82. ARTHUR T. HADLEY.......The Cheney-Ives Gateway... 713 President Accepting Memorial for University. University Baccalaureate Sermon. 87. HENRY WARD BEECHER...The Perfect Manhood.... Sermon to Graduating Class, West Point Military 89. JAMES J. DEAN.... 91. WILLIAM E. GLADSTONE...The Fundamental Error of Address at a Special City Celebration. 92. WENDELL PHILLIPS....... The Scholar in a Republic.... 795 Alumni Address at a University Commencement. MODELS OF SPEECH CHAPTER I COURT ROOM SPEECHES § 1 PROSECUTION IN THE KNAPP-WHITE MURDER CASE By Daniel Webster On the morning of April 7, 1830, Joseph White, a respectable and wealthy merchant of Salem, Mass., eighty-two years of age, was found in his bed, murdered. At a special term of the supreme court held at Salem on the 20th of July, three prisoners were brought to trial, John Francis Knapp as principal, and Joseph J. Knapp and Geo. Crowninshield as accessories. John Francis Knapp, the principal, was first put on trial. He was convicted and hanged. To convict the prisoner, it was necessary to prove that he was present, actually or constructively, as an aider or abettor in the murder. For full statement of case, see Veeder Legal Masterpieces, pp. 505-508. I am little accustomed, gentlemen, to the part which I am now attempting to perform. Hardly more than once or twice has it happened to me to be concerned on the side of the government in any criminal prosecution whatever, and never, until the present occasion, in any case affecting life. But I very much regret that it should have been thought necessary to suggest to you that I am brought here to "hurry you against the law and beyond the evidence." I hope I have too much regard for justice, and too much respect for my own character, to attempt either; and were I to make such attempt, I am sure that in this court nothing can be carried against the law, and that gentlemen intelligent and just as you are, are not, by any power, to be hurried beyond the evidence. Though I could DANIEL WEBSTER. Born at Salisbury (now Franklin), N. H., January 18, 1782; died at Marshfield, Mass., October 24, 1852; graduated from Dartmouth College, 1801; admitted to the bar in 1805; practised law in Portsmouth, N. H., 1807-1813; Congressman from New Hampshire, 1813-1817; practised law in Boston, 1817-1823; Congressman from Massachusetts, 1823-1827; United States Senator, 1827-1841; Secretary of State, 1841-1843; United States Senator again, 1845-1850; Secretary of State, 1850-1852. 3 impustine well have wished to shun this occasion, I have not felt at liberty to withhold my professional assistance, when it is supposed that I may be in some degree useful in investigating and discovering the truth respecting this most extraordinary murder. It has seemed to be a duty incumbent on me, as on every other citizen, to do my best and my utmost to bring to light the perpetrators of this crime. Against the prisoner at the bar, as an individual, I cannot have the slightest prejudice. I would not do him. the smallest injury or injustice. But I do not affect to be indifferent to the discovery and the punishment of this deep guilt. I cheerfully share in the opprobrium, how great soever it may be, which is cast on those who feel and manifest an anxious concern that all who had a part in planning, or a hand in executing, this deed of midnight assassination, may be brought to answer for their enormous crime at the bar of public justice. Gentlemen, it is a most extraordinary case. In some respects it has hardly a precedent anywhere; certainly none in our New England history. This bloody drama exhibited no suddenly excited, ungovernable rage. The actors in it were not surprised by any lion-like temptation springing upon their virtue, and overcoming it, before resistance could begin. Nor did they do the deed to glut savage vengeance, or satiate long-settled and deadly hate. It was a cool, calculating, money-making murder. It was all "hire and salary, not revenge." It was the weighing of money against life; the counting out of so many pieces of silver against so many ounces of blood. same astated detail An aged man, without an enemy in the world, in his own house, and in his own bed, is made the victim of a butcherly murder for mere pay. Truly, here is a new lesson for painters and poets. Whosoever shall hereafter draw the portrait of murder, if he will show it as it has been exhibited where such example was last to have been looked for, in the very bosom of our New England society,-let him not give it the grim visage of Moloch, the brow knitted by revenge, the face black with settled hate, and the bloodshot eye emitting livid fires of malice. Let him draw, rather, a decorous, smooth-faced, bloodless demon; a picture in repose, rather than in action; not so much an example of human nature in its depravity, and in its paroxysms of crime, as an infernal being, a fiend, in the ordinary display and development of his character. The deed was executed with a degree of self-possession and steadiness equal to the wickedness with which it was planned. The circumstances now clearly in evidence spread out the whole scene before us. Deep sleep had fallen on the destined victim, and on all beneath his roof. A healthful old man, to whom sleep was sweet, the first sound slumbers of the night held him in their soft but strong embrace. The assassin enters, through the window already prepared, into an unoccupied apartment. With noise |