Excerpt from Arbitrary Arrests in Illinois: Letter of Judge A. D. Duff, of Franklin County, to the Public of South Illinois, Relative to His Arrest and Imprisonment by the Abolition Despotism

I now turn these gentlemen, or such of them as committed perjury in the above particulars, over to the laws made and provided against such crimes, through w hich, I doubt not, they will be made to atone for their guilt, unless the present abolition congress shall pass an act, which I imagine they will do, forever prohibiting from punishment all perjured scoundrels who have been guilty, or may hereafter be guilty, of swearing lies against democrats for political purposes. I think the exigencies of their party, and the situation of a large num ber of the individual members thereof, stand in need ofsuch law.

And now, before passing to the next division of the subject under consideration, I desire to refer to a matter not directly connected with my subject, but which, through abolition lies and insinuations, has been made indirectly to connect itself therewith. I allude to the foul and inhuman murder of the lamented Owen. Who was brutally murdered in his own door. Near Frankfort, on the 22d of July, being the day following that of the mass meeting; and the reason I feel compelled to mention this painful occurrence in this connection is, that shortly after the death of Mr. Owen the abolitionists at Frankfort, and throughout this country, over true to the natural instincts of the brotherhood everywhere for lying, and on this occasion partly, perhaps, for the purpose of covering up the guilt of the real perpe trator of this dark and damning deed, sought, and especially at a distance, where the facts were not known, to give this bloody tragedy a political complexion. And I suppose it was. Through information received from one of these lying emissaries, detailed for that purpose, that a certain newspaper published in Carbondale, Illinois. A few days after the occur rence, in an editorial noticing the homicide, laid great stress upon the fact that it was com mitted the next day after a meeting at Frankfort, at which I had made a speech, calling it a peace meeting, and in the same connection stated that Mr. Owen was a strong Union man, and that much excitement prevailed in consequence of this meeting.

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