Was it not a case for rewards, for meetings, for committees, for
the united efforts of all the good, to find out a band of murderous
conspirators, of midnight ruffians, and to bring them to the bar of
justice and law? If this be excitement, is it an unnatural or an
improper excitement?

It seems to me, Gentlemen, that there are appearances of another
feeling, of a very different nature and character; not very extensive, I
would hope, but still there is too much evidence of its existence. Such
is human nature, that some persons lose their abhorrence of crime in
their admiration of its magnificent exhibitions. Ordinary vice is
reprobated by them, but extraordinary guilt, exquisite wickedness, the
high flights and poetry of crime, seize on the imagination, and lead
them to forget the depths of the guilt, in admiration of the excellence
of the performance, or the unequalled atrocity of the purpose. There are
those in our day who have made great use of this infirmity of our
nature, and by means of it done infinite injury to the cause of good
morals. They have affected not only the taste, but I fear also the
principles, of the young, the heedless, and the imaginative, by the
exhibition of interesting and beautiful monsters. They render depravity
attractive, sometimes by the polish of its manners, and sometimes by its
very extravagance; and study to show off crime under all the advantages
of cleverness and dexterity. Gentlemen, this is an extraordinary murder,
but it is still a murder. We are not to lose ourselves in wonder at its
origin, or in gazing on its cool and skilful execution. We are to detect
and to punish it; and while we proceed with caution against the
prisoner, and are to be sure that we do not visit on his head the
offences of others, we are yet to consider that we are dealing with a
case of most atrocious crime, which has not the slightest circumstance
about it to soften its enormity. It is murder; deliberate, concerted,
malicious murder.

Although the interest of this case may have diminished by the repeated
investigation of the facts; still, the additional labor which it imposes
upon all concerned is not to be regretted, if it should result in
removing all doubts of the guilt of the prisoner.

The learned counsel for the prisoner has said truly, that it is your
individual duty to judge the prisoner; that it is your individual duty
to determine his guilt or innocence; and that you are to weigh the
testimon