I do not intend to pollute my pages with any sketch of the lawyers' pleas. They were able, without doubt, and erudite, and ingenious; but they were founded, nevertheless, on an atrocious assumption. For they assumed that the statutes of the State were just; and, therefore if the prisoner should be proven guilty of offending against them, that it was right that he should suffer the penalty they inflict. This doctrine every Christian heart must scorn; John Brown, at least, despised it; and so also, to be faithful to his memory, and my own instincts, must I.[465] On November 1st the Court heard Mr. Chilton's motion in arrest of judgment; reserving its decision upon it until the next day. During the afternoon of November 2d, Brown was brought into court for the final scene of the trial. After Mr. Chilton's motion had been overruled. Brown was ordered to rise, and when asked by the clerk if he had anything to say why sentence should not be pronounced upon him, he delivered the following address:[466] I have, may it please the Court, a few words to say. In the first place, I deny everything but what I have all along admitted,--the design on my part to free the slaves. I intended certainly to have made a clean thing of that matter, as I did last winter, when I went into Missouri and there took slaves without the snapping of a gun on either side, moved them through the country, and finally left them in Canada. I designed to have done the same thing again, on a larger scale. That was all I intended. I never did intend murder, or treason, or the destruction of property, or to excite or incite slaves to rebellion, or to make insurrection. I have another objection: and that is, it is unjust that I should suffer such a penalty. Had I interfered in the manner which I admit, and which I admit has been fairly proved (for I admire the truthfulness and candor of the greater portion of the witnesses who have testified in this case),--had I so interfered in behalf of the rich, the powerful, the intelligent, the so-called great, or in behalf of any of their friends,--either father, mother, brother, sister, wife, or children, or any of that class,--and suffered and sacrificed what I have in this interference, it would have been all right; and every man in this court would have deemed it an act worthy of reward rather than punishment.