Lower Sandusky freeman. (Lower Sandusky [i.e. Fremont, Ohio]) 1849-1849, 1849-04-07

NUMBER q.
A sfriking Pfefure.


The st Louis Republican publishes the follow
I ing well conceived passage from the speech of U.
Wright, ESQ. of the St Louis bar, made in the de-
fence Of Stafford, charged with stabbing Burg, with
malice aforethought and with intent to kill:
1t is not always an easy task to distinguish be,
tween passion Juror 6revis of the blood, and the
malice atorethought of the law; yet in most cases
there is a clear dividing line.
| Passion is hot; malice is cold
Passion is hasty and rash; malice is circumspect
and slow.
Passion obeys the first impulse; malice broods
and meditates, and plans.
Passion is surprised at its own act; malice FORE
sees its deed.
Passion ofttimes ennobles man. malice debases
and degrades him.
Passion is an erring spirit; malice is a fend
Passion was given to man by his Creator; but
malice was born in hell
When Peter, the apostle, smote the centurion,
passion impelled the stroke but malice guided the
arm Of the first murderer 1t is instructive to study
the record of the first murder earth, the details
are not minute, but enough is given to distinguish
between the infrmity of the flesh and blood, and
the deeper wickedness of the heart
When Cain saw the acceptance of Abeps offer
ing, and the refusal of his own, "he was wroth and
his countenanee fell but he did not then strike
The Deity asks him why he is wroth He is silent
The same power assures him that bis offering was
not accepted because it was evil Cain is still mute.
There is no outbreak of feeling IN word or deed
He speaks neither to God nor man. His purpose
not yet developed In his own heart he goes his
way brooding meditating planning. The place of
the affairs is not to be the place of his revenge
The first human blood shed on earth is not to be
split near the scene of sacrifices He seeks an op-
ports,aity to lead Abel elsewhere, and when he has
seduced him into the fields, he rises and slays him.
The stranger, Death was not introduced to the
world by passion-he came under the minstration
ofthe cooler, subtler slower and more circumspect
fend-mace
He who has beheld the picture of Cain and Abel
by David has seen the malice aforethought of the
kac spread upon the canvasss True to the instincts
of genius, the artist rejects all exhibition vulgar,
physical death. He presents no broken skull, no
cIotted GORE no dead body; but the more terrible
tragedy of murder conceived, and maturingin the
guilty heart The time of the painting is the in
terva between the scene at the altar and the DEATH
Cain is sitting in the shadow of the roc5 his clench
ed right hand ndents the rigid muscles of his thigh
the left hand grasps tightly rude instrument
of husbandry-his breast is expanded, his lips are
compressed eyes are lurid and bloodshot and
fixed on vacancy At his left side and beneath him
sits his eldest boy of two years old gazing up at the
strange unwonted aspect of his father. On his
right is the mother of that boy. gazing, too with
anxious concern upon the face of her husband,
darkened for the first time. by the shadows of a
mind brooding on blood Aschild still younger,
unconscious of the portents of crime plays inno-
Gently at his feet while IN the distant background,
through a issure in the rock, Abel is seen by the
spectator (not by CAIN near his altar, at his devo
tions, unconscious as the infant of meditated or
coming harm.
The murderer himself, sees neither wife, nor
child, nor victim. He is busy with guilty thought.
He is maturing his scheme at war with "social or
der'-he is shaping his formed desgn''--he is
bending his heart "fatalIy to mischief This is the
malice aforethought of the law This is the %wif-
fulness" the collaboration" the 'tpremeditation,"
necessary under our statute to constitute murder
in the first degree. This spirit must precede and
accompany the stab. 1t must go with the stab,
and before it, to make marder. If you cannot find
from the evidence that the defendant stabbed with
this spirit, you cannot find him guilty of the charge
for which you are trying him. 1t is not enough to
find that he stabbed, it is not sufficient that he
stabbed with intent to kill-more, much more must
be found by you-and that is the assassin's spirit
the assassin's willfulness his deliberation, his
his formed design-the offspring of
cold blooded calculation