guilty lords of creation, there is an involuntary shrinking back as if we deemed them privileged in enormity and not amenable to us for their outrages. We feel that we should not deal with them as we would with ordinary men. If a peasant convicted of murder, shall offer a bribe for the preservation of his Life, it meets with prompt and indignant repulsion, but if a prince under like circumstances, shall in the fullest of his power, propose some lordly favor, it is accepted with avidity as if the acceptance were upon our part a virtuous performance of duty. Besides this, we flatter ourselves that there is nothing wrong in the transaction, because we are not personally and privately the beneficiaries of the bargain; but certainly the right or wrong, doth not depend upon who are the recipients, whether the public or an individual. If we have a right thus to act for the good of the nation, we can do the same for the good of a community; and if for a community we can for a family; and if for a family, why may not that family be our own. This mode of reasoning will readily exhibit the fallacy, if not the immorality of that doctrine, which draws a distinction between a high and ·a low offender, and justifies a negotiation with the one, which would be odious and criminal with the other. Let us apply it to the case before us. A man is in our custody as a prisoner, who is guilty of the most ex3lted crimes - perfidy and murder - and who if he were a private individual, we should feel ourselves bound in conscience to God and man to hand upon a gallows as high as Haman's; but who in consideration of his being President of a mighty nation; a man of popularity and influence, is allowed to purchase exemption from punishment,and bid defiance to the united condemnation of justice and of vengeance. And we hope to escape all censure and reproach for this partial and mercenary proceeding, because it is done, not for our own, but for the public good. Really I know of no principle in that pure and sacred code published upon smoking Sinai that will at all excuse this invidious distinction and ohvious selfishness in the administration of public justice. The dignity of a criminal cannot sanctify his crimes; neither should his gold or his influence be permitted to purchase impunity. It is in vain that the slayer of my people approach with his bond and signet; - though he bind himself upon a sheet of steel, to fill the public coffers with the gold of Ophur and to exalt my nation to the rank of Macedon, it shall nol turn aside the course of natural justice, which surely ought for weal. or woe, to fall on all alike. To act up lo this principle requires no ordinary moral effort. We have to struggle against the force of instinct, education and habit. But certain I am that no draft will ever be dishonored when fairly drawn
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