to
prove a negative. How could we prove that the clothes were not over
the sea if accident had not turned them up in the sewer in Lake
View? You see the danger of assuming to be true what we can not
disprove. You see the unreliability of circumstantial evidence. You
see the difficulty we have in proving a negative. Suppose that one
of you were on trial, and suppose that the State's Attorney could
introduce a witness to swear he saw you burning a deed or will, and
suppose in the middle of the trial the deed should be produced in
all its entirety, how rejoiced you would be. So rejoiced were we,
and so rejoiced was the soul of Martin Burke, so gladdened was my
soul, when the clothes were found in the North Town; call it fate,
call it blind chance, call it an overruling Providence, call it
what you will, it did for Martin Burke what his counsel and all the
witnesses in the world could never have done. Suppose that the
truth had not been disclosed. Suppose that the clothes had not been
found; suppose that the argument had been made by these
gentlemen--and what an argument they would have made in the form of
a narrative!--describing how the clothes crossed the stormy sea,
describing the ship containing this guilty secret. They could have
speculated about what was to be done over there, and how it was to
be done. Suppose they had done that; suppose that you had believed
it; suppose you had drawn the conclusion that they urged you to
draw in their opening, and that they would have urged you to draw
in their closing. Suppose you had imposed the death penalty on
Martin Burke; suppose the death penalty had been executed, and then
the proof should have been discovered that the clothes were in the
North Town sewer, what justification could you have made to the
people of the State of Illinois? What justification could you have
made in your prayers to your God? What justification could you have
made in the forum of your own consciences to yourselves?

"Facts do lie. Now, by an agreement between this court and counsel
for the defendant, I am not to speak of the Camp 20 conspiracy; but
if that agreement had not been made, may it please your honor, I
would not have spoken of the Camp 20 conspiracy, because it is
wholly unnecessary. That has been done ably and exhaust