Delaware inquirer. (Wilmington, Del.) 1859-18??, 1859-11-19
Trial of John Il. Cook---Speech of
Hon. d. w. Voorhees,.

uihhoi anu hio hlltBe lHHt ut WIS
dreaming enthusiast, of a susceptible and i'm
pressible character, completely under the cor
troll of the strong and determined will of job
Brown Governor Willard, with humanit
| and devotion to his Maynard and unfortunat
relative creditable to his head and heart, wen
to Cooks assistance as soon as he heard of hi
| arrest, as soon as he heard of his arrest,acco
panied by Hon. Daniel W. Voorhees,, Attorne
made complete confession of his connection
with the recent outbreak and although no yer
important new facts were ELECTED by it, it al
forded some proof of the irresistible powe
ed under him. The speech of Mr.. Voorhees,
in defence of his client, is published at length
and, while we do not agree with all its concu
sions, no one can fail to admire the forensic
skill and ability it displays, and the touch
ing eloquencc with which itpleads fora merci
full verdict.
The speech opens with eulogy of the cour
and jury, for the impartial and orderly man
iiNi III NhlNh ihC tiihi VI luS NAV
been conducted, and with the following appea
for charitable consideration of the indict
ment:
"Gentlemen, am not here on behalf of this
pale-taced, fair-haired wanderer from his homt
and the paths of duty, to talk to you about le-
gal technicalties of law, born of laboriouS
analysis by the sight of the midnight lamp.
place him before you on no such ground. lie
is in the hands of friends who abhor the con-
duct of which he has been guilty. But does
that fact debar him of human sympathy Does
the simple act smite the erring brother with a
leprosy which forbids the touch of the hand OF
aifection2 Is his voice of repentance and mp
peal for forgiveness stfled in his mouth2 II
so, the meek Saviour of the world would have
recoilcd with horror from Mary Magdalene, and
spurned the repentant sorrow of Peter who be-
trayed him. For my client avow every sym
pathy. Fallen and undone broken and ruined
as he is by the fall yet, front the depths of the
fearful chasm in which he lies, hear the com
mon call which the wretched make for sympa-
thy more clearly than If 1t is issued from the
loftiest pyramid of wealth and power. If He
who made the earth and hung the sun, moon
and stars on high to give it light, and created
man joint heir of eternal wealth. and put
within him an immortal spark of that celestial
flame which surrounds His throne, could re-
member mercy in executing justice, when His
whole plan of Divine Government was assaulted
and deranged when His law was set mt def
ance and violated when the purity of Eden
had been defiled by the presence and counsels
of the serpent-why, so can ], and can You,
when the wrong and the crime stands confess
ed, and every atonement is made to the majesty
of the law which the prisoner has in his power
to make"
Mr. Voorhees, then proceeded to argue, that
the crime of Cook, Virginia
ton of the facts that nearly all the insurgents
at once paid the penalty of their lives that
Brown, the leader of the expedition, was con
victed and sentenced, and that the conduct of
the slaves had shown their attachment to their
masters. He then spoke as follows of Cook;
"Who is John +. Cook? lie has the right
himself to be heard before you hut will an
swer for him. Sprung from an ancestry of
loyal attachmentto the American Government,
he inhcrits no blood of tainted impurity. His
grandfather an officer of the Revolution by
which yonr liberty as well as mine was ACHE
we'd, and his gray-haired father, who lives to
weep over him, soldier of the war of 1872,
he brings no dshonorable lineage into your
presence. If the blood which flows in his
veins has been offered against your peace, the
same blood in the veins of those from whose
lons he sprang has been offered in fierce battle
and foreign invasion in behalf of the people of
Virginia and the Union. Born of a parent
stock occupying the middle walks of life, and
possessed of all those tender and domestic vir-
tues which escape the contamination of those
vices that dwell on the frozen peaks or in the
dark and deep caverns of society," he would
not have been here had precept and example
been remembered in the prodgal wandcrings
of his short and chequered life. Poor deuded
boy hayward, misled child An evil star
presided over thy natal hour, and smote il with
gloom. The hour in which thy mother bore
thee and blessed thee as her bluc-eyed babe
upon her knee, is to her now one of bitterness
as she stands near the bank of the chill river
of death, and looks back on a name hitherto as
unspotted and as pure as the unstained snow
May God stand byand sustain her, and preserve
the mothers of Virginia from thewaves of sor-
row that now roll over her Y
After denouncing Brown as the leader of the
expedition, and as the man who had arranged
it, making plant instruments of those under
his command, he said
sComc with me, however, gentlemen, and
let us approach the spot where the tragedy of
the 18th of October occurred, and analyze the
conduct of the prisoner there. 1t is not true
that he came as a citizen to your State, and
gained II home in your midst to betray you.-
lie was ordered to take his position nj liarper's
Ferry in advance of his party, for the sole pur-
pose of ascertaining whether Col. Forbes, of
New York, had diyuged the plan. This order
came from John Brown, the ecommander-in-
chief and was, doubtless, n matter of as much
interest to others of prom;.eent station as to
himself Cook simply obeyed--no more There
is not II particle of evidence that he tempered
with your slaves during his Temporarily resi-
dcnce. On the contrary, il is admitted on
all hands that he did not. His position there
is well defined. Nor was he from under the
cold, stern eye of his leader From the top of
the mountain his chief looked down upon him,
and beheld him as within charmed CIRCLE
Would Cook have lived day had he tried to
break the meshes which envroned him -
Happy the hour in which he made the attempt,
even had he persisted but, in fixing the mea-
sure of his guilt, the circumstances by which
he was surrounded must NIL be weighed. At
every step we see him as the instrument in the
hands of other men, and not MS originating or
advising anything. His conduct towards that
excellent gentleman, Colonel Washington, is
matter of sore regret to his friends and also TO
himself. II is the one act most difficult of al
others to reconcile with the well-known char
actcr Of the man. But even there his offence
is palliatcd by the dictatorship which governed
him. At first glance we see high-toned gen
tlcmans hospitality abused This has been
used to aggravated his acknowledged offences
But the truth is, that when Cook first visited
liul. Wnsllunt0n'S hnmen and rppniun1 from,
him various acts of kindness, the thought that
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