Letter from G. S. McMullen to Mississippi Governor Adelbert Ames; March 17, 1876

Documents
Letter from G. S. McMullen to Mississippi Governor Adelbert Ames; March 17, 1876

Document Network
Document Metadata

Each transcribed document contains links that connect it to other documents on the same topic in the collection.

People

Boynton, Henry V. (Henry Van), 1835-1905 Johnston, Unknown McMillan, G. S.Prescott, James, 1766-1829 Sherman, William T. (William Tecumseh), 1820-1891 Webster, Daniel, 1782-1852 Willson, Unknown

Events

Crime Criminal Procedure Criminal Procedure--Convicted Criminal Procedure--Sentencing Criminal Procedure--Trial Political Office--Removal from office Wars and Military Conflicts Wars and Military Conflicts--Fort Fisher, North Carolina, 1865

Organizations

Massachusetts--Legislature. Senate

Occupations

Legal Profession--Judges Legislators

Places

Massachusetts Military Forts--North Carolina. Fort Fisher Mississippi--Lawrence County. Monticello

Page 1

Monticello Miss
March 17^th_" 1876

Dear Governor,

I have just been reading the argument of Webster on the impeachment of Judge Prescott, and the peroration is so eloquent, and seems to me so appropriate just now, that I have concluded to copy it for you. Perhaps you may think best to send it to the Pilot for re-publication. If it should come under the eye of some of the old disciples of Webster, like Senator Johnston, it might possibly have some weight.

I also send you a slip from my last New York Semi-Weekly Times, in which your name is incidentally mentioned in very complimentary terms. It is from an article in defence of Genl Sherman, who has been assailed by Gens Willson and Boynton. You will doubtless diffier with the writer as to the necessity of taking

Page 2

Fort Fisher. Having so much to do you may not have kept up with this recent military controversy.

Your Friend

G. S. McMillan

Page 3

[note] 3/17/76 [/note]

Daniel Webster on Impeachment

Daniel Webster closed his great argument in defence of Judge Prescott, in the impeach-ment trial before the Senate of Massac-husetts, as follows:

Mr President, the case is closed! The fate of the Respondent is in your hands. It is for you to say, whether, from the law and the facts as they have appeared before you, you will proceed to disgrace and disfranchise him. If your duty calls on you to convict him, convict him, and let justice be done! but I adjure you let it be a clear undoubted case. Let it be so for his sake, for you are robbing him of that, for which with all your high powers, you can yield him no compensation; let it be so for your own sakes, for the responsibility of this days judgment is one, which you must carry with you through life. For myself, I am willing to relinquish here the character of an advocate, and to express opinions for which I am willing to be bound as a citizen of the

Page 4

[note] 3/17/76 [/note]

community. And I say upon my honor and my concience, that I see not how, with the law and the constitution for your guides, you can pronounce the Respondent guilty. I declare I can see no case of wilful and corrupt misconduct, set forth according to the requisition of the constitution, and proved according to the common rules of evidence. I see many things imprudent and ill-judged; many things I could wish had been otherwise; but corruption and crime I do not see. Sir, the prejudices of the day will soon be forgotten; the political passions, if any there be, which have excited or favored this prosecution, will subside; but the consequence of the judgment you are about to render will outlive both them and you. The Respondent is now brought, a single unprotected individual, to this formidable bar of judgment, to stand against the power and authority of the State. You have the power "to change his countenance, and to send him away"—

Page 5

[note] 3/17/76 [/note]

Nor do I remind you that your judgment is to be re-judged by the community; and as you have summoned him for trial to this high tribunal, you are soon to descend yourselves from these seats of justice, and stand before the higher tribunal of the world. I would not fail so much in respect for this honorable Court, as to hint that it could pronounce a sentence which the community will reverse. No Sir, it is not the world's revi-sion which I would call on you to regard; but that of your own conciences when years have gone by, and you shall look back on on the sentence you are about to render. If you send away the Respondent condemned and sentenced, from your bar, you are yet to meet him in the world on which you cast him out. You will be called to behold him by your unjust act a living fountain of grief and agony. If you shall then be able to behold him only as an unjust, Judge, whom vengeance has overtaken, and

Page 6

[note] 3/17/76 [/note]

~~and~~ justice has blasted, you will be able to look upon him, not without pity, but yet without remorse. But if on the other hand you shall see, whenever and wherever you meet him, a victim of political prejudice or of passion, a sacrifice to a transient excitement; if you shall see in him a man in whose condemnation the spirit of the constitution has been viol-ated or any principle of law broken down, then will he be able,—humble and low as may be his condition—then will he be able to turn the current of compassion back-ward, and to look with pity on those who have been his judges.

If you are about to visit this Respondent with a judgment that will blast his house; if the innocent and the amiable are to be made to bleed, under your infliction, I becesch ^beseech^ you to be able to state clear and strong grounds for your proceedings. Prejudice and excitement are transitory, and will

Page 7

[note] 3/17/76 [/note]

pass away. Political expediency, in matters of judicature, is a false and hollow principle, and will never satisfy the concience of him who is fearful that he may have given a hasty judgment. I earnestly entreat, ^you,^ for your own sakes, to possess yourselves of solid reasons, founded in truth and justice for the judgment you pronounce, which you can carry with you till you go down into your graves; reasons which it will require no argument to revive, no sophistry, no excitement, no regard to popular favor, to render satisfactory to your conciences; reasons which you can appeal to, in evry crisis of your lives, and which shall be able to assure you, in your own great extremity that you have not judged a fellow creature without justice and mercy.

Sir, I have done with the case of this individual, and now leave him in your hands. But I would yet once more

Page 8

[note] 3/17/76 [/note]

appeal to you as public men; as statesmen; as men of enlightened minds, capable of a large view of things, and of foreseeing the remote conse-quences of important transactions; and, as such, I would most earnestly implore you to cosider fully of the judgment you may pronounce. You are about to give a construction to constitutional provisions which may adhere to that instrument for ages, either for good or evil. I may perhaps overrate the importance of this occasion to the public welfare; but I confess it does appear to me that if this body give its sanction to some of the principles which have been advanced on this occasion, then there is a power in the State above the constitution and the law; a power essentially arbitrary and con-tracted, the exercise of which may be most dangerous. If impeachment be not under the rule of the constitution and the laws, then may we tremble, not only for those who may be impeached but for all

Page 9

[note] 3/17/76 [/note]

others. If the full benefit of evry constitutional provision be not extended to the Respondent, his case becomes the case of all the people of the Commonwealth. The constitution is their constitution. They have made it for their own protection, and his among the rest. They are not eager for his conviction. They are not thirsting for his blood. If he is condemned without having wilfully and corruptly committed high crimes, proved in the manner which they by their laws have ordained, then is he not only condemned unjustly, but the rights of the whole people disregarded. For the sake of the people themselves, I would therefore resist all attempts to convict by straining the laws, or getting over their prohibitions. I hold up before him the broad shield of the constitution; if through that he be pierced and fall, he will be but one sufferer in a common catastrophe.

Page 10

From G. S. M^cMillan
Monticello