i8 



When this privilege of giving testimony was accorded to 

 "the accused, it was carefully provided, in deference to the 

 constitutional provision which wc have under consideration, 

 that his neglect or refusal to testify should not create any 

 presumption against him, and juries are always carefully 

 instructed not to allow the refusal of the accused to take 

 the stand in his own behalf to affect their judgment unfav- 

 orably to him. But it has been shown in this case as in all 

 others that we cannot legislate against the laws of thought. 

 And however faithfully judges, counsel or jurors may en- 

 deavor to heed this caution of the law, it is impossible to 

 see a man sit silent under accusing evidence, which he 

 could contradict if it were untrue, and to consider that 

 silence as devoid of all significance. If a man does not 

 reply to the accusations against him, it is in truth an argu- 

 ment that they are true. No man can help seeing it as 

 such, and the law in its search for the truth ought to give 

 it due weight. 



It is but a step further to require the accused to testify 

 under oath upon his trial, at the call of the government. 

 Society is engaged in a life and death struggle with its ene- 

 mies, and it seems almost folly to discard from its armory a 

 weapon so potent as this. The innocent need 'fear no open 

 and straightforward methods of inquiry into the truth, and 

 ^what is it to us that the guilty object r Torture and the 

 kindred institution of secret inquiry in the cell, threats and 

 misrepresentations to a prisoner, are all abhorrent to the 

 spirit of our institutions. But the time has come to con- 

 sider, not hastily, but deliberately, whether our constitution 

 -should not be so far modified as to permit the people, when 

 through their representatives they have accused a man of a 

 crime, to inquire of him under oath and in open court 



