The New York herald. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1840-1920, 1854-06-11

Sentence - ma La salls, ~, Rioters.
POUR MEN TO BIZ ExEcUrnD-rw0 OF THEN BRO |
THRRs.
The following Is Judge Isaac L. Wilson'S sentence
on the La Sale ri0ters:-
Kern Brennan, Michael Tooey, James Tooey, and
Martin Ryan-You have been indicted, tried, and
convicted of the murder Of Albert Story, who was
killed by q mob ON the 10th day of December last,
in the county of La Salle need not rehearse the
circumstances Of the ARRAY which resulted in the
terrible tragedy there enacted. 1t was scene OF
riot and blood, at the details Of which the heart re-
coils with HORROR scene which, during the time
that remains to you on earth, must be stamped on
your hearts in characters Of living light. That any
one of you inflicted the fatal blows which struck
Story to the EARTH and so brutality mangled his life
less almost to deprive 1t OF the semblance Of
but that You were present At the ARRAY encouraging
and participating in it, aiding and abetting the
murderers of Story, and therefore guilty Of his muir
der, the jury that tried you have solemnly declared
trial for this crime, and twice has jury of
twelve men pronounced the same verdict.
Whatever may have been the provocation that
stimulated you and those with whom you acted;
however grievous may have been the offence Of
Story in shooting down one of your countrymen,
you had no right TO take vengeance into your own
hands, and set at defiance the laws Of the land. II
he had done you wrong the courts OF Justice would
have afforded You redress. To them you should
have applied. The resort to violence and blood was
the fatal mistake Of your lives Obedience to the
laws-submisson to the legally constituted authori-
ties Of the country-are conditions whicn society
one of its members. Breaches of the peace, tu-
mults and bloodshed, cannot be tolerated in land
of law and order. It would be better that there
should be no laws, rather than have laws that are
suffered to be disobeyed with impunity. The guilty
offender must be punished, whatever his standing
or condition in life. The President and the humble
aborer alike are amenable to the violated laws
alike under obligation to respect and obey them.
You have been found guilty of murder. The
punishment affixed to such an offence by our
criminal code is death. You have therefore no
right to complain that the State demands your
lives for the life you have taken. Tsis penalty
is demanded not more as punishment for
your crime than as q solemn warning TO 9th
ers against the commission Of similar offences.
Although you are poor, and comparatively stran-
gers in the country, you have not been without
friends in this your hour Of adversely. Upon both
your trials you have had the assistance Of some of
The most eminent men of the legal profession in the
West. Your defence on the present trial has been
conducted throughout with degree of ability rare
ly witnessed in judicial trials. Earnestly and faith
fully have your legal advisers abored in your behalf
No effort was spared by them--nothing left undone
to ward Off the fatal termination of your trial. The
jurors by whom you have been tried and condemned
were fair INSTRUMENTATION men-men Of your Sn
selection out of nearly hundred of most respect
able citizens presented for your choice. They en-
tered the box oppressed with the responsibility that
rested upon them-infuenced by the single desire
to ascertain the truth or falsty Of the charge pre-
ferred against you. They were anxious to explain
your connection with the crowd of Infatuated men
who killed Story, upon the hypothesis of your
innocence. They were charged BY the Court to do
so II 1t were In their power, without violating the
oath they had taken. Long and patiently did
they investigate, Is men into whose hands
were committed the most m0mentOus issues.
Step by step as they proceeded the proofs Of your
guilt were forced upon them, until there was no
longer room for doubt and then with upifted hands
before God they pronounced you guilty Of murder,
as charged in the Indictment For that offence you
must die. Society must be protected; the laws
must be indicated; upon the justice and proprety
Of the death penalty the Court may not now pass.
1t is the law Of the land and the court as its sworn
administrator, must not shrink from its enforce
ment. Let me entreat You, therefore, to prepare
for the fearful change that awaits You. With hum
bic penitence and contrion apply to that great and
good Being whose attributes are mercy and love,
his creatures And now the painful duty only re-
mains to pass upon you the sentence of the law for
the crime of which You have been convicted. The
sentence is that you, Kern Brennan, Michael Tooey,
James Tooey, and Martin Ryan, the prisoners at the
bar, be taken from hence to the common Jail in
Kane county there to be confined until Friday the
18th day of July next and that that day you be,
by the sheriff Of Kane county taken to the place of
O'Clock in the forenoon and o'clock in the afternoon
of that day, you be by said Sheriff hanged by the
neck until you are dead And may the Lord have
mercy upon you.
New Sectional Movement.
From the Albany Argus June
The Western papers are clearly becoming tired OF
the eternal distinctions OF North and South, so
often produced in political debates at Washington
in all seriousness, whether it is mot time that the
Western States were admitted into the Unionr' 1t
claims that the very existence of the great and
powerful West is ignored and lost sight Of in the
sport Of these "petty contendng factions"
True it is, that the West little for the ridi
culous disputes concerning the political morality of
slaveholding, which are used as levers to move the
masses of the people of the more Eastern States.
the West, laugh at the factious violence of Massa-
chusetts or South Carolina. They have higher
destiny to work out, and have no time to lose, and
no inclination to lose It, in indnlging childish jea-
ouses such creep into the political issues of old
Ell communities Older, but scarcely stronger.
In the great proviso hubbub OF lS47-5O, it was
the voice of the great West which first commanded
peace, and it was the example of the central West
ern States which enforced it.
But the paper we allude to- not content with
claiming for its section of the Union a recogni-
ton to respect and attention, seeks, in ignobe imi
aion of the very disputes it condemns to mark out
strictly Western policy in behalf of which to labor.
1t exaggerates 1.-THE millions lavished on the sea-
board to contrast them with the "pa!try Congress
sional appropriations to the West" 1t complains
of the disconfnuance of Western post Offices in the
latest schedule from the Postal Department. 1t
charges the Secretary Of the Interior with suffering
the act of Congress providing for the immediate
purchase of Indian titles, to sleep an entire year.
withoutocal action. 1t remarks that the Secretary
Of State "having made the land ring with his demand
for the release Of Koszta has quietly replied to the
complaints Of western citizens in like troubles
abroad, that he could do nothing for them" And,
rising higher in the scale Of denunciation it alleges
that the President has threatened a veto Of the
Homestead bill-the only measure Of intrinsic i'm
poitaDce to the West which had prospect of pas
sage through Congress. This imprisoned rehear-
sal Of local wrongs is concluded with a hope that
the West shall rally to the support of Western
champion, under whose inyincible leadership the
present pirate watchwords" of North and South
shall become obsolete in the land.
The paper from which we quote is the st. Louis
DcaiocTaf, and the champion" whom it indicates
is of course the redoubtable Thomas H. Benton, of
Missouri. Let US see how this new sectional move
ment will progress.
Temperance md Liquor Law Items.
THE WORKING OF THE LIQUOR LAW IN VERMONT.
So odi0us has the liquor traffic become in this
place, says the Woodstock Spirit of the Age of the
9Th inst. that the business Is not permitted to be