New Orleans daily crescent. [volume] ([New Orleans, La.]) 1851-1866, 1859-12-19
puy Naaaay aNotn peeemb 49, 1859


should be made between them Arc the tempter |
and the tempted the same in your |eyesg Is the |
beguilcd youth to die the same as tie old offender
who has pondered bis crime for thirty years. Are I
there no grades in your estimation Of guilt Is
each one, without respect 70 s9e o. SiTeyAetsnce,
to be beaten with the same EuRHR Ct alfffsse |
Such is not Tire law, human or &iysnS, We are Ill l
to be rewarded according to ON ucfkn, Whaihsf |
in punishment for evil Or blessings fer sscd that
we have done. You are here to do Justice, and if [
Justice requires the same fate to beali Cook that
befalls Brown. know nothing Of heF rules, and do
not care to learn. They are as widely asunder in /
all that constitutes guilt as the poles Of the EARTH
and should be dealt with accordingly. It is in your
power to do so, and by the principles by which |
you yourselves are willing to be judged hereafter,
impl0re you to do it
Come with me, however, gentlemen, and let us |
approach the spot where the tragedy of the 18th |
OF October occurred, and anayse the conduct of /
the prisoner there. 1t Is not true that he came
citizen to your State, and gained i home in your
midst to betray you. He was ordered to take his /
position at Harpers Ferry in advance Of his party,
for the sole purpose Of ascertaining whether Col.
Forbes, of New York had divuged the plan. This
order came from John Brown, tho commander
in-chief,' and was doubtless matter Of as much
interest to others Of prominent statpn to himself
Cook simply obeyed, no more. There is not y
particle of evidence that he tempered with yorr
slaves during his temporary residence. On the
contrary, it 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 bis chief looked
down upon him, and held him as within charmed
circle. Would Cook hare lived a day had he tried
to break the meshes Wiki enyironed him Happy
the hour in which he had made the attempt, even
had he persisted; but in fixing the measure Of his
guilt, the circumstances BY which he was sur
rounded must all be weighed. AT every step we
see him as the instrument in tho hands Of other
men, and not as originating or advising anything.
His conduct towards that elegant and excellent
gentleman, Col. Washington, Is matter Of sore
regret to his friends and also to himself It Is the
one act most difficult of all others to reconcile
with the wellkEown character of the man. But
even there his offence Is paated BY the dictator
ship which governed him. At first glance we see q
high-toned gentleman's hospitality abused. This
has been used to aggrayate Lii acknowledged
offences. But the truth is that when Cook first
visited Col Washington's house, md received from
him various acts Of kindness. the thought that
| soon he was to be ordered back over that thresh-
old in hostile manner had never entered his
brain. The act was not Cooks, but Browns.
| RACES Of his commander. And when You allow
that the prisoners great error was Iis enlistment
under the leadership of Brown in the first place,
then you must admit that everything else has fol-
upon leader in a false and pernicious cause are
entitled to offset, in some measure at least, the
/ evil that has flown from them. But the prisoner
took certain weapons hallowed by great and sa-
cred association from the possession of Col. Wash
ington. All in this he is once more consistent with
| the visionary and dreamy cast of his mind. The
act was not plumber, for he pledged their sure re
turn to their owner, and has faithfully kept that
4 pledge to the full extent Of His power. But his
wayward fancy was caught with the idea that 4
4! spell of enchantment hung around them, and that
like the relics of q saint, they would bless and
prosper any cause in which they were invoked
The sword Of Frederick the Great and the pistol,
of Lafayette linked to the name and family o
Washington! With what a charm such sass0cia
tons would strike the poetic temperarnent Of
young enthusiast embarked il an enterprise pre-
senting to his perverted imagination the Incentive
OF danger and glory; and il q new order Of thing
was to be inaugurated, and storm and revolution
were to shake the country and the world, like thu
heart Of the Bruce. or the eagles Of Napoleon
these warlike INCENTIVES Of heroes were to fascin
ate and allure followers. and hall0w the battle
in which they were lifted. The mind of the pris
oner is fully capable Of dreaming such dreams ani
nursing such visions.
But it has been said that Cook left the scene a
Harper's Ferry at an carly hour, to avoid the dan
ger of the occasion, and thus broke faith with hi
comrades in wrong. Even this is wholly untrue
Again we find the faithful, obedient suhaltern car
rying out the orders of his chief, and when he hat
crossed the river and fulfilled the commands 0
Brown, he did what Browns own son would no
do by returning and exposing himself to the fir,
of the soldiers and citizens for the relief of Brow
and his party. We see much, alas! too much t.
condemn in his conduct, but nothing to despise
we look in vain for an act that belongs to base o.
malignant nature. Let the hand of chastisemen
fall gently on the errors Of such as he and reserve
your heavy blows for such as commit crime from
motives Of deprayity. Up to this point, l have
followed the prisoner and traced his immediate
connection with this sad affhir. You have every
thing before you. You have heard his own accoun
of his strange and infatuated wandering up an,
down tile earth with John Blown and his coadiu
tors how like fiction it all seems, and yet how
lamcntably true; how unreal to minds like ours
how like the fever-dream Of A mind warped an,
disordered to the borders of insanity does the par
which the prisoner has Ilayed seem to ever,
Indictment. : There, n n
affords you the dearest privilege that man has OIL
earth the privilege of being merciful? Why, TIN
very thief on the cross, for single moments re
pentance over his crimes, received absolute for
giveness and was rewarded with paradise But
gentlemen, in estimating the magnitude of tlli
young mars guilt there is one fact which proven
in his behalf by the current history of the day
which You cannot fail to consider John Il
Cook perish, and the real criminals, who for twent,
years have taught the principles on which he acted
hear no voice from this slot? Shall no mark BIT
placed on them? Shall this occasion pass away
and the prime telons who attacked your soil ant
murdered your citizens at Harper's Ferry escape
The indictment before us says that the prisoner
was seduced by the false and malignant counsels
of other traitorons persons. Never was sentence
written more Just and true. i" False and malignan
counsels' have been dropping for years, as deadly
and blighting as the poison OF the Bohun Upas
tree, from the tongues of evil and traitorous per
SONS in that section of the Union to which the pris
oner belongs. They have seduced not only hi.
him, to regard the crime Of Harper's Ferry as nc
crime, your rights as unmitigated wrongs, and the
constitution of the country as a league with hel
and covenant with death. On the skirts of the
leaders of Abolition fanatcism in the North j:
every drop of blood shed in the conflict at Harper
Ferry; on their souls rests the crime of murder for
| every life there lost and all the waters of the
ocean could not wash the stains of slaughter from
their treacherous and guilty hands.
A noted Boston AbOlitidnist, few days ago, al
Brooklyn New York, in tho presence of thousands
speaking of this tragic occurrence, says ut is the
natural result of anti-slayery teaching. For one
accept it. expected it," /, too, accept it in the
same light and so will tile country Those who
taught, and not those who believed and acted, are
the men of crime in the sight of God. And to
guard other young men, 30 far as in my power
from the fatal snare which has been frightened
around the hopes and destiny Of John Il. Cook, and
to show who are fully responsible for his conduct
intend to link with this trial the names of wiser
and older men than he; and, if he is to be pun
ished and consigned to 4 wretched doom, they
shall stand beside him in the public stocks; they
shall be pilloried forever in public shame, rs the
evil and traitorous persons who seduced him to his
ruin by their false and malignant counses.
/ The chief of these men, the leader of agreat
party, a Senator of long standing, has announced
to the country that there Is higher law than the
full exercise of his own inclination. The prisoner
before you has simply acted on the law OF VIM, H
| Seward, and not the law of his fathers. He ha.
4 followed the Mahomet of an incendiary faith
Come forth, the sages of Abotionism, whp.e."o
COVER and sknlk under hasty denals of y<ar com,
pcity with the bloody result of yo .t uHa
nhojy doctrines and taEe yOur f,fhces OH tHe WIZ