Excerpt from Speeches of Daniel W. Voorhees of Indiana: Embracing His Most Prominent Forensic, Political, Occasional, and Literary Addresses

Let us come near to each other and have a proper under standing. I am laboring with you for an object. I think I know something of the human heart, and of the leading attributes by which it is governed throughout the world.

By virtue of those attributes, I feel that we may annihilate the distance that separates our homes, sweep away all blind ing excitement, and sit down together and reason upon this most tragic and melancholy affair as becomes citizens of the same government, proud of the same lineage, actuated by the same interests, and forever linked to the same des tiny. You are not merely impaneled in your capacity as jurors to pass upon the life of this erratic youth before you, but the nation can not be divorced from a deep and per manent interest in your deliberations. The crime for which the law claims his life as forfeit is one connected with a question of the weightiest national import - a ques tion which, without any fault of yours, has rudely strained and Shaken the bonds which embrace and hold together the States of this Union. This trial is incident to that question, and must be met in the face of the whole nation, and in the View of the American people, as a matter of universal interest and concern. The very nature of the offense now under discussion lifts us all'to a point of oh servation on which statesmen and patriots have long bent their anxious looks. And the pressing, ever present, and determined question of the hour which now sits with you in the jury-box, and will retire with you to your delibera tions on your verdict, is, how shall you most fully meet the requirements of the American people at large; best con duce to the peace and repose of the Union; allay the rush ing winds that are abroad on the face of the great deep; say peace, be still, to the angry elements of passion and treasonable agitation, and at the same time do all your duty as honest and conscientious men administering the laws of your State?

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