Wilmington journal. [volume] (Wilmington, N.C.) 1844-1895, 1859-12-15
AN ELOQUENT EXTRACT.



tcipaton in the Harpers FAIRY rebellion. Mr. oor
bees is described TALL splendid looking man, with
magnificent voice, over which he has great command
His speech before the jury most eloquent effort
and give below that portion of it in which he boldly
traces the responsibility for the nsurrectonary attempt
The picture is forcibe and true
But, gentlemen, in estimating the magnitude OF this
young mans guilt there is fact which is proven ID
his behalf by the current history of the day which you
cannot fail to consider Shall John F. Cook perish, and
the real criminals who for twenty years have been
taught the principles which he acted hear no voice
from this spot? Shall no mark be placed on them!
Shall this occasion pass away and the prime elons who
attacked your soil and murdered your citizens at Har
pers Ferry escape? The indictment before says that
the prisoner seduced by the false and maignant
councils of other tratOrous persons
Never was sentence written Just and true
False and malignant counses have been dropping for
years, deadly and bghting the poison of the Bo-
hun Upas tree from the tongues of evil and tratorOus
in that section of the Union to which the prisoner
belongs. They have seduced not only his mind, but
many Others honest and misguided like him, to regard
the crime at Harpers Ferry crime your rights as
unmtgaed wrongs and the constitution of the country
as league with hell and covenant with death. On
the skirts of the leaders of abolition fanatcsm orth is
every drop of blood shed in the conflict at Harpers Fer
ry their souls rests the crime of murder for every life
there lost and all the waters of the could not
wash the stains of slaughter from their reacherous and
guilty hands. A noted Boston abolitionist (Wendel
Phillips,) few days ago, at Brooklyn New York, IN
the presence of thousands speaking OF this tragic occur
renee says 1t is the natural result of antislavery
teaching For one accept it. expected it." l, too
accept it in the same light and so will the country
Those who taught and not those who believed and act
ed, are the men of crime in the sight of God And to
guard other young so far as in my power from the
fatal snare which has been frightened around the hopes
and destiny of John E. Cook, and to show who fully
responsible for his conduct, intend to link with this
trial the of wiser and older men than he and il
be to be punished and consigned to wretched DOOM
shall be plored forever in public shame the evil and
atorous persons who seduced him to his ruin by their
false and malignant cOIDseS
The visionary mind of the prisoner heard from men,
Der of Congress from Massachusetts that cons-
tuition Bible and God were to be inaugu
rated to possess the county. They were to be new
because they to be autislavery for the old cons
tution and the old Bible, and the God of fathers
the ancient Lord God of Israel the yesterday to-
day and forever were not the side of abotionism
Is there no mitigation for bis doom in the fact that be
took his life in his hand, and aimed at that which
ard taught him. but dared not himself attempt? Base
pusilanimous demagogues have led the prisoner the
bar but while be suffers-if suffer he must-they too
shall have their recreant limbs broken on the wheel
will not leave the soil of Virginia, will not let this
awful occasion pass into history without giving voice
and uterance to its true purport and meaning with
out heaping upon its authors the load OF execration
which they are to bear henceforth and forever Day
after day. and year after year has the baeu simeon OF
revolution anarchy dscod hostility to the South and
her institutions, swept that section of the country
in which the lot Of the prisoner has been cast That he
has been poisoned by its breath, should not cut him of
from human sympathy; rather should it render every
heart clement toward him. He never sought place or
station, but sought merely to deveope those doctrines
which evil aud traitorous men had caused him to be-
lieve were true.
The chief OF these men, the leader of great party
Senator of long standing has announced to the country
that there is higher law than the constitution, which
guarantees to each the full exercise of his own in
clinaton The prisoner before you has simply acted on
the law of VIM. I'll. Seward, and not the law of his
fathers. He has followed the Mahomet of an ncendary
faith Come forth, the sages of abolitionsm, who now
cover aud skuk under hasy denias of your completely
with the bloody result of your wicked and unhoy doc
trnes and take your prizes the witness stand. Tell
the world why this thing has happened. Tell this Jury
why they are trying John E. Cook for his life You
cdvsed his conduct and taught him that he doing
right You taught him higher law and then pointed
out to him the field of action. Let facts be submitted.
Mr.. Seward in speaking OF slavery says: 1t can and
must be abolished, and you and | must do it, What
worse did the prisoner attempt! Again. he said upon
this subject, Circumstances determine possbili-
ties :" and doubtless the circumstances with which john
Brown had connected his plans made them possible in
his estimation for it is in evidence before the country,
unmpeached and uncontradcted that the great Senator
of New York had the whole affair submitted to him. and
only whispered back response that he had better not
been told. He has boldly announced rrepressibIe
conflict between the free and slave States Of this Union
bic conflict" and invite the construction which
the prisoner and his young deuded companions placed
upon them Yet they either in chains, with the
trightul gibbet in full view, sleep in dishonored
graves while the apostle maserspirt of instruction
is loaded with hOnOrs and fares sumptuOusy every day.
Such is poor short-handed justice in this world.
An old man, and Tor many years member of the Ma
tiOnal Congress from Ohio, next shall testify here before
you that he taught the prisoner the terrible which
now involves his life Servile instructions have forever
been on the tongue and lips of Joshua R. Giddinps-
He says that when the contest shall come when the
thunder shall roll and the lightning FASH and when the
slaves shall rise in the South in imitation of the horrd
scenes OF the West Indies when the Southern man shall
turn pale and rembe when your dwellings shall smoke
with torch of the ncendary and dsmay sit on each
counenance be will hail it the approaching dawn OF
that political and moral millennium which he is well as
sured will upon the world" The atrocity of these
sentiments chs the blood of honest patriots, and no
part of the prisoners equals their bloody import Shall
the teacher whose doctrines told the prisoner that what
he did right go unscathed of the lightning he has
unclaimed If So Justice has fed from her temple on
earth, and awaits only on high, to measure
out what is right between man and man.
The men who have mised this boy to bis
ruin shall here receive my maedctions They shrink
back from him in the hour of his calamity. They
lift up their hands and say Amen to the bloody spec
tace which their internal orgies have summoned up
You hear them all over the land calculating through
false PALE coward lips: " Thou cans say did it.
when their hands reekng with all the blood that has
been shed and which yet awaits the extreme penalty
the law False feeting perured traitors false to those
who have acted upon your principles false to friends
well country and perured before the constitution
the repubc-mlnsers who profess to be of God, who
told this boy to carry Sbarpes rife to Kansas instead
of his mothers Bibe-sha this jury, this court, anc
this country forget their guilt and their inamy because
victim to their preceps is yielding up his life before
you? May God forget if here, in the presence
this pale face, forget denounce with the whitening
hlirhf If oiocfiO 4bo&