Part 9

Before the first flourish of the first trumpets had died away, those whose positions afterwards required them to conduct the prosecutions had gone too far to retract. The false and distorted statements which had found their way into the public prints, before the real truth had been ascertained, were republished and believed throughout the country; and the Quixottic expedition of U. S. troops and their impromptu associates in Lancaster county were thought by many, as well in the State of Pennsylvania as at a distance, to have been undertaken against a dangerous and resolute host of genuine traitors. The affair happening upon the eve of a popular election in our own State, and at a time when the “fire eating” party in the South was exerting its utmost to disseminate discord and dissatisfaction, furnished ambitious and unprincipled men with fuel for the flames they were striving to kindle. What wonder then if the timid and uninformed at first foresaw in this first alarm a conflagration that was to devastate the whole country?

To allay public excitement it was necessary to prove _publicly_ that these exaggerated reports of traitorous combinations were merely the result of vain boasting and a desire for notoriety on the part of a few silly men, who had not wit enough to foresee the lamentable consequences of abusing the authority with which they had been imprudently entrusted. Whether the course pursued to gain this end was the most judicious, is somewhat questionable, though it seems to have been sanctioned by the very _highest_ authority in the country. The parties implicated by the miserable management of those who took the initiative measures, had rights, and, though the prerogatives of office gave the _power_, it is doubtful whether a due regard to the public welfare justified the Federal authorities in imprisoning for months innocent men, subjecting them and their friends to the inconvenience and expense of such investigations.

To prove to the nation that its bungling agents had arrested the wrong men, cost the Government nearly Fifty Thousand Dollars. It excited between the authorities of neighboring States bitter animosities and unjust recriminations, where before had existed the best feeling and undisturbed harmony. It, for a time at least, inflamed sectional prejudices and caused renewed agitation of a question whose difficulties the greatest men of the nation had for years been striving to adjust peaceably. It cost the parties who were to be subjected to this ordeal, their liberty for months, the total abandonment, and, in some cases, the utter ruin of their business; to a few the loss of health, to all the entire privation, until the trial, of those comforts and sources of enjoyment upon which we are all so much dependent for happiness, and an expenditure of money in preparing for their defence that some were totally unable to meet, and that robbed a few of the entire earnings of industry and frugality. It cost their families many bitter tears and hours of anguish, depriving them for a protracted and severe winter of their natural protectors, upon whose exertions many of them were dependant for daily sustenance.

To compensate for this enormous public and private expenditure of money--for the fearful, but, to public sympathy, the disregarded days of agony which took the place of happy and peaceful hours--and for this useless agitation throughout the nation, there resulted not the slightest benefit, immediate or remote, to any individual, save to a few of those who were engaged professionally in these cases.

There rests somewhere a fearful responsibility. This ill-timed attempt to punish with public hatred and infamy, or with fine and imprisonment, perhaps death, the innocent instead of the guilty, was the result either of a pitiable desire for unenviable notoriety, or of a culpable and unpardonable negligence on the part of those who were the sources of the movement. For either cause, no excuse can be offered before any tribunal.

FOOTNOTES:

[A] How, when, or by whom these men were arrested, does not appear on the transcripts of the docketts of the U. S. Commissioner or of Alderman Reigart. There are several omissions of this kind. The first mention made of several is upon the records of the prison.

[B] The occupation of these witnesses is mentioned when given in the report of the trial.

[C] Here the printed report ends. The remainder has not yet been published. The conclusion of Mr. Brent’s speech, Mr. Read’s, Mr. Cooper’s, and Judge Grier’s charge, are taken from memory and from the daily papers published at the time.

[D] The report of this gentleman’s remarks is very meagre. The conclusion of his argument is totally omitted in the papers, to give place to Judge Grier’s charge.

[E] It is to a review of this able charge that Mr. Brent devotes more than half his pamphlet. He attempts to controvert many of the positions, and argues at length that many of them are not sound law. The character of the learned Judge for ability, and a profound knowledge of the law, is too firmly established to render a defence of his reasonings anything but a work of supererogation. It is enough to know that the charge was thought a _sound_ one by many legal gentlemen of Philadelphia, who took no other than a professional view of it. Mr. Brent’s differences may have resulted from a foregone conclusion.

TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES:

Text in italics is surrounded by underscores: _italics_.

Obvious typographical errors have been corrected.

The name of Dr. Thomas Pierce is misspelled in the original as Peirce and Pearce. Research indicates that the correct spelling is Pierce, and all misspellings have been corrected.

Archaic or alternative spelling that may have been in use at the time of publication has been retained.