t it uses evil
as the means of preventing greater evil. It seeks to deter from crime by
the example of punishment. This is its true, and only true main object.
It restrains the liberty of the few offenders, that the many who do not
offend may enjoy their liberty. It takes the life of the murderer, that
other murders may not be committed. The law might open the jails, and at
once set free all persons accused of offences, and it ought to do so if
it could be made certain that no other offences would hereafter be
committed, because it punishes, not to satisfy any desire to inflict
pain, but simply to prevent the repetition of crimes. When the guilty,
therefore, are not punished, the law has so far failed of its purpose;
the safety of the innocent is so far endangered. Every unpunished
murder takes away something from the security of every man's life.
Whenever a jury, through whimsical and ill-founded scruples, suffer the
guilty to escape, they make themselves answerable for the augmented
danger of the innocent.

We wish nothing to be strained against this defendant. Why, then, all
this alarm? Why all this complaint against the manner in which the crime
is discovered? The prisoner's counsel catch at supposed flaws of
evidence, or bad character of witnesses, without meeting the case. Do
they mean to deny the conspiracy? Do they mean to deny that the two
Crowninshields and the two Knapps were conspirators? Why do they rail
against Palmer, while they do not disprove, and hardly dispute, the
truth of any one fact sworn to by him? Instead of this, it is made
matter of sentimentality that Palmer has been prevailed upon to betray
his bosom companions and to violate the sanctity of friendship. Again I
ask, Why do they not meet the case? If the fact is out, why not meet it?
Do they mean to deny that Captain White is dead? One would have almost
supposed even that, from some remarks that have been made. Do they mean
to deny the conspiracy? Or, admitting a conspiracy, do they mean to deny
only that Frank Knapp, the prisoner at the bar, was abetting in the
murder, being present, and so deny that he was a principal? If a
conspiracy is proved, it bears closely upon every subsequent subject of
inquiry. Why do they not come to the fact? Here the defence is wholly
indistinct. The counsel neither take the ground, nor abandon it. They
neither fly, nor light. They hover. But they must come to a closer mode
of contest. They must meet the facts,