New-York daily tribune. [volume] (New-York [N.Y.]) 1842-1866, 1859-04-27
would to indite parties who had been engaged in
ynchiDg a suspected abOlitionst.
sICKLRa ACQUITTED.

sICKLEs ACQUITTED.
The public were not surprised to learn that the
Jury in the Sckles yesterday, after brief de-
Liberation, rendered a verdict Of Not Guilty, and
that Mr. Sickles was thcreupOn liberated. amid the
enthusiastic plsudts Of bis assembled friends and
fympathizers.
We regard this Is most mistaken md mis-
chievOus yerdict--a sanction to the substitution OF
violence and vengeance for reliance the regular
aud orderly redress Of grievances through the in
strumentality of law 1t is verdict which carries
this country 4 long stride backward toward the age
when Might was Right, and all wrongs were re-
dressed by the red hand or not at all.
Doubtless, Mr. Sickles-no matter what could
b. said to his prejudice had been greyously
wronged by Key. That wrong was Palliation of,
not an excuse for. the homicide which followed.
1t would have justified the Jury in returning n YER
diet Of Manslau ghter, or of Murder in the second
degree, with recommendation to mercy; it did
not and cannot justify verdict of acquittal.
On what ground could Mr. Sickles's deed be ex.
cused On that Of Insanity? Preposterous! His
counsel did not venture to call his intimate friend
and confidential adviser Butterworth who coun-
seled with him during the greater part of the day
on which the homicide was cOmmitted-from whose
side he rose 10 arm himself for his deed Of blood
The deliberate and circumstantial statement Of
Butterworth utterly precludes the idea of Insanity
on the part of Sickles. Never was man in trouble
more collected and thoughtful than was Sickes
during the morning which interviewed between the
night of his wiies confession and the afternoon
which be shot her paramour. That the counsel for
defense saw and realized this. is evident from their
declining to put Butterworth on the stand.
The case. then, stands simply here: Mr. Key
and Mrs. Sickles were guilty of adultery; Mr.
Sickcs was informed and assured of the fact; and,
eighteen hours thereafter, he shot the unarmed
adulterer again and again, battling all his attempts
to eude the deadly aim. and persisting in swapping
pistols at the head of the offender. as he lay dying
in the street. And a Washington Jury say this
was right.
We say il was not; that, culpabe as Key WAS,
Sickles did wrong in killing him-that he ought not
to have instituted himself an avenger TO the death
of the violated sanctities Of the marriage covenant
We make no account herein of the alleged antcce-
dents OF Sickles, so far as his private life ia con-
cerned-an inquiry into which was properly ignored
by the Court But we have no right to forget that
Sckles was a law-maker, and in that capacity
under special obligations to abide by and set an ex-
ample of respect for the requirements OF law Nor
can we forget that be had previously been MEN,
Der successfully of the Assembly and Senate of our
State in neither Of which was his voice ever raised
in advocacy of severer penalties for adultery. We
have abundant reason for our belief that the laws
against adultery as they stand were deemed by him
quite penal enough until he learned that the crime
had been committed to his own especial prejudice,
which seems to have thrown new light on the
subject to his mind Thereupon he killed Key, pur-
posely deliberately. on calculation: declaring,
hours afterward, that they two could no longer
live on the same planet. Weeks later his friend and
counsel, John Graham, went into Court with
string of Scripture citations, collaed to prove that
such homicide was not merely justifable, but aud
able. And the Jury would seem to have sustained
the plea
The moral of this whole transaction is-Messrs.
libertines be careful not so much what You do as
to whose prejudice you do it. select your victims
carefully from among those who have no fathers,
brothers or husbands who can WELD club or aim
pistol--prcy upon the orphan, the defenseless,
the lowly or you sin at the risk of your lives. But
choose prudently, and there are for you neither
legal nor illegal terrors-there is fear neither of the
prison nor of the bullet-there is, in short, perfect
impunity.
We protest against such legislation, such juris-
prudence II adultery be crime-as it clearly Is
let it be denounced and punished crime
punished legally regularly, infexbly. Let the Sc
Queer of poor, friendess orphan be punished
Just as surely and severely as if the partner OF his
guilt were the wife or daughter of Member OF
Congress No other course can possibly exert
good moral influence.
We depore especially the act of Mr. SickleS, be-
cause it plainly tends to confirm and strengthen
prevalent Southern misapprehenSion with regard to
Northern repugnance TO dueling. 1t is quite cur
renty believed at the South that Northern men gen.
orally decline challenges not SO much from dislike
10 take life as from dread of losing it. The circum-
stances and manner of Sichess killing of Key are
calculated to strengthen that mistaken presump-
ton. But enough.
THE NEW TREATY WITH NICARAGUA.
Though the Cass-Y rissarri Treaty in spite OF all