Year: 1866




Party of Assassfns-A. Brutal
Murderer in the state Legislature


On one or-two occasions we have spoken
Of the new Constitution party Of Missouri
as party Of assassins. The name is a
strong one; but legal and official
assemblage of the members of that party
has just afforded us the proofs of the
appropriateness and accuracy of the ap-l
pellation. We refer to the spectacle pre-
sented IN the Missouri House of Repre-
sentatiyes last Friday. on the occasion of
! Col Babeoke's speech, narratiDg his story
of the Wright massacre in Phelps county.
Babcoke is manslayer. The blood Of
five citizens of the State, unconvicted,
! and even unaccused Of crime, slaughtered
in cold blood while prisoners in his hands,
bedabble his skirts. The killing of these
men was a shocking and terrible affair
! Nine-tenths of the people believe it was a
malicious, prepianned and cowardly mur
der.


But what do we sec? The brutal
author of the massacre trayerses the
State as free as the wind. He goes from
the scene of the murder to the Capital Of
the State, and into the presence of the
States Chief Magistrate. He meets with
no rebuke. He is met with the gracious
and marked friendship of the Executive.
No legal cognizance is taken of his afro
cioas crime. He goes unmolested to his
home in Miller county. He comes un-
molested from his home in Miller county
back to the State Capital, to take his seat
as legislator. He is swelcemed and hon.
ored as hero by his fellow members
They take his bloody hands into theirs,
and congratulate him on the vigor and
success with which he took the lives Of
his unresisting and unarmed captives
During the formal proceedings Of the
house, his crime is incidentally mentioned.
He makes a speech, in which he tells a
murderer's story of the butchery. BY
legal usage murderers statement in de-
fense of his crime is utterly worthless,
because the murderer had every reason to
tell lie. and no inducement to tell the
truth. The common law, in justice, will
not permit criminal to give evidence in
favor of himself. and, in mercy, will not
compel him to give evidence against him
lself. If Babcoke had told his story be-
fore jury of twelve men, in court, the
court would have instructed the jury to
} pay not moments attention, and give
f not an atoms weight to it for it was the
story of murderer But the honorable
u legislators of the State of Missouri-the
makers Of these laws for the protection OF
life and liberty, of which Babcoke is SO
brutal a violator-how did they receive the
murderer's ferocious and exultant nara
tive of his crime? With emphatic dem
onstrations of approval His speech was
frequently interrupted with f" applause.
Indeed, so delighted were the murderer s
fellow-members with one expression that
surpassed all others in braggart ferocity
land brutality, that they could not restrain
themselves from uproariously stamping on
the floor. In fact, they openly and pub
! licly indorsed the crime of the bloody
} malefaetor, and at the close of his speech
be took his seat as triumphant as crack
burglar who had just narrated an unusu-
ally successful exploit to his gang of con-
federate and admiring scoundrels, around
the reeking bar of a thieves pot-house.


That Babcoke's statement was the man.
ifest lie of a murderer, is proved by one
stern, eloquent fact, which the monster
+. has never been able to explain. 1t is
this;


: The murdered men were all shot in
front; the faces of some of them were
burned with powder; and there were In
all 27 wounds on their FIVE bodies.
, 1t was strange thing to see the legis-
lators of Missouri joining in this murder
er's hyena-like exultation over his bloody
crime-applauding his cowardly defama.
tion of the character of his voiceless vic
tims-his coarse and unmanly aspcrsions
of the desolate woman whom he had made
/. a widow-his ribald declaration "If the
, thing was to be done over again, so help
me gingerbread and coffee, would serve
> them the same way and his supercii-
Gus defiance:


All | have to say in reference to the
matter is, have explained the matter
aud if it is satisfactory, all right I am
prepared to prove every word have said
by numbers of witnesses. IF they are
not satisfied Just let them help themselves
! Applause. If they want me to tel
them, or to show them any palmer, how
the Wrights were killed, if they will come
out and meet me in that forest, on the
{ same place, l viii give them practical
demonstration on that subject"


Are we not correct when We speak oi
the party in the legislature that thus
J made themselves Babcoke's aecomplices
party of assassins?