Huntsville gazette., 1882-10-14
FRANK JAMES SURRENDERSl
Tired of Being Hunted Like a Wild Beast,
the Missouri Bandit Appeals for Mercy
and Gives Himself up to Governor Crit
tenden.

tSnOen.
JEFFERSON CITY, Oct. 5, 1882
After living for some four years the life Of
q peaceable, and to all appearances a. res
pectable and aw-abiding citizen, Frank
James yielded TO the persuasion Of relatives
and friends, and in the hope that after all he
might not be convicted, or might be par
doned, and deep seated feeling that unless
he did surrender his fate would be similar to
that OF Jesse, wrote the following letter to
Gov. Crittenden:
AN APPEAL FOR AMNESTY.
ST. LOUIS, Mo-, October /, 1882
Hon. 4. T. Crittenden, Gorernor.
Your Excellency, time has demonstrated
that however carefully may follow the path
OF good citizenship, and however successful
may be in gaining the confidence and respect
OF those VINO associate with me daily and
know my every act, the work of ifeaping in
fanny on the name which my children are to
bear goes steadily on and on as it began so
many years ago The greater the crime which
startles the people of our Western States, the
greater the certainty that it will be attributed
may seem that man of the reputation bear
snould assume to possess either pride or
to some degree of both. For years the one
desire of my heart is and has been to regain
the citizenship which lost in the dark DAYS
when, in Western Missouri, every mans hand
opportunity to prove, by my submission to
the most ii gOrous test, that / am not unwOr-
thy of it. 1t would avail me nothing ut this
day to revert to the circumstances attending
my outawry, which and thousands of 9TH
ers regarded eXtenuating. Those who were
where they could observe the events in that
little page of history need no
capitulation of them from me-. and
those who had no personal knowledge
in the premises have been so prejudiccd
against me by reports of my evil doings that
would
to facts OF That character. The people at
large reason, ana reason logically, that
where there is 50 much smoke there must be
some fire; that although some of the charges
made against me may be unjust, all are not
without foundation, and that an evasion of
the officers of the law is not the course of an
innocent man. l. bow to this logic and reply
that the man who is making this appeal does
not do so from the standpoint of martyr.
He comes to you, their representative, to say
that though his suffering has been hundred
times greater than they have II knowledge of,
immeasurably greater than the courts which
he evaded would have attached to his acts, he
recognizes that he has no right to complain
OF his lot He comes as a man who, conscious
OF an honest purpose asks to be permitted to
do what an earnest, law abiding citizen may
to remove from Missouri the Odium for which
his name is in part responsible. He comes as
Il man who, outlaw though he f5 has for those
innocent ones who call him husband and
father, q love as strong, devoted and deep as
Is found In men whose lives are DlameleSS
before the world, and as one who is anxious
to remove from their closet the skele
ton which has so long been its hideous occu-
pant If it were not for the fear of RESPONSE
bility for that which didnot do rather thun
for that which did, Governor Crittenden, YOU
should never have had to put IL price upon
my head. But an excited and Justly indg-
nant public is not discriminatiVe, and when a
man is stripped of the safeguard of presump-
tive innocence, with which the law virtually
surrounds him. as | would be, he is put to the
dangerous necessity of proving a negative.
That fear. is still with me, and, as L write it
prompts me to abandon my present purpose,
and having for nearly twenty years proved
my ability to eyade all attemptsto capture me,
to take my little family and 90 to some remote
section where can live quietliie, free from
apprehension. That refuse to obey such an
impulse; that prefer to go back to my boy
hoods home and face my disgrace in order
to live it down; that am willing to place
myself under surveillance to which no man in
Missouri has ever yet been subjected, as must
naturally be the case should return; that L
choose this rough course when smoother ones
that am not as bad as / have
ments of manhood have not been entirely OBJ
liberated from my nature. Right terribly,
Governor Crittenden, have the ofenses
against society which have been charged
against the James family been revenged
God knows enough blood has been spilled
enough hearts broken, enough lives blighted.
God knows that if it is the purpose OF the law
to prevent crime by making its punishment
awful to contemplate, that purpose has been
served in a large degree in those ten years of
terror and tragedy. Is its demand for ven
mercy'' a mere poetical nothing? Must the
great State of Missouri indulge spirit of re-
venge until it has secured the last ounce of
flesh? Or, laying all considerations of mercy
aside can not your State-I would to God l
could say my otate-better afford, now that it
has vindicated its laws as no State ever did
before, to say to its SupplicantS. Yes, come
in. We will convert your very notoriety into
a powerful instrument of good and order We
will, purely as an unsentimental investment,
restore you to citizenship and give you an
further purposes. We will call upon
you to use your experience and knoWl-
edge OF wrong doing in the enforce
been charged with violating, and when by
years of correct department. and honest in
dustry you have won the confidence OF all OF
those who now condemn you, we will point to
it all as a proof of our wisdom" If were
certain that would not be made scrape-
goat, j would never have troubled you with
this petition, but would have long ago faced
your courts and met your charges, but once
in the tolls would have had TO accept all the
chances, and while none would have been in
tereSted in proving my innocence OF what
ever might De alleged, many might find 1t to
their advantage to assist in cOnvfct1ng me.
Put yourself in my place for one moment
and then judge OF my course IN keeping out
of the laws clutches. There is one conSidera-
ton other than already mentioned which has
weighed heavily in favor of my taking my
present step. For five months l have been
in constant dread that some rash friend of
mine or Jesse's, or some silly person seeking
notoriety, might carry out the threats OF as
sassination which have been, according to
published reports, poured in upon you. Sup
pose for one moment that that
had occurred, is there man living who
would not have held me responsible Tor 1tt
And vet not only were the threats not mine
as you will discover by comparing them with
my writing but the thought Of revenge was
never one moment entertained by me. nave
now stated my ease, and have, trust, avoid
ed any SAVIOR OF mawkshness. / ask il you can
not consistently with your duty give me some
hope for amnesty under the condition | have
specified. Ii may strike you that modesty is
not the most prominent CHARACTERISTIC OF this
rcouest but it should be remembered that it
comes from a man who Is still at large and
the uncertainty of whose whereabouts is, al
though 1t need not be, the cause of "a dead OF
apprehension. | do not appeal as a man who,
having followed the wrong conrse until MS
head is whitening and he is lettering on the
verge of the grave, is taught repentance
by his incapacity for further iniquity, but
and has reasonable ground to be-
lieve that there are more years yet left him
for active service within the pale OF society
than those which he has spent outside OF it,.
/ submit that this is not an improper que5-
ton for your consideration, whether it would
not be better to have Frank James hunter OF
fugitives than a fugitive? whether Frank
James, humbled repentant and reformed be
fore the world, will not be an example more
fraught with good to the rising generation
than Frank James a mysterious wanderer, or
appeal, though anonymous and possibly with
oI,t fomniptp r1rpcalpnL not the result