been prepared by the conspirators as the altar for the sacrifice, looking calmly and quietly down upon the glad and grateful people whom, by his fidelity, he had saved from the peril which had threatened the destruction of their government, and all they held dear this side of the grave-whom he had come upon invitation to greet with his presence, with the words still lingering upon his lips which he had uttered with uncovered head and uplifted hand before God and his country, when on the fourth of last March he took again the oath to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution, declaring that he entered upon the duties of his great office "with malice toward none, with charity for all." In a moment more, strengthened by the knowledge that his co-conspirators were all at their posts, seven at least of them present in the city, two of them, Mudd and Arnold, at their appointed places, watching for his coming, this hired assassin moves stealthily through the door, the fastenings of which had been removed to facilitate his entrance, fires upon his victim, and the martyr spirit of Abraham Lincoln ascends to God. "Treason has done his worst; nor steel nor poison, Can touch him further." At the same hour when these accused and their co-conspirators in Richmond and Canada, by the hand of John Wilkes Booth, inflicted this mortal wound which deprived the Republic of its defender, and filled this land from ocean to ocean with a strange, great sorrow, Payne, a very demon in human form, with the words of falsehood upon his lips, that he was the bearer of a message from the physician of the venerable Secretary of State, sweeps by his servant, encounters his son, who protests that the assassin shall not disturb his father, prostrate on a bed of sickness, and receives for answer the assassin's blow from the revolver in his hand, repeated again and again; rushes into the room, is encountered by Major Seward, inflicts wound after wound upon him with his murderous knife; is encountered by Hansell and Robinson, each of whom he also wounds; springs upon the defenseless and feeble Secretary of State, stabs him first on one side of his throat, then on the other, again in the face, and is only prevented from literally hacking out his life by the persistence and courage of the attendant Robinson. He turns to flee; and his giant arm and murderous hand for a moment paralyzed by the consciousness of guilt, he drops his weapons of death, one in the house, the other at the door, where they were taken up, and are here now to bear witness against him. He attempts escape on the horse which Booth and Mudd had procured of Gardner-with what success has already been stated. If this conspiracy was thus entered into by the accused; if John Wilkes Booth did kill and murder Abraham Lincoln in pursuance thereof; if Lewis Payne did, in pursuance of said conspiracy, assault, with intent to kill and murder, William H. Seward, as stated, and if the several parties accused did commit the several acts alleged against them, in the prosecution of the said conspiracy, then it is the law that all the parties to that conspiracy, whether present at the time of its execution or not, whether on trial before this court or not, are alike guilty of the several acts done by each in the execution of the common design. What these conspirators did in the execution of this conspiracy by the hand of one of their co-conspirators they did themselves; his act, done in the prosecution of the common design, was the act of all the parties to the treasonable combination, because done in execution and furtherance of their guilty and treasonable agreement. As we have seen, this is the rule, whether all the conspirators are indicted or not, whether they are all on trial or not. "It is not material what the nature of the indictment is, provided the offense involve a conspiracy. Upon indictment for murder, for instance, if it appear that others, together with the prisoner, conspired to perpetrate the crime, the act of one, done in pursuance of that intention, would be evidence against the rest." (1 Wharton, 706.) To the same effect are the words of Chief-Justice Mar shall, before cited, that whoever leagued in a general conspiracy, performed any part, however minute, or however remote, from the scene of action, are guilty as principals. In this treasonable conspiracy to aid the existing armed rebellion by murdering the executive officers of the United States and the commander of the armies, all the parties to it must be held as principals, and the act of one in the prosecution of the common design the act of all. I leave the decision of this dread issue with the court, to which alone it belongs. It is for you to say, upon your oaths, whether the accused are guilty. I am not conscious that in this argument I have made any erroneous statement of the evidence, or drawn any erroneous conclusions; yet I pray the court, out of tender regard and jealous care for the rights of the accused, to see that no error of mine, if any there be, shall work them harm. The past services of the members of this honorable court give assurance that without fear, favor, or affection, they will discharge with fidelity the duty enjoined upon them by their oaths. Whatever else may befall, I trust in God that in this, as in every other American court, the rights of the whole people will be respected, and that the Republic in this its supreme hour of trial will be true to itself and just to all, ready to protect the rights of the humblest, to redress every wrong, to avenge every crime, to vindicate the majesty of law, and to maintain inviolate the Constitution, whether assailed secretly or openly, by hosts armed with gold or armed with steel. BISMARCK N DELIVERING his great speech on the Army Bill (February 1888) which, in the opinion of his enemies, was the most powerful reactionary utterance of the second half of the century, Bismarck showed himself a consummate master of that art which conceals itself so thoroughly that it requires a laborious collection of evidence to demonstrate its existence. He did not care at all to be considered an orator. His whole mind was centred on car rying his point. In this he succeeded so well on that occasion, and on almost every other, that though he probably made more public speeches and carried more points than any other man in Germany during his day, he is seldom thought of as an eloquent man or as an orator and is rarely classed among the great speakers of his country. In delivering his speech on the Army Bill, he talked to the German Reichstag in what was apparently a bluff, off-hand, jovial style, very much as if he were talking to half a dozen companions around a table over beer and pipes. Now, he stopped to jest with the opposition, now he grew confidential as if he were revealing State secrets to trusted friends, now he appealed as a German to Germans in behalf of the Fatherland, now he spoke for the sacred interests of peace and philanthropy-always with the easy, assured assumption that every one must agree with him as a matter of course without the necessity for anything more than this conversational style of putting things among friends. Though his language is His mastery of German is phenomenal. simplicity itself, his sentences grow on him until no one of less mental power could have emerged from their labyrinths. He does emerge, however, and that so easily and naturally that their involved nature only becomes remarkable when the attempt is made to transfer his thought to another language. Bismarck (Otto Edward Leopold, Prince von Bismarck-Schönhausen), was born April 1st, 1815, and died July 30th, 1898. He was the greatest "Conservative" of his age and one of the greatest of any age. Among the public men with whom he was matched in Europe only Gladstone equaled him in intellect and, lacking his intense force of prejudice, Gladstone himself was never anything like his equal in effectiveness. To Bismarck more than to any other one man, probably more than to any other ten men, was due the gradual but sure growth of the feeling which at his death had turned Europe into an "armed camp." When he first entered politics, as a representative of the extreme royalists of the German land-holding nobility in their opposition to the parliamentary movement of 1848-49, he showed the same tendencies which appear in his speech on the Army Bill of 1888. He was disturbed by the evident tendency of the world to grow into cities, which he regarded as hotbeds of treason and disorder. To check this he believed "blood and iron" were necessary in both domestic and foreign politics. This and his intense devotion to the royal family of Prussia are the mainsprings of his politics. He opposed the "United Germany," proposed by the Frankfort Parliament of 1849, because he thought it gave too much recognition to the people at the expense of the crown. He fought for royal prerogative at every point in the history of Germany until the empire was established at Versailles after France had submitted on terms he had dictated. In 1884 he achieved his greatest triumph against the "Liberals" of Germany by committing the empire to the colonial policy, which it has since pursued in antagonism to England. His quarrel with the present emperor which resulted in his retirement from court did not retire him from the public affairs of Germany and, up to the time of his death, he remained one of the greatest individual forces in the politics of Europe. His speech on the Army Bill, here given as an illustration of his oratory, was translated for this work from the Stuttgart edition of his speeches published by authority in 1894. I' A PLEA FOR IMPERIAL ARMAMENT (Delivered in the Reichstag, February 6th, 1888) F I RISE to speak to-day it is not to urge on your acceptance the measure the President has mentioned (the army appropriation). I do not feel anxious about its adoption, and I do not believe that I can do anything to increase the majority by which it will be adopted-by which it is all-important at home and abroad that it should be adopted. Gentlemen of all parties have made up their minds how they will vote and I have the fullest confidence in the German Reichstag that it will restore our armament to the height from which we reduced it in the period between 1867 and 1882; and this not with respect to the conditions of the moment, not with regard to the apprehensions which may excite the stock exchanges and the mind of the public; but with |