USA > Indiana > Early Indiana trials: and sketches. Reminiscences > Part 61
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interests more likely to be respected or protected, under the new con- federacies which are to be formed, than they are now ? What at this moment, is the great security under which they rest ? What but the Constitution of these United States ? To that they cling-and under that, and that alone, they insist upon the enjoyment of all which it guaranties to them. Is there any thing in the signs of the times, in the condition of public opinion in this country, to induce the South to believe that if this Constitution is broken up, and new forms of gov- ernment are established, any greater security will be provided for their interests than is now furnished ? Is that ' spirit of fanaticism,' as the Senator has called it, which he supposes to prevail at the North, hos- tile to the interests of the South, to be allayed and quieted, when the restraints of the Constitution are removed, and when the anxious soli- eitude for harmony, and peace, and fraternal regard, which animate much the larger portion of the Free States; is turned into alicnation and distrust ? What remedies does the Senator expect will be volun- tarily provided for the escape of fugitives 'held to service,' in the language of the Constitution, by the new Government to be instituted in the Free States ? No, sir; when all connections and mutual obli- gations are dissolved, all Constitutional restraints abrogated, the South will in vain look for any relief or support of its institutions from the neighboring confederacies ?
" A half century would not go by-no, not the half of it, if such a deplorable event as that which the Senator supposes should take place-before the South would exhibit, not the flowery and smiling fields which he has pictured, not the wealth and prosperity and hap- piness which he dreams of-but decay and desolation, and dreary wastes and poverty, of which he has no conception. No nation, as I endeavored to show yesterday, ever did, no nation ever can, or ever will, become permanently great, or powerful, or wealthy, whose whole labor is devoted to one, and only one pursuit, especially if that be the production of rude materials, which other nations enjoy the profit of manufacturing. It is against all history, against all philosophy, against every doctrine of political economy, which has ever found respectable support any where. The great and only security for the . South is to remain a component part, a great part of a nation where diversity of interest and of pursuits prevail-where, by free intercom- munication and exchange, the profits of labor and industry in all the sections will be equalized, and where the benefit of one promotes the benefit of all. But the Senator. His faith is strong against all expe- rience, against the history of all nations, against all the warnings and admonitions, and legacies bequeathed to us by the fathers of the
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country-the patriots and sages and statesmen of the purer and earlier age of the Republic. Sir, this matter was early considered, early dis- cussed. The value of internal commerce as a bond of union, the diversity of soil, climate, and pursuit, as a source of wealth and national strength, occupied much of the patriotic thought and patriotic hope of the framers of the Constitution.
" Mr. President, the honorable Senator in his estimate of the advan- tages to be gained by the South, from a separate confederacy, makes no account of national strength and national renown. He forgets that ordeal of fire through which we passed in the establishment of our independence, and through which we could never have gone if we had not been united. The glorious past he leaves out of view altogether, while his ardent imagination revels in the brighter visions of the future. Let the separation of which he speaks take place, and that day on whose annual return ten thousand times ten thousand Ameri- can hearts beat higher and quicker-that day which first beheld us an independent nation-is to be blotted from the calendar. For the South, at least, it can bring no joyous recollections, no patriotic, heart-stirring emotions. The achievements of our ancestors are all to be forgotten. Camden and King's Mountain may indeed remain within the limits of the new confederacy -- but none of the renown and the glory which attach to them will belong to it. All of gallantry and prowess and noble-bearing which were then displayed, all of high- renown, ever-enduring fame, honor, glory, there acquired ; belonged, and ever will belong, in all history, to United, United, United America. It can never be divided-God grant that it may never be obliterated and forgotten. No account is to be taken of the glorious spectacle which we have presented to the world, in the solution of the great problem of the capacity of mankind for self-government-no account of the great advance which has taken place in government, and the progress of free institutions all over the world, for our example.
" The various events of our unparalleled Revolution, the renown achieved in that momentous struggle-the veneration for the great and good; the patriots whose fame is our country's inheritance ; the sacred bequest of liberty, unity, strength, purchased with so much blood, and so much treasure, are all, all to be abandoned, all sacri -. ficed, if, in the providence of God, so deplorable an event should occur, as that which the Senator, for the purposes of illustration, has supposed. But no, sir, none of these things will happen. I have no belief that the honorable Senator himself contemplates or desires such a calamity -- I have no belief that his honored State entertains the slightest wish, the faintest hope, for a separation of our Union. I am
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GEORGE EVANS.
sure I should do him, and it, great injustice to attribute such a pur- pose to either. No man is reckless enough to covet the fame, the eternity of infamy, which must await him who shall bring upon this happy land the desolation and war which such an event must produce. The adventurous youth who undertook for a single day to guide the chariot of the sun, paid for his temerity with the forfeit of his life. Happy will it be for him who, impelled by a mad ambition, shall kin- dle up our system in universal conflagration, to escape with so light a penalty. He will live, live in the reproaches and execrations of man- kind, in all time. He will live in history-not on the page where are inscribed the names of the benefactors of our race, not with the good, the wise, the great ; but with the enemies of the liberties and happiness of mankind, with the oppressors of their race, with the scourges whom God has permitted to desolate nations, and to quench human happiness in tears and blood. Sir, we are one. We can not be divided. We have a common country, a common history, common distinction, renown, pre-eminence. They all belong to one, and one only. We have common and mutual interests which bind us together, and which can not be severed. Bands stronger than iron and steel hold us in indissoluble connection.
"' One sacred oath has tied Our loves; one destiny our life shall guide, Nor wild, nor deep, our common way divide.'"
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IMPORTANT CASE OF MONOMANIA.
THE great ease in the Circuit Court of the United States for the district of Indiana, of the heirs of James B. M'Call against Willard Carpenter and John A. Reitz, having been compromised, it may be interesting to the professional reader and the student of medical juris- prudence to sketch the facts and questions that arose in the case. The large amount of property, the character of the case, the length of time occupied at the several terms of the court and in the Supreme Court of the United States, gave to the case an interest second to no case ever tried in the State. It was an action of ejeetment brought by the heirs of James B. M'Call against Carpenter and Reitz for a large number of lots in Lamasco eity that had been sold by Hugh Stewart to them, claiming title under a decd executed to him by James B. M' Call on the 18th of June, 1840. The main question in the case was whether James B. M'Call at the time of the execution of this deed had sufficient capacity to execute it understandingly. On the part of the heirs it was insisted that their ancestor was insane at the time he sold the lots and executed the deed to Hugh Stewart. The defen- dants, counsel placed the defense upon the ground that, admitting that M'Call had hallucinations of mind, before and after the execution of the deed, on some subjects, still he was sane on the subject of the sale of these lots and the execution of the deed in question. M'Call, the ancestor, was proved to have been laboring under a state of melancholy before the execution of the deed, growing out of the depreciation of property and the loss of his wife. About the time of its execution he showed strong hallucination on the subject of famine, starvation, and poverty, and valuelessness of land and general depression in monetary affairs, and some months afterward committed suicide by taking lau- danum and cutting his throat. The question was whether this mania, or partial derangement, embraced the sale of the lots and the execu- tion of the deed in question. There was a large amount of evidence on that point, which it is not important to state. There were four experts examined-Dr. J. S. Athon, principal of the Insane Asylum, Dr. T. B. Elliott, formerly physician of the Asylum, Dr. Ritchey, one of the trustees of the Asylum and Dr. Barton, of Washington, Daviess county. These witnesses were separated and examined at length before the jury. Upou some points they agreed, and on others they widely differed. It was evident, in the examination, that the positions that Dr. Athon and Elliott held for years in the Insane Asylum, made them more familiar with the subject of insanity than the other experts, and the
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main questions were directed by the connsel to them. Upon the fol- lowing questions they agreed :
" First. That a monomaniae, upon the subject of his delusions, can not perform a continued series of business acts in a common-sense man- ner like persons of unquestioned capacity.
' "S cond. That where the question is doubtful as to what the delu- sion embraced, the fact that he ated continnonsly like a sane man on a particular subject, would show that his delusion did not embrace that matter."
Dr. Athon and Dr. Elliott, the experts, after hearing all the evi- dence in the case, differed upon the following question ; " Whether from all the evidence you have heard in this case, including the deed, description of the lands, letters and book accounts of M'Call, you would consider that James B. M'Call, at the time he executed the deed to HIugh Stewart, had sufficient mental capacity on the subject, to understandingly sell and convey the lots in question to Hugh Stew- art ?" Dr. Athon .- " I believe he had not." Dr. Elliott .-- " I am well satisfied he had." This was intended as a test question for the experts, to go to the jury with their answers. It will be seen, with all their great experience and knowledge on the subject that they differed widely upon the application of the evidence before the Court and jury to the case on trial. Here it is that the greatest difficulty always occurs, the Court and jury have to determine the case at last, not merely upon the opinion of experts, but upon the whole evidence, and the law of the ease. There is not so much difficulty in determining what the law is or what facts have been proved, as to give the law and facts their pro- per application to the ease before the Conrt and jury. The following general principles are laid down in the books.
All men are presumed in law to be sane, their acts and deeds valid, and the burden of proof to impeach, or deny the one or the other, lies upon the party who sets up insanity, or denies the legal force of the deed.
Insanity may be either total, affecting the mind on all subjects, and rendering it incompetent to act sanely on any subject, or it may be partial, only insane upon some subjects, and entirely sane on others. In the case of total insanity, all acts done while the person remained insane would be void, but in that case there may be Incid intervals, when all acts done during those intervals would be valid. Here again the proof changes, the presumption of sanity being rebntted by proof of insanity. It is incumbent on the party setting up the lneid inter- val to prove it clearly, to make the acts done during such Ineid inter- val legal, as the presumption of law is, once insane always insane, until the contrary is proved.
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Partial Insanity is where the mind is laboring under illusions, or hallucinations, on some subjects, while it is sane on others. This was the case of M'Call, as agreed by all the witnesses, experts as well as others. The books as well as the learned experts, agreed that a mono- maniac, or a person deranged on some subjects, has no lucid intervals on those subjects until there was an entire cure, but that there might be a remission of the symptoms, to be revived the moment the chord was touched that produced them. The great difficulty in such cases, is in determining what the particular monomania or hallucination em- braces, and what it does not. In this case, M'Call was evidently a monomaniac upon the subject of a famine in the land, and the approaching poverty of the people, and that himself and family would come to want. But did that embrace the sale and conveyance of his own lands, reserving in his deed a part, where he had acted as a sane and business-like man ? Upon that point, the experts as well as the intelligent witnesses, differed ; and that would have been the question before the Court and jury, had the case progressed to a conclusion.
Experts. The books on Medical Jurisprudence lay it down as a principle for the government of trials of insanity, that the opinions of experts are of a much higher order than the evidence of others. Has not this idea done much mischief by being received in the gen- eral terms in which it is laid down. It may be true, all other things and the knowledge of facts being equal, but is far from being so where the expert has only learned the state of the mind of the insane person from the mouths of witnesses, without seeing him or knowing the change that had taken place in his manners, habits, conversation and actions when passing from a state of sanity to that of insanity. Every case of insanity that has found its way into our Asylum, has been detected, not only by experts, but by the family and friends at home, before the patient was sent to the Asylum. It was at home in the com- mon business associations of the insane person, that his insanity, whe- ther general or partial, was discerned. It was there that the change would be seen. It may be admitted, that were the family and friends experts, the nature and extent of the malady would be more distinctly noticed. But the question at issue is, whether the mere opinions of experts, without a full and minute knowledge of all the facts, and without ever having seen the patient, should be held higher in law than the evidence of the intelligent observer who had seen the patient and his changes, and their operation on his mind from time to time. The opinions of experts must always be received, and should be enti- tled to due weight ; but should like all other evidence, be closely exam- ined by the Court and jury, with the other testimony in the cause, but
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should not be held to over-ride the other witnesses who testify to facts, and from those facts give their opinions, unless the opportunities of the experts have been equal to those of the other witnesses to know the facts of the case. Then their scientific knowledge would place them upon the higher ground.
The great danger of receiving the opinions of experts, as of a higher character of evidence, without proving a sufficient basis for the opin- ions to rest upon, is strongly illustrated by the case given in Wharton's Medical Jurisprudence ; where a sane man was confined in the Insane Asylum for weeks, and treated as a raving maniac, without discovering that anger was not mania. The case, as given by Wharton, is both amusing to the ordinary reader, and instructive to those engaged in the trial of cases of insanity.
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THE AUTHOR.
As the passenger leaves the city of Philadelphia on one of the splendid steamers that ply between the city and Trenton, on the Del- aware river, as he passes the forests of masts and lines of shipping, and casts his eyes over the city, and sees the steeples of her hundred churches, piercing the clouds, his mind will involuntarily look back to the days when William Penn laid off its beautiful streets and squares, between the Delaware and Schuylkill rivers, when not even a hut of the fisherman had been built, where that magnificent city now stands, where stood the old elm tree, under which the first treaty with the Indians was made, by the great proprietor, he will exclaim, " How great the change !" My grandparents on both sides were friends and associates of William Penn, crossed the Atlantic from England with him, and belonged to the same society. The steamer as she runs up the Delaware passes one of the most beautiful countries, on the Pennsylvania side, in the world, highly cultivated. On the Jersey side it is more wild and picturesque. On the Pennsylvania side stands the beautiful city of Bristol. On the Jersey shore stand Burlington and Bordentown. Near the latter is seen in a deeply-shaded grove the mansion of the late ex-King Joseph Bonaparte, as it rose from the ashes of his former splendid residence. The city of Trenton, the capital of New Jersey, stands prominent on the right. The more humble Morrisville covers the left bank at the falls of the Delaware, where the permanent arch-bridge unites the two cities.
When but a mere youth, as I was approaching Morrisville in the dusk of the evening, I heard the cry of fire. Just as I reached the center of the town, I saw a man walking upon the top of a house, bucket in hand, without a hat, sprinkling water upon the roof. A gentleman in the crowd asked me if I knew who he was ; and re- marked-" this is Gen. Moreau, of France." The General came down after a short time, and I had a full view of him. I looked upon the hero of Hohenlinden at the time with much interest. He was short and thick, dark complexion, black hair eyes and whiskers, stern countenance. He afterward fell by a cannon shot at the battle of Dresden, in 1813, while fighting with the allies against the French army under the command of Napoleon.
At Trenton the tide ceases ; the rocky shoals and rapid currents of the Delaware commence. The traveler leaves the steamer and takes the cars. Some twelve miles above the city of Trenton, the current of the river becomes still more rapid ; the water dashes over Well's Falls ; " Smith's Island" divides their channel at the base. That
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Island belonged to my grandfather, and descended to my father. Ilere I must stop and let the traveler pass on to look at the mountain scenery on the upper Delaware, as it winds its serpentine way north to the State of New York, where he finds its source. I have arrived at the place of my birth on the 23d of October, in the year 1794 ; the beautiful Delaware, with its clear waters, rapid currents, floating rafts, fine shad, and beautiful striped bass, stretches away in the distance from my father's farm, the Jersey hills rising one above another to the clouds on the east; on the west a beautiful ridge; on the north Bowman's Hill. Near the junction of the hills, was found many years ago a few acres of level ground in the woods. The early set- tlers, my father among them, selected this spot for their school-house. It was a most solitary location, only found by the school-boys by their winding paths from their valley and mountain homes. The neighbors met, the ground was prepared, and the school-house built.
The building was twenty by twenty-six feet, of uudressed mountain rock, one low story, four windows of eight-by-ten glass on each side, and two at each end, a continuous desk around the wall on three sides, with a corresponding bench for the scholars. When I first entered the school-house, at the age of six years, in the year 1800-I dis- tiuetly remember the day-with my little dinner-basket on my arm, the master was sitting at his desk on the right of the door, and a large bucket of water on the left. Our playing grounds were cleared smooth from surface rock. Our path led us to the top of " Bowman's Hill," where we had a splendid view of the Delaware and surround- ing country for many miles. I have often thought, in after years, that these views in my youth exercised a powerful influence over my mind. The same feelings that prompted me in early life to break over the bounds of my valley home, pushed me on to look over the towering Alleghany into the beautiful valley of the Mississippi. It is not my purpose to touch my youthful days, as they would present nothing beyond the common occurrences attending farmer boys. However, on one Saturday afternoon, when I was twelve years of age, I accompanied Isaac Fox, a young man about eighteen, to the Dela- ware to bathe, at Opdyke's Ferry, near my father's farm. There were some dozen boys swimming when I got there. Without waiting for Isaac, I went in and swam out to the boys. I was a fine swimmer. In a few minutes I took the cramp in one leg, and under I went, the water being about ten feet deep, and as clear as crystal. I rose, alarmed the boys, and went down again ; rose the second time, and sunk ; then came the last struggle. I remember it distinctly. The breathing ceased, the water run back from my mouth, the pressure on
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my lungs was painful, my head rolled over on the gravelly bottom, with my face to the West. My mind was clear, as my eyes closed on a bright sun, some hours above the mountain top. I fell, as it were, into a sound sleep. Some thirty minutes afterwards, I felt very sick, the water was running from my mouth, my eyes seemed to open invol- untarily. There stood Isaac bending over me, his clothes dripping wet. He heard the cry of the boys when I was drowning, ran down to the bank of the river, learned where I went down, floated over me, saw me lying quietly on the bottom. I had been there near ten min- utes. He dived down, brought me up, floated me to the shore, took me unconscious to a tavern just by, and rolled and rubbed me into life. As I opened my eyes, he cried aloud for joy. A few minutes longer under water, and I could not have been resuscitated.
The school-boys one evening roped a little intoxicated Irishman, who happened to be passing by. He got very angry, and named the school-house Lurgan, after a place of that name in Ireland, and from that day it went by no other name. I saw it when after an absence of twenty years in the West, I visited the home of my youth. I looked upon it with deep feelings, as my Alma Mater. I thought of the beautiful lines of Dr. Carney, of Tennessee. How true to life ! How striking !
" Hail, native solitary woods! Ye clear unnavigated floods, And forests wild ; Ye valleys lonesome, dark and deep, Ye mountains craggy, high and steep, Romantic piled !
"Oft in my solitary walks, I've started, as my voice was echoing through your rocks, When but a boy ! Astonishing the silent wood, While little Tray who by me stood, Barked out for joy.
"Ye happy days now gone, adieu ! But dearest spot, ere long on you, I'll drop some tears! But then your shrubs will trees be grown, Your trees by storms will be o'erblown, Or changed by years !
" My school companions will be men, My dear loved parents may ere then With age decay ! The school-house moldering stand alone; The school path he with weeds o'ergrown, Or ploughed away !"
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My school companions were the grey-headed men around me. Our onec united, happy family were separated forever. My beloved parents, Thomas and Lætitia Smith, had long since gone to the reward of the just. The farm on which I was raised had passed into the possession of strangers. The choice fruit that had been cultivated by my father I saw plucked from the branches of the old trees by other hands. New towns had sprung up on the lines of the public works; new seminaries had been opened and Lurgan school-house "moldering stood alone." I turned from the scenes of my boyhood, visited the grave of my father at Wrightstown, and of my mother at Byberry, dropped a parting tear over their slumbering dust, and left for the Great West, deeply impressed with the transitory nature of all earthly things, and without any desire ever to repeat the visit ; it was to me, like looking for the last time upon the face of a departed friend, before the closing coffin concealed it forever. Who could ask the lid to be raised, to take another look ? Farewell to the scenes of my youth ! farewell forever, I shall never see you more !
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