If you shall then be able to behold him only as an unjust judge, whom
vengeance has overtaken 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 prejudice or of passion, a sacrifice to a transient excitement; if
you shall see in him a man for whose condemnation any provision of the
constitution has been violated 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 backward, and to look with pity
on those who have been his judges. If you are about to visit this
respondent with a judgment which shall blast his house; if the bosoms of
the innocent and the amiable are to be made to bleed under your
infliction, I beseech you to be able to state clear and strong grounds
for your proceeding. Prejudice and excitement are transitory, and will
pass away. Political expediency, in matters of judicature, is a false
and hollow principle, and will never satisfy the conscience 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 consciences; reasons which
you can appeal to in every 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 mercy.
Pages:
223
224
225
226
227
228
229
230
231
232
233
234
235
236
237
238
239
240
241
242
243
244
245
246
247