The fact of his being, at the time of his murder, the President of the United States was not mentioned. The treasonable purpose of that murder was also omitted no reference being made to the political reasons that moved the conspirators to the commission of the crime. The counsel for the defense contended most earnestly that because of these omissions the fact of the official position of Abraham Lincoln and of the political motives that inspired the crime could not be taken into consideration in the trial of the prisoner. They argued that it must be regarded in law simply as the murder of a man, and as a crime no more henious in character than the murder of the humblest citizen. Had the crime of treason been alleged in the indictment the defense would have been entitled to have a list of the witnesses by whom the government expected to prove the crime in advance of the trial; and it would have taken two witnesses to have established an overt act. The defense contended that because they were not entitled to these advantages under this indictment the prosecution could derive no advantages from the consideration of these facts; and that the case must be treated simply as a case of murder. The spirit of their argument would rather indicate that they really regarded it in the same light that Miss Anna Surratt did, as "nothing more than the death of the meanest nigger in the Union army."[32] The following is Mr. Pierrepont's reply to their argument on this point:-- "Our learned friends on the other side have told us, in the progress of their argument, that they could not subscribe in the least degree to the doctrine that it was a higher crime to conspire against the government of the United States, and through that conspiracy commit a murder upon the Chief Magistrate, than it was to murder the humblest vagabond in the streets, or words to that effect. Now that is not the doctrine of a statesman; it is not the doctrine of the Bible; it is not the doctrine of the law. It is a far more heinous crime to conspire against the government of the United States and to murder its President for the purpose of bringing anarchy and confusion on the land, than to murder a single individual. It is because its consequences are so much more terrible. It is because it is involving the lives of hundreds and of thousands. It is because it is involving considerations affecting the stability, the protection, the life, and the liberty, it may be, of a nation. The law of England, which I have cited, but which it would seem, my friends have not read, lays it down, and without a statute, but as the common law, that it is a crime of such heniousness as to admit of no accessories.