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his downfall will rise the advocates of liberal principles, and the friends of free government. Humanity will rejoice at the respite from blood, and the aaitated waves of society will be moothed and tranquillized by the oil of peace. . The ~nds of justice may not be fully attained, bnt the brave patriots whose rights have been crushed in the march of this ruthless rioter ii1 blood, will feel some con olation in the reflection, that though be escape the proper expiation of crime, be wilJ experience_in the reverses of fortune some retribution for his merciless wars, waged against human liberty and human life. I am understood, I presume as recommending this course only as a secondary one. l\Iy mind adheres to its original com·iction, that our prisoner hould be tried and punished for the crime of murder. I still feel that strict justice requires this course; that it is sustained by rcascn, and will receive the sanction of the present generation, as ,veil .as the apprnving voice of posterity. If the Cabinet could concur with me in this view of the subject, and march boldly up to what I conceive to be the line of right, it would form a bright page in the history of this infant nation. It would read well in the future annals of the present period, that the fit- t act of this young rC'public wn. to teach the Caligula of the age that in the administration of public justice the ven"'eance of the law falls alike· impartially on the Prince and the Peasant. It is time that such a lesson should be taught the despots of the earth. They have too long enjoyed an exemption from the common punisl1meut of crime. Throned in power, they banquet 011 the life of man and then purchase ecurity by the dispensation oi favors. "\Ve have it in our power now to give an impulse to a salutary change in this order of things. We are sitting in judgment upon the life of a stupendous villain, who like all others of his race, hopes to escape the blow of merited vengeance by the trong appeals which his exalted station enables him to make to the weak or seliish principles of our nature. Shall he be permitted to realize his hopes, or not T hall our resentment be propitiated by promi es ?-or shall we moYC sternly onward, regardless of favor or affection, to the infliction of a ri_ghteous puni. hmcnt? ~fy voice is '~ Fiat justitia, ruat coelun~." end forth this decree and all will be well. It will be a corner stone of adamant to the Governmeut which we are about to erect. On uch a solid foundation we shall be able to rea1· a fair fabrir of freedom, with such a pleasin:z combination of beauty and strcn:zth. as to attract the admiration of the virtuous, and at the ame time bid defiance to the assaults of the vicious. Rnt if on the other hand we shonld be over- awed from this course by the dread of consequence., or be cdnced from it by the flattering uggc tions of a elfish policr ;-what Will the pre ent generation say; what will be the language of po. terity; what but that we were deficient in ncces ary energy for the_times:- that we had Jost in the Cabinet what we :zaincd in the field, nnd that the selfish character of onr council had dimm d the chivalry of San Jacinto. I do not fly to the Jaw of retaliation in npport of the men urc I propose. I repudiute the doctrine of "lex talionis." All I hat I n k is even handed ju. ticc. Give to crime the punishment that is due. Justice is a lovely attribute. If personified, he would rival the
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