"Historians and text writers on the law may treat of the heinousness of the crime of imagining the death of a weak or a wicked king or of a wise or benignant monarch, but you know, gentlemen, as well as you know that you exist, that to murder the duly elected President of the most powerful people on earth, is not less atrocious in its character than to compass the death of a king, or an emperor, albeit he may have sprang from the loins of the people, who have made him their representative head, and may have no royal blood coursing through his veins. You may be told that it is a crime surpassingly heinous to take or compass the life of him who has occupied a throne simply because he may be the king of an enslaved people, but that to take the life of the President of a free republic is an offense of no greater magnitude than to murder the 'veriest vagabond that walks your streets'; but an American jury will only believe this doctrine when the people have become so demoralized and corrupt, so devoid of the love of liberty and patriotic feeling, as to prefer to have a king and ruler foisted upon them by the accident of birth or fortunate adventure, rather than have the making of their own selection of him who is to execute their laws, and, for the time being, to stand as the representative head of their collective sovereignty. "It is a mistake to suppose that a free people in any country will ever consider it a more henious crime to kill a king, or even to desire his death, than it is to assassinate a President. It is of no avail to tell you that to surround the life of a President of a republic with safeguards as sacred and powerful as those which, in monarchies, are thrown about a king, as you have been told in the argument, is a modern idea, 'entertained only by those whose eyes have been dazzled by visions of stars and garters, and who are desirous of changing our free institutions for a monarchical form of government.' "On the contrary, they can only be opposed to guarding with sacred vigilance the life of the President of a free people who are themselves prepared to submit to the rule of a despot. Why should the people be less proud or less regardful of the life of a ruler selected by themselves, from among themselves, than they would be of the life of him who claimed to rule over them of his own right? When this question can be sensibly answered, I shall be willing to admit that the life of a President is less worth preserving than that of a king, and that to destroy the life of a President is a crime of less atrocity than to merely desire the death of a prince; but not till then; nor do I believe you will."