The annals of criminal jurisprudence present few cases involving a combination of circumstances so tragic and so thrilling, as have marked this sad business from its bloody commencement to its bloody close. The deed--the place and the hour--the great tide of humanity flooding around the awful spot, almost within sound of the crash of the blows--the lonely horrors of the ensuing night--the circumstances of discovery--the long protracted trial--that hideous resurrection of the dead in the midst of the dense throng of shuddering life--the successive snapping of all the several cords of hope to which agonizing instinct yet clings--the slow, cold relentlessness with which vengeance day after day tightens more and more crushingly its tremendous grasp around its writhing victim--the solemn protestations of innocence, unwavering and consistent from the first moment to the last, equally in the confidence of the relation between counsel and client, and of that between priest and penitent--the agonies of human affections concentrated into those intense moments of last farewell--that ghastly bridal which is to know no nuptial couch but the bloody bier of suicide--the lurid writhing of the flames which break out almost at the very moment, towering high above the massive and frowning horrors of that dread abode of crime and wretchedness, conspicuous to the countless thousands whose gaze centres there in a spell-bound intensity of various excitement, against that calm and cloudless blue, from which looks down like an Eye the large white ray of one single star, long, as it seemed, in advance of its wonted hour--where, where is to be found recorded, where imagined, a case which can parallel, in all its parts, the fearful features which must for ever stamp this one so deeply in the memories of all who have been witnesses to its course and its consummation?

Well, it is now all over. The social vengeance has been glutted to the full. For that act of a mad moment--even if it were not one of justifiable self-defence--the soul of its wretched author has been wrung with long tortures, a thousand-fold keener than all the physical pangs which make the demoniac ecstasy of the Indian sacrifice. He has been gradually hemmed in--pressed closer and closer up to the very verge of the eternal and immeasurable chasm,--and has at last been plunged off into that dread darkness from which nor ray nor echo returns to reveal to us the perhaps infinite consequences of our awful act. All this has been done, and it is to be hoped that those whose doing it has been are now satisfied--satisfied in the vindictive spirit which has animated the proceedings whose result has been thus consummated; satisfied in that moral sense of justice which requires the most clear and unwavering conviction of the guilt, whose punishment is at once so fearful and so irremediable.

But does this satisfaction exist? Most unequivocally, No!

"Ah gentlemen," is the language of Beranger, in the French Chamber of Deputies, in 1831, "what a day of mourning that, when a simple suspicion arises respecting the guilt of a man who has perished by this last fatal doom! What sense of horror seizes the mass of society! What remorse! What eternal regrets fill the soul of the judges! What uncertainty is for a long time cast upon the decisions of the public justice, upon the respect due to them, upon the confidence which it is necessary that they should inspire! The heart cannot harden itself against such a calamity--it pierces to the core--the mistake is irreparable!"

Now, not only does this "simple suspicion" exist, but the belief is very widely prevalent- -according to our observation is decidedly preponderant among the most enlightened classes--that he certainly did not commit that degree of crime to which even this bloody law awards the sentence of which he was the victim; to say nothing of the vast numbers whose conscience and reason alike revolt against the useless, the worse than useless barbarity of that law itself. It is very certain, that the opinion of the main body of the Bar is, and has throughout been, adverse to the verdict of the jury. Few have ventured to differ from the universal remark which was to be heard during the pendency of the long uncertainty as to his fate, that on a new trial there would not exist, on the same evidence, the least chance of the same verdict. In every direction we see men of the highest authority of character and judgment emphatic in their disapproval--even among those who, after the judicial determination of the case, justify the unyielding sternness with which the execution of the law was carried out by all connected with its dread duties. And this is independent of the subsequent rays of probable light which have been cast upon the transaction--to which it may still not be useless here to advert.

In the first place, is the offered testimony of a witness of unimpeachable respectability, going to sustain Colt's statement on a point on which it was contradicted, and which became one of not immaterial moment during the course of the trial, although its importance was not perceived in its earlier stage, by the counsel who rejected it as unnecessary, and thus caused the witness to absent himself from the city. Colt's version of the affair ascribed the bruised marks on his neck, to Adams's throttling clutch in their encounter; and he denied having personally assisted in carrying down the stairs the box which was heavy with those hideous contents. The prosecution ascribed those marks to the latter cause; and not only justified the presumption, but at the same time, successfully impeached the veracity of his whole story, and thus deeply darkened the whole aspect of the case against him, by contradicting this statement by the testimony of the man employed about the premises, to the effect that Colt did himself carry it down. Now, not only did that unhappy man himself, in all his assurances to his counsel, relatives, and friends, insist upon the mistake committed by this witness on that point, and upon the truth of his own statement, but he is fully sustained in doing so, by testimony subsequently appearing, which places the matter beyond all doubt. The materiality of the point in question may be a matter for difference of opinion. It is certain that, directly or indirectly, it told very hard against him at the time of the trial.

In the second place, a very remarkable document was laid before the Governor, prepared by a physician of great respectability and intelligence, and confirmed and endorsed by a number of others entitled to very high consideration. This document (published in the New York Sun of Nov. 14) analyzes the situation and direction of all the wounds on the head of the least unfortunate of the two men who now sleep with equal soundness in their bloody repose. We could not, without the quotation of the whole, give an idea of the close and keen minuteness of demonstration by which it establishes the inference, as at least a very strong probability, that the blows causing them must have been given in the relative postures and circumstances stated in Colt's version of the matter, and in a manner irreconcilable with the idea of murder, in the proper sense of the term. It is well worthy of an attentive perusal, and we have yet to hear a justification of the entire disregard with which all mention of it is omitted, in the published documents emanating from the Executive, in defense of his refusal either to change the punishment or to allow the chance of the order of a new trial by the court of last resort.

In the third place, we refer to the steady uniformity with which he insisted upon the version he gave, from the hour of his arrest to that of his death, and under all the circumstances of confidence calculated to afford the strongest guarantees of truth. So was it to his counsel--whose prohibition alone restrained the strong desire expressed by himself of making a full public statement. And from the account published since his death by the reverend gentleman who ministered to his last hours--an account replete with most interesting evidence of an earnest religious spirit awakened under the pressure of the horrors of his position--we extract the following passages, of which the perusal can scarcely fail to strike a chill through the blood of the sternest and the hardest of heart of those who have urged through this wretched affair. In the third interview of Dr. Anthon with Mr. Colt, on the day but one before the last:

"After some farther conversation on these topics, I turned it to a point on which I was aware the community felt, as I did myself, a deep interest, and where they had a right for information if it could be obtained.

"The Episcopal Church, in the office for the 'Visitation of Prisoners,' requires her ministers, after an examination of the individual concerning his faith and repentance, to exhort him to a particular confession of the sin for which he is condemned. I called Mr. Colt's attention to the rubric on this subject, and found that he was aware of its requirements. Reminding him then of the circumstances under which we had first met, and the character and results of our interview, I appealed to him in the strongest and kindest terms I was master of, for the manifestation, on his part, of farther confidence. He met the appeal as it was meant. He solemnly declared that he committed the act in self-defence.

"'I have said so,' said he, 'again and again, but where is the use? They will not believe it, they will not believe it.' His face was covered with his handkerchief, and he wept bitterly. His manner and words affected me deeply. I asked him after a pause several questions. Among others this:--'Will you carry this as your confession to the bar of God?' He assured me solemnly that he was prepared so to do, and not to die with a lie upon his lips. I inquired of him, 'Taking your own account then to be the truth, do you think God has dealt harshly with you, under present circumstances?' 'No;' said he, 'God has not done it. Man has done it.' I inquired of him farther: 'You declare that you acted in self-defence. Still must you not feel deep sorrow and distress for having hurried a fellow creature without a moment's preparation into the presence of his God, and brought such woe upon his family?' He assented with much emotion. I told him that I was constrained to believe he spoke the truth."

On the next day:

"Before I reached his cell he had been informed by some friends of the Governor's renewed refusal to interfere. He grasped my hand as I entered, and we were both too much overcome to say a word. I prayed at his side for some time, both audibly and silently, and he remained on his knees for some minutes after I had concluded. His acknowledgments of his sinfulness and of his hope that he would find mercy at his Heavenly Father's hand for his Saviour's sake, came unprompted, and were humble and fervent. . . . . Inexpressibly painful as this interview was, before it closed I implored him and adjured him as well as I was able, to tell me once more whether he would stand by his acknowledgments of yesterday touching the sad act for which he was to suffer, as the truth, the while truth, and nothing but the truth. 'O, yes--yes,' was his reply. 'Can you, my dear sir,' I asked, 'throw any more light upon what passed? If so, confide in me. I will do what I can to have justice done to your memory.' 'No,' said he, 'I have nothing more to add to what these letters contain,' handing me at the same time a printed copy, in an envelope, of a paper, called, 'Extra Tattler, Oct. 23, 1842.' When the sheriff and another gentleman (I believe Mr. Hart's brother) entered the cell to announce, as it was their painful duty, his approaching end, 'O Mr. Hart, may God forgive you,' I think was the exclamation of the unfortunate man, as he threw himself upon his face on his bed and wept."

And again on the following day--that whose sunset he knew he was not to be allowed to behold:

"One of the first I struck upon was the 15th of St. Luke. I dwelt for a time upon the first seven verses--the joy in Heaven over a repenting sinner. I tried him again here; and I distinctly recollect, in the course of my remarks, touching upon the situation of one in his terrible circumstances, having a conscience clear from wilful blood-guiltiness, and asking him again (as I was sitting directly in front of him,) if it was so with himself; his protestations were the same as they had been."

When we view all these points in their connexion together; when we add to them the absence of motive, and the fact of the unexpected occasion of Adams's visit; the evidence sufficiently adduced of the irritating and insulting deportment habitual to the latter under such circumstances; and the extreme improbability of the wilful commission of such an act by such a man as Colt at a place and time so insanely dangerous--we do not see how the conclusion can be resisted, if not of the decidedly probable truth of his whole version, yet at least of the decidedly certain absence of any sufficient evidence of "wilful murder" to justify the infliction of such a penalty.

But the verdict of the jury, we are gravely told, is to be taken as conclusive on this point, beyond further question or criticism. Not so, indeed. Nothing is more uncertain than the action of juries. In the present case, the defence had unfortunately been conducted with so much fatal error of judgment, that at its close a sensible prejudice and irritation against the prisoner was its necessary consequence. Instead of from the outset directing its efforts to give to the act the milder character of manslaughter, the fact of the homicide was for several days stubbornly contested by the defence,--so that the main question engaging men's minds was, not whether the act was a wilful murder, or a passionate and possibly excusable manslaughter, but whether the prisoner was or was not guilty of the murder, the hideous horrors of which from day to day were painted by the testimony in still deepening shades of color to the imagination. And when at the close, the impossibility of any longer denying the fact extorted from the counsel the impromptu expedient of laying before the jury the confession which had been in their possession throughout the whole weary week of trial, the natural impulse of indignation, on the part of the jury, at the mode in which their time, feelings and the public justice had been thus trifled with, must have deprived their advocacy of all moral weight, and have very seriously injured the prisoner's chances. And again, it should be borne in mind that under the present fatally mistaken system of Capital Punishment, the action of juries is usually thus irregular and unjust. After a long course of extreme leniency, growing out of repugnance to the nature of the punishment, the pendulum is seen to oscillate back in one or two instances to the opposite extreme. Alarmed by the occurrence of some dreadful case, which is ascribed to the long prevailing impunity, the excited public resentment and panic, of which the jury partake with the community at large, demand a victim, who is very likely to be sacrificed on evidence which may be very far from satisfactory, as in this instance, to a just and proper discrimination. Soon again the oscillating reaction in the other direction will doubtless begin to make itself apparent again.

A fatality of misfortune seems to have attended the case from the commencement. All the subsequent deportment of the prisoner has been judged from the point of view of his assumed guilt, and not from that of his own version of the unhappy encounter, with which it has been entirely in harmony, down to the last solemn moment of his parting assurances of the truth he had spoken. It has thus ministered to a feeling of vindictive indignation against him, of which the influence is very apparent in the later proceedings of the case. In the strong predisposition against him existing in the public mind, the subsequent disposal of the body of the fallen man has been made to sustain inferences of his probable guilt of the worst form of the homicide, altogether unsustained by justice,--to put all consideration of human charity out of view. There were obviously abundant reasons existing to lead a man of his character to strain every nerve to bury in eternal secresy the awful fact. His explanation of his motive and promptings so perfectly natural and probable, that we look in vain for any of these self-betraying flaws which falsehood never can avoid leaving open to the searching penetration of justice. It was unfortunate for him, too, that immediately prior to his application for some degree of judicial or executive indulgence, had been published an article in a foreign Review, to which great attention was attracted; and, in which, amidst much general abuse of America and American institutions, the alleged impunity of crime was strongly criticised, and the very pending case of Colt referred to in illustration of the certainty with which influence and exertion could rescue the most atrocious guilt from punishment. It is not going further than a respectful intimation that the high public functionaries referred to were simply human, to suggest that this cause was not without some degree of effect in knitting more fixedly the firmness of that official frown which was bent so unrelentingly on all their efforts, whether for a writ of error, commutation or respite.

We regret sincerely the mode of his death, though it is impossible to see in it, under the circumstances, any ground for harsh severity of condemnation. In its proper sense, of the guilty abbreviation of the natural term of life, the word suicide is scarcely, perhaps, applicable to the act. It was adopted by him only at the last moment, when the last shadow of a shade of chance had departed, and when it was a simple choice of modes of death; and for obvious reasons, with reference to the future feelings of a child, as well as of other relations, the presence of which on a mind surrounding by all the struggling agonies of his position might well excuse a departure from that higher rectitude of moral vision and judgment, as well as of religious duty, which would have arrested the hand that did its fearful work so fearfully well. Had he submitted, however, to the lat injustice of the law, against which this act was his final protest, the sentiment which the whole dreadful tragedy would have aided to strengthen against the bloody and bad barbarity of the Gallows, in the midst of a Christian civilisation, would have been much stronger than even now it already manifestly is. At any rate, thank God! it cannot stand much longer; and even though he may have perished undeservedly--as he certainly has on no sufficient and satisfactory evidence of the guilt imputed to him--the fate of this unhappy man will probably ere long be recognized to have rendered indirectly in this mode a far greater amount of benefit to the society to whose wrath he was a victim, than his original act inflicted of injury, or than any length of years would have enabled him to render of good.

return to bibliography