The Reply to Hayne
The Murder of Captain Joseph White
The Constitution Not a Compact Between Sovereign States
Speech at Saratoga
Eulogy on Mr. Justice Story
Biographical
Notes




Defence of the Kennistons.



Gentlemen of the Jury,--It is true that the offence charged in the
indictment in this case is not capital; but perhaps this can hardly be
considered as favorable to the defendants. To those who are guilty, and
without hope of escape, no doubt the lightness of the penalty of
transgression gives consolation. But if the defendants are innocent, it is
more natural for them to be thinking upon what they have lost by that
alteration of the law which has left highway robbery no longer capital,
than upon what the guilty might gain by it. They have lost those great
privileges in their trial, which the law allows, in capital cases, for the
protection of innocence against unfounded accusation. They have lost the
right of being previously furnished with a copy of the indictment, and a
list of the government witnesses. They have lost the right of peremptory
challenge; and, notwithstanding the prejudices which they know have been
excited against them, they must show legal cause of challenge, in each
individual case, or else take the jury as they find it. They have lost the