Copy of a Speech Delivered by Daniel W. Voorhees to the Jury in the Trial of John E. Cook, Printed in An Unknown Newspaper
- Ten page booklet measuring 5 ½ x 8 inches; article from newspaper pasted in
- United States , 1860
United States, 1860. Ten page booklet measuring 5 ½ x 8 inches; article from newspaper pasted in. Stained by paste but legible, booklet with some damage at binding, overall very good.. A copy of Daniel W. Voorhees’ speech in defense of John E. Cook during his trial for participating in the Harpers Ferry raid. The speech was printed in a number of newspapers in late 1859 and early 1860; here it was clipped from an unknown publication and pasted into a booklet.
Voorhees (1827–1897) was then US District Attorney for Indiana; he would go on to be a US senator and Peace Democrat. Cook (1829–1859) had been charged with murder, conspiracy, and treason for his role in the raid. Voorhees’ strategy was to depict Cook—barely two years younger than Voorhees himself at nearly thirty years old—as a “tender [...] waif” and “beguiled youth”, deserving clemency for having been taken in by the “evil” and “loathsome fanaticism” of the older John Brown. Voorhees is sure to note that the “institution of domestic slavery to-day stands before the world more fully justified than ever” and that the enslaved people rejected Brown’s band’s attempt to free them and instead “turn[ed] eagerly and fondly to the condition assigned [them] by the law [...] which, since the world began down to the present time, has made the inferior subordinate to the superior”. Cook was hanged in December of 1859.
Voorhees (1827–1897) was then US District Attorney for Indiana; he would go on to be a US senator and Peace Democrat. Cook (1829–1859) had been charged with murder, conspiracy, and treason for his role in the raid. Voorhees’ strategy was to depict Cook—barely two years younger than Voorhees himself at nearly thirty years old—as a “tender [...] waif” and “beguiled youth”, deserving clemency for having been taken in by the “evil” and “loathsome fanaticism” of the older John Brown. Voorhees is sure to note that the “institution of domestic slavery to-day stands before the world more fully justified than ever” and that the enslaved people rejected Brown’s band’s attempt to free them and instead “turn[ed] eagerly and fondly to the condition assigned [them] by the law [...] which, since the world began down to the present time, has made the inferior subordinate to the superior”. Cook was hanged in December of 1859.