Life and bloody career of the executed criminal, James Copeland, the great Southern land piratePitts, J. R. S. (James Robert Soda)
History
Life and bloody career of the executed criminal, James Copeland, the great Southern land pirate
Pitts, J. R. S. (James Robert Soda)
Copeland, James, 1823-1857; Criminals -- Gulf States -- Biography
Scheumack or Shoemake, all the while a citizen of Mississippi, the
defendant a citizen of Mississippi, yet, he goes to the City of Mobile,
in another State, among his friends and brethren, for process of law.
This was changing of venue with a vengeance. With equal propriety, as
far as law is concerned, might he not have gone to New York—not one
whit more unnatural.
Sheumack, the “big dog” among the clan; the man, above all others,
steeped the deepest in blood, and crime, and dissimulation; the man
who brought counterfeit documents pretending to come from the Probate
Judge of Kemper county; the man who denied writing the John R. Garland
letter on the witness stand, and whose oath was there invalidated to
the satisfaction of all; the man who bore the requisition from the
Governor of Alabama to the Governor of Mississippi for the arrest of
the defendant; this is the man to whom Judge McKinstry granted his writ
to serve the purposes as specified in the affidavit.
This affidavit charges with “unlawfully, wickedly, and maliciously,
with intent to injury, defame, villify, and prejudice the deponent:”
and again “this deponent is represented by the name of Shonesmak, as
a member of a clan or gang of robbers, murderers, and thieves, which
statement, referring to the deponent, is a defamatory libel, and
utterly and wholly untrue.”
In answer, will any one deny that such a “clan” existed? Will any
one deny that its whole object was robbery, murder, and theft? It is
presumed that none will have the effrontery to make such a denial in
the face of such overwhelming testimony almost everywhere to be found.
The next thing to be considered is, did the defendant publish and
circulate, with an intent to defame, villify, and prejudice, etc., one
represented by the name of Shouesmack, as belonging to the said clan?
Is there one disinterested and unprejudiced being in existence who
can believe that the defendant could have any motive for “wickedly,
maliciously.” etc., assailing somebody he before knew nothing about,
either good or bad—not even before knowing that such a creature was in
existence? Up to that time, unacquainted with a single act of his life,
can any one believe that the defendant published and circulated with a
wicked and malicious intent to defame and prejudice somebody he neither
knew by person or reputation before? Maliciousness can not exist while
unconscious of any cause for the same. So much then for the unlawful,
wicked and malicious attempt to injure the _fair fame_ of Scheumack.
The same arguments will apply with equal force to the other names as
published being the same as given by Copeland to the defendant; for to
suppose otherwise would be the height of absurdity. The next subject
for inquiry is, did Copeland, in his list of names, include Scheumack
rightfully or wrongfully?
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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