The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 05, No. 31, May, 1860: A Magazine of Literature, Art, and PoliticsVarious
Philosophy
The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 05, No. 31, May, 1860: A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics
Various
American periodicals
The Counsel for Colonel Smith, unable to get the connivance of the
Administration before the Jury in the shape of evidence, coolly assumed
it as established, and urged it in defence of their client. They used
his memorial to Congress as their brief, enlarged upon the arbitrary
conduct of the Judge in the examinations and upon the tyrannical
interference of the President with their witnesses. As Mr. Emmet
cleverly and classically remarked, quoting from Tacitus's description
of the funeral of Junia, "Perhaps their very absence rendered them more
decided witnesses in our favor." They also maintained that the Act of
1794, under which the prisoner was indicted, did not prohibit an
enterprise of this character. Even if it did, no proof existed that
this expedition was organized in New York. On the contrary, it was
known that Miranda had gone hence to Jacquemel, and had made his
preparations there, in a port out of our jurisdiction.
This point made, they boldly went a step farther, and declared that the
United States were actually at war with Spain. The affair of the
Kempers, and of Flanagan in Louisiana, the obstruction of the Mobile
Kiver, the depredations upon our commerce by Spanish privateers, were
sufficient proof of a state of war. We had a right to meet force by
force. The President must have been of this opinion, else he could not
have violated his trust by authorizing this expedition.
The case for the defence, considered in a logical point of view, was
desperate; but no case is desperate before a Jury; and when Mr. Colden,
Mr. Hoffman, and Mr. Emmet had each in his own peculiar mode of
eloquence appealed to the Jury to protect their client, already
punished by removal from his place, without a trial or even a hearing,
for an offence committed with, the sanction of his superior
officers,--when they compared this State prosecution to the attempts
made by despotic European governments to crush innocent men by the
machinery of law, and asserted that it was instituted solely to gratify
the malice of the King of Spain, a bitter enemy to the United
States,--and when they enlarged upon the grandeur of an undertaking to
give liberty to the down-trodden victims of Colonial tyranny, comparing
Miranda and his friends to our own Revolutionary heroes, there could be
but little doubt of the verdict. But there was an uneasy feeling after
the District Attorney had closed. He demolished with ease the arguments
of the other side, for not one of them had sufficient strength to stand
alone. Smith's perpetual excuse, that he had been led astray by the
belief of connivance in Washington, was preposterous. If he had been
anxious to know the sentiments of Government on the subject, he might
at any time within six days have ascertained whether Miranda told him
truth or not. He spoke of the cruelty and reckless folly of all such
attempts upon a neighboring people; asked the Jury how they would like
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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