Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1875-05-31
THE BEECHER TRTAL-THE SENAIfG
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i Journal.
| THE BEECHER TRIAL-THE SPINNING
UP.
FIRST DAY OF Mr.. EvARTs.
AT II :07, after Judge Nelson had asked for
perfect quiet, Mr.. Evarts arose, and slowly and
distinctly began his address.
He began with forcible presentation OF he
difficulties encountered by counsel in sitting such
vast accumulation of testimony. The accused
and the other culprit have formed but very little
part of the case. Endless controversies have
sprung out of it which have determined the opinions
| OF men Even in regard to this trial the PROPOSE.
ton is put forth that Mr. Beecher is required to
| make his innocence as clear as the MONDAY sun.
| The inquisitoral research of the judgment day
| was asked for without Gods omniscience or Gods
| charity. The argument of the wicked that it is
| no more than natural that Mr.. Beecher should sin
was monstrous proposition, calculated to over
throw civilization, education and reason. Mr..
Beecher had even been reviled for continuing to
preach and Mrs. Beecher for attending the trial.
when Mr.. Beecher, said counsel, comes to render
his account at the judgment day Of the many
| talents confded to him, God will not chide him
| for not burying his talents in napkin, even dur
| ing the six months of the trial.
| The first important period of the scandal grew
| out Of the Woodruff publication-but IS the flood
cannot rise higher than the fountain, that did not
| have much effect. Then came the Bacon letter
| The finding of the Investigating Committee re-
sulting therefrom should have satisfied all honest
doubts. From the time the suit began Mr. Beech
| err had right to expect the protection which is
granted to every accused person by the law. In.
stead the plaintiff sent out to the public several
insidious pleas, and proudly hurled defiance at an
| absent foe. The prosecution began this action
with the advantages of q court and form of suit Of
their own choosing and the aid of the greatest
criminal lawyers in the State. department Of
jurisprudence to which the case belongs. The
defendant was obliged to content himself with
Brother Sherman, who stuck to him closer than
brother. The trial began when the weather was
as cold and snowy as that night on which was &C.
mented the friendship between Beecher and
Moulton [laughter,] and lasted into sweltering
heats IS great as that Of that June morning when
Mrs Moulton smothered Mr.. Beecher's care and
perplexitv in an afghan. Renewed laughter]
Mr. Beecher should hereafter be known as Samson
Afghanistes in contradistnction to Tton's
sumed title Of Samson Agonstes. Great laugh
ter The crime charged was one that, unluckily
for Tilton, it takes two to commit. As the lady
said to the boy who asked her what faur pas
was she did not know exactly, but was quite GER
| tain it was not pas seW. Laughter. There
was nothing else Mr.. Beecher could be accused of
so well, but woman must be found to be made
the partner of his guilt. 1fit was matter of in
difference what woman was to be taken, why not
give the preference to ones own wife ! renewed
laughter.) True there were drawbacks. TiltOn
knew that his wife was pure as snow and wor-
shipped the filth on which her husband trod. He
knew that she was lovely woman as divine
Grace can produce. But he had also sworn that
he would strike Beecher to the heart, that he would
pursue him to the grave, and there was no way
but this. The speaker supposed he had found his
justification in Hamlets saying to poor Ophelia,
"Though thou be chaste as ice and pure as snow
thou shalt not escape calumny," but Hamlet never
said that Ophelia should incur malicious calumny
from her husband.
| Mr.. Eyarts then considered the nature of the
imputed crime. Leave out all the many aggra-
waiting circumstances and what greater crime, he
asked, exists! The plaintiff thought the manner
| in which he worded the charge would commend
it to probability, for words to him everything.
"If don't show you" said the speaker, "from his
own examination that the accusation never came
out of the mouth Of woman to him or Of man to
Mr.. Beecher will lose the cause" The crime is
said to have been of years of meditation, pros
ccution, disappointment and of final triumph over
an unresponding. weeping, unsympathizing part
ner of guilt. What, then, becomes Of the maxim in
religion that we shun evil by communion with the
proposition that "Satan finds some mischief still
| for idle hands to dol" What becomes of the ex-
perence of society that those sins come from idle
ness, opportunity and allurement? What a ter
rible crime was this charge 1t involves, the
speaker said, perjury, false witness, blssphemy,
sacrilege. The whole decalogue is rent asunder
by woman who is lovely in her purity, and by
tine greatest Christian minister Of the age, who
rose from the stand unscahed as to his past life at
the hands of most audacious cross examiner.
sumed by saying that the incredibility Of such q
fragrant accusation upon two excellent people was
sought to be parried by this plaintiff by certain
qualifying elements in the crime which approved
the act. There was another blow against religion
and notwithstanding to make out that good
| people can commit crime and see wrong in it.
| That is the final stage of dissolue immortality
Mr.. Evarts analysed very thoroughly Tllton's
theory of the motives which led his wife and Mr.
Beecher into crime ridiculing them with scathing
4 Tha law he Of
eye-witnesses to the act the communion, the OPP
portunity, the security, and the consequences.
This crime was against all human experience. 1t
was miraculous crime. Quoting amid much
merrment Punch's well-known colloquy between
q ritualistc curate and Sunday school boy on the
subject Of miracles, he applied it to Tilton and
Moulton. The natural laws were immutable.
God had said SO, and He was a respectable ALL
thority. IL the idea be entertained that crime
such is charged can be consistent with all that
is beautiful and pare, and inconsistent with long
preparation and low desires, it will strike a blow
not at Mr.. Beecher, but at our own wives and
daughters. If the theories Of Tilton be accepted,
the time will come when we will have to organize
a wife-depost company, where we can place
wives during our absence in the day, and a series
of paramOur alarms during the night. 1t is re-
quired. said Mr.. Evarts, that there should be am
pie proof Of the crime, and it is maintained that
COME alone are not sufficient. The nature
Of the act being secret proof of the act is not re-
CURED, but proof of conduct, Of disposition, Of
criminal pupose, of entangled affection of sus-
picious behavior, of the possibility of indulgence
opportunity, of such circumstances of supposed
security as render a conclusion Of crmnality
probable, are the only adequate methods of prov.
ing the body of the crime.
Mr.. Evarts thought that the best test Of the
Brooklyn Bridge would be to send over it pre-
limnary train Of Brooklyn epithcts. If it could
stand that it could stand anything. Laughter
Men don't always like to lie in the beds they have
made for themselves and often, most unseasona-
bly, and at great Inconvenience to others, they
seek a softer bed. [Great laughter.l Junius,
speaking of characters like Tiltons, says that they
escape censure only by escaping observation.
Had suit of this kind been brought against any
other man than such as Beecher it would not have
occupied the jury day. They would say, IF
you could maintain such amicable relations with
the param0ur and could live with your wife ami
caby four years after the crime, we don't see why
we should trouble ourselves about it." The obi
business of lacking money verdict upon this &C.
ton was so apparent that early in the case the
other side dsclaimed that. They found nobler
object in the Christian virtue Of revenge The
jury should, therefore, be careful not to lend them
selves to become the instruments of vengeance.
They must look this crime squalely in the face