Again, it is said that it was not thought of making Francis Knapp, the prisoner at the bar, a PRINCIPAL till after the death of Richard Crowninshield, Jr.; that the present indictment is an after-thought; that “testimony was got up” for the occasion.  It is not so.  There is no authority for this suggestion.  The case of the Knapps had not then been before the grand jury.  The officers of the government did not know what the testimony would be against them.  They could not, therefore, have determined what course they should pursue.  They intended to arraign all as principals who should appear to have been principals, and all as accessories who should appear to have been accessories.  All this could be known only when the evidence should be produced.

But the learned counsel for the defendant take a somewhat loftier flight still.  They are more concerned, they assure us, for the law itself, than even for their client.  Your decision in this case, they say, will stand as a precedent.  Gentlemen, we hope it will.  We hope it will be a precedent both of candor and intelligence, of fairness and of firmness; a precedent of good sense and honest purpose pursuing their investigation discreetly, rejecting loose generalities, exploring all the circumstances, weighing each, in search of truth, and embracing and declaring the truth when found.

It is said, that “laws are made, not for the punishment of the guilty, but for the protection of the innocent.”  This is not quite accurate, perhaps, but if so, we hope they will be so administered as to give that protection.  But who are the innocent whom the law would protect?  Gentlemen, Joseph White was innocent.  They are innocent who, having lived in the fear of God through the day, wish to sleep in his peace through the night, in their own beds.  The law is established that those who live quietly may sleep quietly; that they who do no harm may feel none.  The gentleman can think of none that are innocent except the prisoner at the bar, not yet convicted.  Is a proved conspirator to murder innocent?  Are the Crowninshields and the Knapps innocent?  What is innocence?  How deep stained with blood, how reckless in crime, how deep in depravity may it be, and yet retain innocence?  The law is made, if we would speak with entire accuracy, to protect the innocent by punishing the guilty.  But there are those innocent out of a court, as well as in; innocent citizens not suspected of crime, as well as innocent prisoners at the bar.  The criminal law is not founded in a principle of vengeance.  It does not punish that it may inflict suffering.  The humanity of the law feels and regrets every pain it causes, every hour of restraint it imposes, and more deeply still every life it forfeits.  But it uses evil as the means of preventing greater evil.  It seeks to deter from crime by the example of punishment.  This is its true, and only true main object.  It restrains the liberty of the few offenders, that