Rensselaer Union, Volume 7, Number 30, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 15 April 1875 — A Powerful Sable Orator. [ARTICLE]

A Powerful Sable Orator.

Mich ae 1 Se o tt, a th ick -1 i\_> [ > ed, re-troating-brownd sou of Iliun, untinctured by the faintest trace of white blood, who killed Cotton on tlie boat last summei, and who was found guilty of murder in tlie second degree, came up for sentence yesterday. No one would accuse him, from his looks, as lie stood there before them, of being a second Fred Douglass, and yet that, poor negro, when the formal question was asked, whether the prisoner at the bar had anything to say why judgment should not be passed on -him pleaded with such eloquence as to knock two years off his sentence, lie commenced bis address with “If Your Honor please,” and went on in a ready, eloquent manner to defend himself, maintaining with no small degree of fairness that lie had given tlie fatal blow only after repeated insults and assaults by the deceased, and that there was no one on tlie boat'that ready knew what amount of provocation he had had. He finished by saying: “I know of no law that compels men to sacrifice their lives for another. We have but one instance of it, that on the pages of sacred history. Christ died for man, but He was God. Alan is not supposed to and cannot possess the power of selfcontrol and, the casting out of self enough for this; I did what I did with the firm belief that my life was at stake, and that there was no way to avoid the result. lam done.” Judge Wilson then stated that it was his intention to sentence him fertile term of fifteen years, but that be would, in view of tlie facts set forth by him, reduce the time to thifteen years, and that if, after a reasonable time, the officers of the Penitentiary gave a favorable report of his conduct, he would take steps with a view to his pardon. —Dubuque ( la.) Times.