Page:The Judicial Capacity of the General Convention Exemplified.djvu/38

36 the testimony against him, and make ap their report accordingly! Thus they allow the unsubstantiated and most improbable statements of the accused party, to outweigh not only a great amount of internal evidence to the contrary, but the solemn and harmonious testimony of disinterested parties—of men as scrupulously honest, just and truthful as can be found in the land! Who ever heard of such wanton disregard of all the laws of evidence by sensible men called to arbitrate a question of this kind? I never did; and I can account for it in this instance, only by attributing it to the somewhat natural and obviously strong desire on the part of that Committee to shield at all hazards the party? whom they knew sympathized most cordially with the order and policy of the General Convention. But did that Committee consider, I wonder, how great an outrage it was against every law of charity and every principle of justice, to render a verdict entirely contrary to the evidence in the case—a verdict which virtually charges three excellent men of unimpeachable veracity, with bearing false witness, and adjudges one of them to have been guilty of perjury. And this, too, without one syllable of testimony to sustain this verdict—upon the mere naked, unsubstantiated and inconsistent statements of the accused himself! What would be thought of one of our civil courts, if, in the case of a man charged with robbery or arson, and proved guilty by the unimpeached and unimpeachable testimony of three or more witnesses, it should receive the naked assertions of the accused himself, and allow his testimony in his own behalf to outweigh and overthrow that of all the impartial witnesses? Let such a mode of judicial procedure be pursued in our courts, and crime would in all cases escape unpunished. Yet this was precisely the course pursued by this ecclesiastical (?) court, in the case before us.

The following is the conclusion of this Committee’s report as published in the Convention’s Journal for 1856, and embodies all that is of any importance here. The history of this matter, which they undertake to give in the first part of their report will be found more fully and correctly given on pp. 13–17 of this pamphlet, in my letter to Mr. Miller, whose truth, when read before the Committee, Mr. Wilks himself did not pretend to deny in any important particular.

"After Mr. Barrett left New York, to preach at Cincinnati, a report became current in the former city to the effect that Mr. Barrett had received cloth for a coat from some one, for Mr. Wilks, and then had taken pay for it from Mr. Wilks. This, of course, was making Mr. Barrett guilty of a very base transaction. The main difficulty of Mr. Barrett with Mr. Wilks was based upon the supposition, and appearance to him, that Mr. Wilks originated