Abraham Lincoln - American Memory

14
•heir serene brows to the dust of the grave, and lifting their hands
for the last time amidst the consuming fires of battle ! I assume, for
the purposes of this argument, that self-defence is as clearly the right
of nations as it is the acknowledged right of men, and that the Amer-
ican people may do in the defence and maintenance of their own
rightful authority against organized armed rebels, their aiders and
abettors, whatever free and independent nations anywhere upon this
globe, in time of war, may of right do.
All this is substantially denied by the gentleman in the remarkable
argument which he has here made. There is nothing further from.
my purpose than to do injustice to the learned gentleman or to his
elaborate and ingenious argument. To justify what I have already
said. 1 may be permitted here to remind the court that nothing is
said by the counsel touching the conduct of the accused, Mary E.
Surratt, as shown by the testimony ; that he makes confession at the
end of his arraignment of the government and country, that he has
not made such argument, and that he leaves it to be made by her
other counsel. He does take care, however, to arraign the country
and the government for conducting a trial with closed doors and
before ,i secret tribunal, and compares the proceedings of this court
to the Spanish Inquisition, using the strongest words at his command
to intensify the horror which he supposes his announcement will
excite throughout the civilized world.
Was this dealing fairly by this government? Was there anything
in the conduct of the proceedings here that justified any such remark ?
Has this been a secret trial ? Has it not been conducted in open day
in the presence of the accused, and in the presence of seven gentle-
men learned in the law, who appeared from day to day as their
counsel ? Were they not informed of the accusation against them ?
Were they deprived of the right of challenge? Was it not secured
to them by law, and were they not asked to exercise it? Has any
part of the evidence been suppressed? Have not all the proceed-
ings been published to the world ? What, then, was done, or intended
to be done, by the government, which justifies this clamor about a
Spanish Inquisition ?
That a people assailed by organized treason over an extent of ter-
ritory half as large as the continent of Europe, and assailed in their
v.i v capital by secret assassins banded together and hired to do the
work of murder by the instigation of these conspirators, may not
be permitted to make inquiry, even with closed doors, touching the
nature and extent of the organization, ought not to be asserted by