386 



GUITEAU'S TRIAL. 



was told by Secretary Elaine, some time about the 

 middle of May, in decided terms never to speak to 

 him again about the Paris consulship as long as ho 

 lived ; that persisting in his application he said to Mr. 

 Elaine, " I will see the President, and ask him to re- 

 move Mr. Walker," the then incumbent, and that he 

 understood Mr. Elaine to reply, " Well, if Sewell will 

 indorse your application I liave no objection to you 

 having the place " j and that he inferred from this 

 answer that if President Garfleld would remove Mr. 

 Walker, Mr. Elaine would not object to giving him 

 the position ; that he then applied to President Gar- 

 field to give him the Paris consulship, and made ap- 

 peals to prominent politicians in Washington to aid 

 him in this enterprise, and believed that they in- 

 tended themselves to help him to forward his applica- 

 tion : that he finally thought he would have the mat- 

 ter about the Paris consulship settled one way or the 

 other, and addressed a note to the President in which 

 he said, among other things, " Can I have the Paris 

 consulship ? " that he was informed, as he had been 

 before repeatedly, that " the President could not see 

 him to-day." Assume that four days after his alleged 

 conception of the idea of removing the President he 

 wrote to the President: that he dwelt upon this sub- 

 ject for two weeks, and at the end of this time, on or 

 about June 6, 1881, he inquired of a dealer in guns 

 and pistols for the largest caliber, strongest force, and 

 most accurate pistol made ; that two days thereafter 

 he returned and purchased that pistol, h'aving in the 

 mean time borrowed money to pay for it ; that after 

 purchasing the pistol he inquired as to where he 

 might practice with it ; was informed that he could 

 practice with it outside the city limits, and went out- 

 side the limits on three occasions, firing ten shots each 

 time and hit the mark ; that he followed the Presi- 

 dent from time to time for the purpose of shooting 

 him once to a church, which he examined for the 

 purpose of shooting the President through a window, 

 once to a depot, but the sight of a sick wife clinging 

 to the President's arm prevented him from shooting 

 him then, and once followed him to the house of a 

 friend, and while the President was in the house con- 

 cealed himself in an alley where he examined his 

 pistol, intending to shoot him when he came out; 

 but when he did come out he was accompanied by his 

 friend, and they walked arm in arm closely together, 

 so that he could not shoot him then | that finally ; on 

 the 2d day of July, 1881, he arose in the morning, 

 took his pistol and took a walk in the park, then took 

 breakfast, went to a depot, where he was informed by 

 the newspapers, and had ascertained, the President 

 would be at about the hour of nine o'clock in the 

 morning, and that going there before this hour he 

 waited for the President, and before his arrival left 

 a bundle of papers at the news-stand addressed to 

 Byron Andrews and his co-correspondents of news- 

 papers ; that he went into a water-closet, took out 

 his pistol and examined it ; that he went outside the 

 depot, had his boots blacked and inquired for a hack- 

 man whose services he had engaged two weeks pre- 

 vious, but, he not being there^ he engaged another 

 hackrnan, agreeing with him for a stipulated price, 

 conditioned that he should drive rapidly in the direc- 

 tion of the Congressional Cemetery, which was near 

 the jail ; that he saw the President arrive at the depot 

 in a carriage with a friend, which he recognized as 

 the carriage of the friend and not the carriage of the 

 President ; that he saw him in earnest conversation 

 with his friends and waited until the President 

 alighted from the carriage and walked into the depot 

 a few feet ; then, approaching the President from be- 

 hind in a manner which did not attract the Presi- 

 dent's attention, when within a few feet of the Presi- 

 dent aimed the pistol at the hollow of his back and 

 fired upon him twice, intending to kill him, and in- 

 flicting a mortal wound. Assume that after the shoot- 

 ing he made an effort to reach the carriage he had 

 previously engaged, with a view to get to the jail as 

 rapidly as possible, and thereby avoid the appre- 



hended fury of the populace ; that he was intercepted 

 by an oih'cer while endeavoring to reach his carriage ; 

 that he had written a letter to General Sherman, 

 which was in hLs hand when intercepted by the officer, 

 and which, he said, he was anxious to reach the gen- 

 eral at once, and which was found to contain a de- 

 mand for troops to protect him from mob violence, 

 which he greatly feared. Assume that some time in 

 the month of June, 1881, he wrote a letter in which 

 he uses this language : " I have just shot the Presi- 

 dent ; his death was a political necessity, because he 

 proved a traitor to the men who made him, and there- 

 by imperiled the life of the republic"; that in an- 

 other letter, dated June 20, 1881, he used the follow- 

 ing language : " The President's nomination was an 

 act of God, his election was an act of God, his removal 

 is an act of God " ; that in a document addressed 

 " To the American People," and dated as early as June 

 16, 1881, he used this language: "I conceived the 

 idea of removing the President four weeks ago. I 

 conceived the idea myself and kept it to myself" ; 

 that in the same document he says, " In the Presi- 

 dent's madness he has wrecked the once grand old 

 Republican party, and for this he dies." And again : 

 " This is not murder : it is a political necessity." As- 

 sume that he now claims that on several occasions 

 during his life he has claimed to be inspired once in 

 connection with his entering the Oneida Community ; 

 once preceding his attempt to establish " The Theo- 

 crat" ; once in connection with the writing of his 

 lectures and his book, " The Truth," and that subse- 

 quent to the attempt to procure office, and some time 

 after the shooting of the President, while in confine- 

 ment in iail and awaiting trial, he said that he was 

 inspired by the Deity to do that act, and said that the 

 idea came to him one night about the 18th of May, 

 which was about five days after the interview with 

 Secretary Elaine about the Paris consulship, in which 

 he was told by Secretary Elaine never to speak to 

 him about the Paris consulship again, and after again 

 visiting the White House ana being refused admis- 

 sion, that he struggled against the idea, but that he 

 finally worked himself up to it and nerved himself to 

 do the shooting. Assume that for years previous to 

 the shooting he procured a precarious living, often 

 leaving his ooard-bills unpaid, borrowing money and 

 going from place to place on the railroads, evading, 

 when he could, the payment of the usual railroad fare ; 

 that on two or three occasions he was arrested for not 

 paying his board-bills, and that he was once arrested 

 and placed in the Tombs in New York city, and was 

 once confined in jail in the city of Chicago for retain- 

 ing money collected by him which did not belong to 

 him. Assume that under oath, as a witness in his 

 own behalf on trial for murder, he said he felt re- 

 morse so far as his personal feelings were concerned, 

 and regretted the necessity for the act, but said ho 

 claimed that his duty to the Lord and to the Ameri- 

 can people overcame his personal feelings and per- 

 sonal regrets as to the act. 



Second hypothesis : Suppose that in addition to 

 the foregoing it is shown that this man went from 

 place to place leaving unpaid board-bills behind him ; 

 that he borrowed money on false representations, 

 usin" the names of prominent men as references with- 

 out their knowledge or consent to secure the money ; 

 that he abandoned his practice of the profession of 

 law, as he said it did not pay, and went to lecturing 

 on theological subjects in imitation of prominent 

 evangelists who, he said, had made money ; that while 

 he was professing religion and a church-member he 

 was guilty of deception and lasciviousness ; that in 

 the character of a Christian gentleman he traveled 

 through the country borrowing money and contract- 

 ing indebtedness for his personal support, which he 

 seldom if ever paid, thougn profuse in promises, eva- 

 sions, and misrepresentations ; that he published a 

 book called " Truth," a large part of which was stolen 

 from a book published many years before, called " The 

 Berean " ; that he represented and sold this book 



