Gentlemen, the spot on which a jury are seated should be a place separate and apart from the rest of the world; sacred, and inaccessible to the passions and prejudices that move the community without. It should be a place consecrated to the inquiry, “What is truth?” and to the application of its conclusions to the conduct of men. When you took your seats in that place, you were severally asked by the court whether you had formed any opinion respecting the guilt or innocence of the prisoner, and you severally answered in the negative. The final opinion, then, which shall be expressed in your verdict, must be an opinion which you have formed _since_ that time, and from the law and testimony here introduced. Into that opinion, no other element must be allowed to enter. The prejudged guilt of the prisoner, as manifested by repeated attempts to take his life; the demand which may exist, and which I suppose does exist, out of doors, that he shall be convicted, innocent or guilty; the anticipation that you are to meet an angry community, if you acquit him;--all these considerations, if they obtrude upon your minds, must be sternly rebuked and banished. The record of your verdict will survive these temporary excitements. It should be a verdict, therefore, which you can look upon, at the close of life, with conscientious satisfaction. It must be one which your children can look at with a filial and honorable regard for their fathers’ uprightness. In a case which has excited so much attention, both here and throughout the country, you, too, must expect to be put on trial; your verdict will go into the great record of history, to be passed upon by your country and by posterity.