But murder, also, in the case of the Major-General whose sword gave the signal for the drop to fall. General and soldiers are in the precise position, before the law, of a mob of Lynchers carrying out the judgment of a Lynch court. Murder, not only in the case of the one military officer who superintended the details of the execution. He, too, though with much less force, can plead that he was the mere bailiff of what he believed to be a competent Court. But murder, also, on the part of the nine military officers and the three advocates who tried and sentenced this woman to death. These men, in the forum of the law, stand in the precise position of any nine policemen steered by any three police attorneys in the city of New York, who should dare to try, convict and sentence to death a citizen of that city. Murder, not only on the part of the Commission and its lawyers; they too might, possibly, plead--though with still diminishing force--that, although they were warned and took the awful responsibility, still they believed in their competency. But murder, also, in the President of the United States, who appointed the court, approved its findings, and commanded the execution of its sentence. He stands before the law in the same position as though, sweeping aside all empty forms, he had seized a sword and with his own hand cut off the head of the woman, without the mockery of a trial. In our frame of government, there is surely no room for such a twi-formed barbarian-despot, as a President having the power to pick out from the army, of which he is the commander-in-chief, the members of a court to try and punish with death, at his option, any one of the citizens, for an abortive attempt on his own life. And it was murder, not only in the case of the President; he, too, but with scarcely audible voice, might plead the coercion of his situation--sitting as he did in the seat of the murdered Lincoln. But it was murder, also, in the Secretary of War, who initiated the iniquitous process, pushed on the relentless prosecution, shut his own ears and the ears of the President to all pleas for mercy, presided like a Moloch over the scaffold, and kept the key of the charnel-house, where, beside the unpitied carcasses of the reputed ruffians forced upon her in her ordeal of torture and in the hour of death, the slaughtered lady lay mouldering in her shroud. Here, at least, the plea of mitigation exhales in a cry like that of Payne, "I was mad!"