authority for this suggestion. The case of the Knapps had not then been
before the grand jury. The officers of the government did not know what
the testimony would be against them. They could not, therefore, have
determined what course they should pursue. They intended to arraign all
as principals who should appear to have been principals, and all as
accessories who should appear to have been accessories. All this could
be known only when the evidence should be produced.

But the learned counsel for the defendant take a somewhat loftier flight
still. They are more concerned, they assure us, for the law itself, than
even for their client. Your decision in this case, they say, will stand
as a precedent. Gentlemen, we hope it will. We hope it will be a
precedent both of candor and intelligence, of fairness and of firmness;
a precedent of good sense and honest purpose pursuing their
investigation discreetly, rejecting loose generalities, exploring all
the circumstances, weighing each, in search of truth, and embracing and
declaring the truth when found.

It is said, that "laws are made, not for the punishment of the guilty,
but for the protection of the innocent." This is not quite accurate,
perhaps, but if so, we hope they will be so administered as to give that
protection. But who are the innocent whom the law would protect?
Gentlemen, Joseph White was innocent. They are innocent who, having
lived in the fear of God through the day, wish to sleep in his peace
through the night, in their own beds. The law is established that those
who live quietly may sleep quietly; that they who do no harm may feel
none. The gentleman can think of none that are innocent except the
prisoner at the bar, not yet convicted. Is a proved conspirator to
murder innocent? Are the Crowninshields and the Knapps innocent? What is
innocence? How deep stained with blood, how reckless in crime, how deep
in depravity may it be, and yet retain innocence? The law is made, if we
would speak with entire accuracy, to protect the innocent by punishing
the guilty. But there are those innocent out of a court, as well as in;
innocent citizens not suspected of crime, as well as innocent prisoners
at the bar. The criminal law is not founded in a principle of vengeance.
It does not punish that it may inflict suffering. The humanity of the
law feels and regrets every pain it causes, every hour of restraint it
imposes, and more deeply still every life it forfeits. Bu