of summer to visit too roughly,' we find her shivering at
midnight on the winter banks of the Ohio and mingling her tears with the
torrents that froze as they fell. Yet this unfortunate man, thus ruined,
and undone and made to play a subordinate part in this grand drama of
guilt and treason, this man is to be called the principal offender,
while he by whom he was thus plunged in misery is comparatively
innocent, a mere accessory! Is this reason? Is it law? Is it humanity?
Sir, neither the human heart nor the human understanding will bear a
perversion so monstrous and absurd!"

But there was one human heart, one human understanding--and that, in
ordinary circumstances, a very good one--which was quite willing to
shoulder just such a monstrous perversion, or at least its equivalent,
and that heart was John Marshall's. The discussion of the motion to
arrest the evidence continued ten days, most of the time being occupied
by Burr's attorneys. * Finally, on the last day of the month, the
Chief Justice handed down an opinion accepting practically the whole
contention of Burr's attorneys, but offering a totally new set of
reasons for it. On the main question at issue, namely, whether under the
Constitution all involved in a treasonable enterprise are principals,
Marshall pretended not to pass; but in fact he rejected the essential
feature of the Common Law doctrine, namely, the necessary legal presence
at the scene of action of all parties to the conspiracy. The crux of
his argument he embodied in the following statement: "If in one case
the presence of the individual make the guilt of the [treasonable]
assemblage HIS guilt, and in the other case, the procurement by the
individual make the guilt of the [treasonable] assemblage, his guilt,
then presence and procurement are equally component parts of the
overt act, and equally require two witnesses." Unfortunately for this
argument, the Constitution does not require that the "component parts"
of the overt act be proved by two witnesses, but only that the overt
act--the corpus delicti--be so proved; and for the simple reason that,
when by further evidence any particular individual is connected with
the treasonable combination which brought about the overt act, that act,
assuming the Common Law doctrine, becomes his act, and he is accordingly
responsible for it at the place where it occurred. Burr's attorneys
admitted this contention unreservedly. Indeed, that was precisely the
r