forbear, for obvious considerations, from adding such words of advice
as may be sometimes
thought appropriate on occasions like this. It has commonly been our
province, on occasions
like the present, to address the illiterate, the demraded, the outcast,
whose early life has been
cast among the vicious, the neglected, the abandoned, who have never been
blessed with moral
and religious culture, who have never received the benefits of cultivated
society, nor enjoyed the
ennobling influences of home; to such an one a word of advice, upon an
occasion so impressive,
may be a word fitly spoken, and turned to good; but in a case like this,
when those circumstaneees
are all removed, no word' of ours could be more efficacious than the
suggestions of your own bet-
ter thoughts, to which we now commend you. But as we approach this last sad
duty of pro-
pouncing sentence, which is, indeed, the voice of the law, and not our
own-in giving it utterance
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