But the expiration of one sort of lawlessness does not preclude the existence of others more dangerous, because more subtle and more in accordance with the corruptions in the high departments of States, and more in harmony with the operations of those who boldly trample on rectitude and the laws of the nation. Rings and cliques are not confined to political considerations alone, but descend to many other important affairs of life. A union of an inferior and unprincipled lawyer with a subordinate officer, and these again with a league of reckless and desperate “strikers,” who can make money almost at any time from the honest earnings of the less expert, and all by forms and processes of law. This is one class of rings complained of, the evils from which are of a frightful magnitude. They weave the net, goad the honest but unwary into its meshes, and revel on the spoils which have been extorted from litigation. The former modes of robbery, plunder and murder have, to a great extent, been superseded by, if possible, worse evils in the form of a science as taught and practiced by these rings and cliques. Crimes which formerly had to encounter hardships and danger, can now be accomplished by other means with honors, profits, and a plausible sanction of law. Government should have power sufficient to be able and willing to crush such proceedings, which, unchecked, must, ere long, produce another national convulsion. Copeland’s crimes were huge and many. Before he had reached the meridian of life he paid the last and highest penalty of the law. He was cut down anterior to the attainment of the flower of his days—a melancholy example to all who prefer robbery and murder to the honest and peaceful pursuits of industry. With all the weight of crime belonging, he made some atonement by his valuable confessions in the last hours of his existence. It is not clear what were the actuating motives; whether smarting under disappointment, and goaded on by a spirit of revenge against those who had promised him safety and protection, but did not prevent him enduring years of imprisonment with the immediate prospect of a violent and ignominious death, or sick of life, with no hope of earthly relief, and oppressed with painful reflections on the past—conscious that the affairs of this world could not concern him but a few days longer—it is more than probable that the task of disclosing the dreadful operations of his past life in associations with others, afforded him some repose or satisfaction in the unhappy situation he was then placed. With some, in the condition of distress and despair, there is perhaps nothing which can give a greater temporary relief than for the mind to be intensely fixed and engaged on something which is to live after the body has finished its earthly career.