5. In all criminal prosecutions the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and District wherein the crime shall have been committed, which District shall have been previously ascertained by law. This is the sixth amendment to the Constitution, and is not to be lost sight of now. The accused, whoever he may be, though his guilt be open as noonday, can be reached _criminally_ only in the way described. When we consider the deep and wide-spread prejudices which must exist throughout the whole Rebel territory, it is difficult to suppose that any jury could be found within the State and District where the treason was committed who would unite in the necessary verdict of Guilty. For myself, I do not expect it; and I renounce the idea of justice in this way. Jefferson Davis himself, whose crime has culminated in Virginia, could not be convicted by a jury of that State. But it is the duty of the statesman to consider how justice, impossible in one way, may be made possible in another way. 6. No attainder of treason shall work corruption of blood, or forfeiture except during the life of the person attainted. Perhaps no provision of the Constitution, supposed pertinent to the present debate, has been more considered; nor is there any with regard to which there is greater difference of opinion. Learned lawyers in this body insist broadly that it forbids forfeiture of real estate, although not of personal, as a penalty of treason; while others insist that all the real as well as personal estate belonging to the offender may be forfeited. The words of the Constitution are technical, so as to require interpretation; and as they are derived from the Common Law, we must look to this law for their meaning. By “attainder of treason” is meant _judgment of death_ for treason,--that is, the judgment of court on conviction of treason. “Upon judgment of death for treason or felony,” says Blackstone, “a man shall be said to be attainted.”[17] Such judgment, which is, of course, a criminal proceeding, cannot, under our Constitution, work corruption of blood; which means that it cannot create obstruction or incapacity in the blood to prevent an innocent heir from tracing title through the criminal, as was cruelly done by the Common Law. Nor shall such attainder work “forfeiture except during the life of the person attainted.” If there be any question, it arises under these words, which, it will be observed, are peculiarly technical. As the term “attainder” is confined to “judgment of death,” this prohibition is limited precisely to where that judgment is awarded; so that, if the person is not adjudged to death, there is nothing in the Constitution to forbid absolute forfeiture. This conclusion is irresistible. If accepted, it disposes of the objection in all cases where there is no judgment of death.