"I regret that it should have been necessary for an American woman to be executed by the judgment of an American tribunal. That verdict has been rendered by an American tribunal, and the consequence of it was the execution of an American woman. I know the character of the American people. I know that imagination revolts at the execution of one of the tender sex. But when the daughter of Herodias murdered John the Baptist, she deserved death. When Lucretia Borgia darkened the history of her country by her horrid crimes, she deserved death. And when Mary E. Surratt murdered Abraham Lincoln, the great moral hero of the age in which he lived, the patriot and philanthropist of the nineteenth century, she deserved death. There is no man who has a heart more capable of love for woman than myself. But when she unsexes herself, when she conceives, when she encourages, when she urges on, and is instrumental in committing the crime of murder, she places herself beyond the pale of protection. The best wife who ever lived, according to Milton, our great mother Eve, is thus represented as speaking to her husband:-- "'What thou biddest, Unargued I obey; so God ordains: God is thy law, thou mine.' "I believe in submission on the part of women; submission to her God, to the laws of her country and to her husband. But when a woman opens her house to murderers and conspirators, infuses the poison of her own malice into their hearts, and urges them to the crime of murder and treason, I say boldly, as an American officer, public safety, public duty, requires that an example be made of her conduct. Murder! gentlemen of the jury. Who composed that military commission? They are no better men than you are, but you will not be offended with me if I say they are as good men as you are, or I, or any of us." Naming over the officers who constituted the tribunal by which Mrs. Surratt was tried, he continued: "I say, gentlemen of the jury, that they are good men, holding commissions under the government of the United States, and they are presumed to be honorable men. The law declares that every private citizen, and every public officer who is a servant of the American people, is presumed to be honorable until the contrary is proved.