Just observe how this affair is managed. If a father should give aid and comfort to a child, after she had been guilty of murder; if a husband should open his doors to a wife, or a daughter to her father, at dead of night; or furnish a horse, or money, or a mouthful of bread, or a cup of cold water, or the means of escape to a beloved brother, hunted for his life, with the avenger of blood at his heels, time was, when they were all accessories after the fact, and were treated as murderers or principals, whatever might be the offense, and put to death accordingly; and even yet, although that most barbarous law has undergone a few changes, so that in some portions of our country, they who stand in the relation of husband and wife, or parent and child, may help one another when fleeing for their lives; yet no other man, woman, or child can do it, in the whole community, but at the risk of death or imprisonment for life—_except he be a lawyer_, and the prisoner’s counsel. And then he may, and he not only may, but he is expected and required to do so: in other words, to aid and comfort, counsel and help the prisoner, heedless of all consequences, here and hereafter. And for this, he may receive the very gold which has been wrenched from the grasp of the murdered man; or the bank bills that are glued together by his heart’s blood; and nobody shall dare to question his integrity, or to have any secret misgivings about his honesty or conscientiousness—if it can be helped. Let me not be misunderstood. I do not deny that the worst of criminals are to be tried fairly. I acknowledge, moreover, that they cannot be tried fairly with men of the law against them, unless they have lawyers to help them: and that it is as much a part of the law that they shall be tried in a certain way, and proved guilty in a certain way, for the satisfaction of the world, as that they shall be punished at all; and that, if it were enough to be satisfied of another’s guilt as a murderer, to justify us in putting him to death, without going through the regular forms of law, then might we run him up at the next yard-arm, or tree branch, or lamp-post; on happening to see the bloody act perpetrated with our own eyes.