THE
BEECHER TRIAL:
A
REVIEW OF THE EVIDENCE.
REPRINTED FROM THE NEW VORK TIMES OF JFLY 3,.975.
WITH SOME
REVISIONS AND ADDITIONS.
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NEW YORK:
I875.
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THE jury in the Beecher case, after deliberating eight days,
came into court with the announcement that they were unable
to agree upon a verdict. The conflicting views which prevailed among twelve men who had the advantage of hearing
all the witnesses examined and cross-examined have been shared
by the public at large.  But as we pass beyond the reach of
those potent local influences which necessarily pressed heavily
on the jury-for a man was under trial who in Brooklyn had
been treated almost as a god-the divisions of opinion are found
to be more strongly marked. There are many who will always
hold that the plaintiff's case was fully proved. A second class
will continue to believe Mr. Beecher innocent; while a third
will consider that the Scotch verdict of "not proven" would
have been the only just conclusion to reach. And there are
comparativel- few who will not in their hearts be compelled
to acknowledge that Mr. Beecher's management of his private
friendships and affairs has been entirely unworthy of his name,
position, and sacred calling.
The evidence in the case has been so voluminous that we
should ill discharge our duty it, before taking leave of the trial,
we neglected to review it with some little care.  The case naturally divides itself into four parts. There is, first, the charge
itself, and the train of circumstances surrounding it. This
must be considered, secondly, in connection with Mr. Beecher's
acknowledged relations towards all the parties.  Thirdly, it will
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THE BEECHER TRIAL.
be necessary to recall the manner in which Mr. Beecher met
the charge. Lastly, we shall have to examine the answers to
the charge. We shall endeavor to present a connected narrative of the case observing strictly the order of events; and
in doing this we propose to confine ourselves exclusively to the
documents or evidence produced on the trial, and to disregard
all outside narratives or statements.  The sole exception to
this rule which we shall make is in reference to the "Marietta
letter," the authenticity of which is not disputed, although it
was not admissible as evidence on the trial.
I.- THE ORIGIZN OF THE CHARGE.
The defense reposed in a great degree upon the theory that
the charge of adultery was never brought against Mr. Beecher
throughout the negotiations and correspondence which preceded the trial.  In order to maintain this, it is necessary to assume not only that all the witnesses for the plaintiff committed
perjury, but that Mr. Beecher was ignorant of what went on in
the internal government of his own church. For Tilton swears,
and Mr. and Mrs. Moulton swear, that Mr. Beecher explicitly
confessed the adultery to them-confessed it with tears and
anguish, and with passionate entreaties for forgiveness or pity.
And the "Examining Committee of Plymouth Church" called
Tilton to account in October, 1873-a year before the great
public disclosures-for having, in August, I870, accused Mr.
Beecher of adultery, in the presence of Mrs. Bradshaw. Both
Mr. Beecher and Mr. Tilton were present at a church meeting
held on the 3ist October, 1873. Tilton stood accused of
slandering his pastor. He rose and challenged Mr. Beecher
to accuse him.  But Mr. Beecher, with the charge of adultery
there in writing before him, made by this very man to members of Plymouth Church, preferred no complaint against his
accuser.  " He asks me," said Mr. Beecher, "if I have any
charge to make against him. I have none. Whatever differ
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THE BEECHER TRIAL.
ences have been-between us have been amicably adjusted, and,
so far as I am concerned, buried. I have no charges." Mr.
Beecher knew at this time that Tilton had accused him of
adultery; but he merely declared that he had "buried" all
"differences."  The paper recapitulating the charges of adultery is, as Mr. Evarts stated on the trial, "in the archives of
Plymouth Church."*
The direct testimony of the plaintiff and his witnesses cannot, however, be totally shut out from consideration. To take
it for granted that all the witnesses on one side are perjurers
would, no doubt, be an easy method of settling- the case; but
to accept that view without question would settle something
else besides-it would practically abolish the system of trial by
jury. The duty of weighing evidence would no longer be
deemed necessary. The wealthy or the popular would be able
to commit any offenses they pleased, and afterwards escape responsibility by saying that their accusers were perjurers. The
maintenance of justice, blind to all distinctions of wealth, intellect, or position, is of much greater importance to a nation
than the preservation of any individual reputation, however
valuable that reputation may be. In this case, then, as in any
other, the evidence on both sides must be fairly collated and
examined, and the direct testimony of witnesses, where it is
conflicting, must be considered in close connection with the
indirect and circumstantial evidence. We must see how far
the admissions, the letters, and the general conduct of the chief
personages involved tend to support or refute their own personal statements. The defense trusts much to a particular set
of probabilities which they place before the public. Is it likely, they ask, that a man in Mr. Beecher's position would have
committed this crime? It might be deemed sufficient to ask,
in answer to that, is it likely that Mr. Beecher, being innocent,
would have written the letters which he did write, and would
have pursued the general line of conduct, after a monstrous
and unjust charge had been brought against him, which he un          I Abbott's Report of the urial of Henry Ward Beecher, I., 4o09.
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THE BEECHER TRIAL.
questionably did pursue? The construction of different sets
of hypotheses cannot enable us to form a judgment on an
issue of this kind. It is the actual conduct of the persons involved in the case, the evidence of their own acts and admissions, which must guide us to a decision.
The counsel on the part of Mr. Beecher have treated the
charge as one which originated entirely with Tilton and the
Moultons. They apparently overlooked the fact that the real
accusers are not Theodore Tilton and the Moultons, but Mrs.
Tilton and Henry Ward Beecher. It is these two persons who
have supplied the evidence which has produced the deepest
impression upon the public mind.
Mrs. Tilton made the first confession of her guilt on the 3d
of July, i870. The paper signed by Mrs. Tilton on the 29th
of December, i870, was a partial repetition of her original
confession, and it is alleged that this-the only "confession"
acknowledged by the defendant's counsel-was extorted from
Mrs. Tilton by her husband. The improbabilities which surround the coercion theory are overwhelming. As a general
rule, a husband would find it no easy task to compel his wife
to take any course which would bring the slightest discredit on
herself or her household. But that the mother of several children, a deeply religious and pious woman (as she is represented by Mr. Beecher to be), should be coerced into writing
a charge against her pastor that he had "solicited her to be a
wife to him, together with all that this implied, there not being
the slightest ground for such an accusation-such a story will
seem to every woman in the world to be unnatural and
monstrous. But, apart from theories or conjectures, it is clear
that, if any undue influence was brought to bear upon Mrs.
Tilton, it was when she was made to retract her confession.
This statement we have from the woman herself, in a document which has never been challenged. It incidentally admits
that the original confession was made, not in December, i870,
but in the previous July. The statement is so important that
we must print it entire. It is dated December i6, 1872:
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THE BEECHER TRIAL.
"In July, i870, prompted bymyduty, I informed my husband
that H. W. Beecher, my friend and pastor, had solicited me to be
a wife to him, together with all that this implied. Six months
afterwards my husband felt impelled by the circumstances of a
conspiracy against him, in which Mrs. Beecher had taken part, to
have an interview with Mr. Beecher.
"In order that Mr. B. might know exactly what I had said to
my husband, I wrote a brief statement (I have forgotten in what
form), which my husband showed to Mr. Beecher. Late the same
evening Mr. B. came to me (lying very sick at the time), and
filled me with distress,. saying I had ruined him-and wanting to
know if I meant to appear against him. This I certainly did not
mean to do, and the thought was agonizinzg to me. I then signed
a paper which he wrote, to clear him in case of a trial.   In this
instance, as in most others, when absorbed by one great interest
or feeling, the harmony of my mind is entirely disturbed, and I
found on reflection that this paper was so drawn as to place me
most unjustly against my husband, and on the side of Mr. Beecher.
So, in order to repair so cruel a blow to my long-suiering husband,
I wrote an explanation of the first paper and my signature. Mr.
Moulton procured from Mr. B. the statement which I gave to him
in my agitation and excitement, and now holds it
"This ends my connection with the case.
(Signed,)             "ELIZABETH R. TILTON."
This remarkable statement seems, in itself, sufficient to
settle three things-first,that the woman retracted her confession
unwillingly, and then not because it was untrue, but because
Mr. Beecher had worked upon her feelings; secondly, that
Mr. Beecher taxed her with having ruined him, which it is
scarcely supposable he could or would have done had he been
an innocent man; thirdly, that even at this late date Mrs. Tilton regarded her husband as "long-suffering," and repented
of a "cruel blow" she had dealt him.   Would it have been a
cruel blow to have withdrawn a wholly unjust charge against
her pastor, which had been extorted from her? Or would a
wife, who had been the victim of her husband's cruelties and
base conspiracies, be likely to describe him as a "long suffering" man?
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That the retraction which she gave to Mr. Beecher was
actually dictated by him is proved by another highly important
document.   It is a letter from Mrs. Tilton to her husband,
dated Dec. 3o, 187o-the night of the day on which Mr.
Beecher obtained the retraction of the original charge:
" MIDNIGHT.
"MY DEAR HUSBAND: I desire to leave with you before going to sleep a statement that Mr. Henry Ward Beecher called upon
me this evening and asked me if I would defend him against any
accusations in a council of ministers, and I replied solemnly that
I would, in case the accuser was any other than my husband. He
dictted the letter, which I copied as my own, to be used by him
agzainst any other accuser than many husband.
"This letter was designed to vindicate Mr. Beecher against all
other persons save only my husband.    I was ready to give him
this letter because he said that upon that matter the letter in your
hands addressed to him, dated Dec. 29, had struck him dead and
ended his usefulness. You and I both are pledged to do our best
to avoid publicity. God send a speedy end to all further anxieties.
"Affectionately,
"ELIZABETH."
Mrs. Tilton not only made the charge against Mr. Beecher,
but she invariably adopted a tone of penitence for her own
crime and sympathy for her husband when he was at a distance
from home. In one of these letters she says of Mr. Beecher:
"He has been the guide of our youth, and until the three last
dreadful years, when our confidence was shaken in him, we
trusted him as no other human being." A letter which makes
a still more unmistakable reference to some terrible event in
her life, known and admitted by herself and her husband, is
that dated from Marietta, Ohio, November, i870.  It is impossible for any person to read it carefully without seeing that
it involves an admission of her own grave mnisconduct in every
line. She is writing to her husband:
"When, by your threats, my mother cried out in agony to
me,'Why, what have you done, Elizabeth, my child?' her worst
suspicions were aroused, and I laid bare my heart then, that from
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my lips, and not yours, she might receive the dagger into her
heart."
Could such language as this apply to an ordinary domestic
quarrel? Or to any transaction such as Mr. Beecher now says
alone miarked his intercourse with the Tiltons? What sense or
meaning could there be in a woman using it who had merely
been the victim of her husband's neglect or brutality? The
letter goes on:
"Did not my dear child (Florence) learn enough by insinuation, that her sweet, pure soul agonized in secret, till she broke out
with the dreadful question? I know not but it hath been her death
blow."
Are we to regard this passage as destitute of any meaning
whatever? What was the dreadful question, and why should
the mother's answer to it have been of such a nature as that
she feared it would kill her child? She continues thus:
"When you say to my beloved brother,' Mr. B.' preaches to
forty of his mistresses every Sunday, then follow with the remark
that after my death you have a dreadful secret to reveal, need he
be told any more ere the sword pass into his soul? "
There is no pretense here that the "secret" was merely a
false charge-no complaint of injustice, no defense of herself,
even when she had been accused to her own mother and
brother.  Nor is it denied that Tilton really had a "dreadful
secret" to reveal. The ground assumed is that the husband
was ungenerous in disclosing the secret, not that he was guilty
of falsehood, for Mrs. Tilton says that she herself elected to
tell the secret to her mother; and taken in connection with the
allusion to the forty mistresses, it is difficult to conjecture what
she could mean except one thing. Indeed, she substantially
declares her love for Mr. Beecher. She says: " Would you
suffer were I to cast a shadow on any lady whom you love?
Certainly, if you have any manliness you would. Even so,
every word, look, or intimation against Mr. B., though I be in
no wise brought in, is an agony beyond the piercing of myself
a hundred times." She adds a postscript for her mother, in
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THE BEECHER TRIAL.
which she says:  "I should mourn greatly if my life was to
be made yet known to father; his head would be bowed indeed
to the grave." Is it possible that these are merely the expressions of a perfectly pure and innocent woman-the victim of a
husband's cruelty?  Again, when on July 4, I 87 1, Mrs. Tilton
wrote a letter in which she said that she had been "misled by
a good man," we see no other explanation of the passage than
that she had been misled-though to what extent the letter
itself does not say. Read in connection with the woman's other
letters and "confessions," it seems scarcely possible to ascribe
two meanings to it.
The charge itself, then, unquestionably originated with
Mrs. Tilton, in a confession made voluntarily to her husband,
and repeated, as she tells us, to her mother.   Her own letters
down to a certain date substantially repeat her confession
over and over again.
II.-M-R. ~BEECHER'S REI~L ZTIO2VS 70 THE
PAR TIES.
The knowledge that such letters were in existence as those
from which we have just quoted early convinced Mr. Beecher's
friends that it would be indispensable to admit the existence
of some peculiar or unusual intimacy between Mr. Beecher
and Mrs. Tilton. It could not be pretended that they were
all written under coercion, because, in every instance save one,
they were written to the husband when he was at a distance
from the wife.'Fhe explanation which was offered in this
dilemma was that Mrs. Tilton really had been in love writh
Mr. Beecher, but that he never returned her affection, and
was shocked when he discovered its existence.
Mr. Beecher's admissions in his evidence proved that he
was on terms of extreme intimacy with Mrs. Tilton-an intimacy which cannot be usual between pastors and the female
members of their congregations, or husbands would hesitate to
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THE BEECHER TRIAL.
admit ministers to their households. It rather resembles the
position once taken up by the Romish priesthood towards the
family, and which led to the scandals that did so much to
bring about the Reformation. One incident connected with
this long intimacy was related by a man who could have had no
motive for seeking to injure either Mr. Beecher or Mrs. Tilton.
Mr. Richards, the brother of Mrs. Tilton (who gave his evidence with manifest pain and reluctance), testified that on a
certain occasion, when he visited his sister's, he was the witness of a strange scene. He thus describes it:
"I called at the house, and was in the upper story-the second
story, I think. I descended to the parlor floor, and opened the
door of the parlor, which was closed, and I saw Mr. Beecher
seated in the front room, and Mrs. Tilton making a very hasty
motion, and with a highly-flushed face, away from the position
that Mr. Beecher occupied. It was such a situation as left an indelible impression on my mind."
It is hard to believe that a brother would perjure himself
in order to make such a statement about an only sister.
Mr. Beecher himself tells us that, prior to the close of i870,
he had been in the habit of making the Tilton dwelling a sort
of second home.   " I was glad to resort to it," he said; "it was
where people could not find me." He admits, too, that he
brought the powerful art of flattery to bear upon Mrs. Tilton
"I spoke to her in great admiration of some letters which she
showed me which she had written, one in particular, and a
variety of such things; it was entering into her ife, and, in some
sense, oivin, her an interest in my own."   He describes in these
words a relationship which a man usually reserves for his own
wife, and which he can seldom transfer to another man's wife
without danger.   Mr. Beecher also stated in his evidence
(April 13) that he was in the habit of kissing Mrs. Tilton.
Whereupon Mr. Fullerton asked him, "Were you in the habit
of kissing her when you went to her house in the absence of
her husband?" and Mr. Beecher replied, "Sometimes I did
and sometimes I did not." Again, in his letter to Plymouth
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THE BEECHER TRIAL.
Church (July'5, i874), he admits that there had been indiscretions on his part which caused him the "sharpest pangs of
sorrow," while he denied that there was actual guilt. Those,
therefore, who say that there never was anything unusual in
the intimacy between Mr. Beecher and  Mrs. Tilton, go far
beyond Mr. Beecher himself. They set up a defense (as in
other material parts of the case) which the defendant has emphatically contradicted. TIhere was love-but it was unrequited love. In Mr. Beecher's own version of his conversation with Mrs. Moulton on the subject, given in evidence on
the I2th of April, he said he had then admitted having
"wrought in that good little woman a smouldering fire; that
it had burned unknown to me within her, and finally it broke
out with such infinite mischief."  He also said (April 3)that
when Moulton made the statement to him that' Mrs. Tilton
loved "his [Beecher'sl little finger better than Theodore Tilton's whole body," "I accepted it, I had no means of contradicting it." Yet it must seem to the ordinary observer that an
innocent man, placed in such a position, would naturally have
received such a statement with infinite surprise. Mr. Beecher
further admitted that Mrs. Tilton had "allowed the tendrils of
her affection to grow up upon him." Whether Mrs. Tilton did
indeed act in the way which is alleged on the part of Mr.
Beecher-whether she immodestly forced a love upon him
which he did not want, and could not return-may be doubted
from the evidence, but it is the imputation which the defendant has deliberately fastened upon her. Supposing it to be
well founded, it then becomes hard to understand how Mrs.
Tilton can be called the stainless saint and the model of purity
which Mr. Beecher himself has described her at various subsequent periods.
There were other parties to the case besides Mrs. Tilton
with whom Mr. Beecher was on remarkable terms of friendship. It is true that they are now denounced as conspirators
and perjurers-but not by Mr. Beecher himself, as we shall see
farther on.  That Mr.-and Mrs. Moulton were frequently con
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THE BEECHER TRIAL.
suited by Mr. Beecher throughout these troubled years, concerning some great and difficult trouble, cannot be questioned,
seeing that it rests upon evidence supplied by Mr. Beecher's
own hand and from his own mouth.
In his letter to Moulton of June ist, I873, he wrote,
"Your noble wife, too, has been to me one of God's comforters. It is such as she that renews a waning faith in womanhood." And he went on in a strain which it is difficult to
make applicable to the ordinary relationships or intercourse of
life:
"For a thousand encouragements-for service that no one can
appreciate who has not been as sore-hearted as I have been, for
your honorable delicacy, for confidence and affection-I owe you
so much that I can neither express nor pay it. Not the least has
been the great-hearted kindness and trust which y)our noble wife
has shown, and which have lifted me out of despondencies often,
though sometimes her clear truthfulness has laid me pretty flat."
These ardent acknowledgments of "services" to a "sore
heart" accord, it must be admitted, rather with Mrs. Moulton's version of Mr. Beecher's confidences in her than with the
theory of Mr. Beecher's counsel, that she is a low and degraded conspirator and perjurer. In explanation of the above
letter, Mr. Beecher himself said in his evidence, " My whole
intercourse with Mrs. Moulton was one which inspired in me
a sense of affectionate respect and of gratitude." And again
he said (April I 2): " Mrs. Moulton was a lady-thoroughbred,
to my apprehension; and I never heard her say a word that
jarred upon my sense of the delicacy and propriety of a lady's
tongue." In the same day's evidence he declared that Mrs.
Moulton "was like a bank of spring flowers" to him.  And
yet all this time, according to the present theory of the defense,
she was planning with others a deep-laid and devilish plot
against his honor.
Another person with whom he was on curious terms, and
whom he permitted to address him in a tone which most men
would never have tolerated for a moment, was the mother of
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Mrs. Tilton- Mrs. Morse.  She constantly assumed the position towards him of a woman who had some strong hold and
claim upon him through her knowledge of a damning secret.
She wrote a letter to Mr. Beecher (dated October 24, no year,
cited in evidence April 14), in which she uses this remarkable
language:  "Do come and see me.  I will promise that the
'secret of her life,' as she calls it, shall not be mentioned. I
know it's hard to bring it up, as you must have suffered intensely, and we all will, I fear, till released by death." Here,
again, is an allusion to a "secret" which could not possibly
have been unknown to Mr. Beecher, because Mrs. Morse says
she knows he has "suffered intensely" on account of it. What
was the secret thus referred to by mother and daughter?
Mr. Beecher had asked Mrs. Morse to call him her son, and
she writes, "When I have told darling, I felt if you could in
safety to yourself and all concerned, you would be to me all this
endearing name.  Am I mistaken?"  This letter was handed
by Mr. Beecher to Moulton, in common with other papers
bearing upon the case.  "It was a dangerous letter to have
around," said Mr. Beecher when he gave Moulton the letter.*
There is a still more startling letter from Mrs. Morse to
Mr. Beecher, produced in evidence January I4, after a prolonged and earnest resistance on the part of defendant's
counsel. It was evidently written in the first week of November, i87o, and its authenticity has never been questioned. It
begins by reproaching Mr. Beecher for not having "attended
to the request I [Mrs. Morse] left at your house over two
weeks since," and then proceeds to berate him for not having
done anything for "Elizabeth."  Presently she goes on thus:
"You say, keep quiet. I have all through her married life
done so, and we now see our error.  *  *  *  The publicity
he has given to this recent and most crushing of all trouble is
what's taken the life out of her. I know of twelve persons
whom he has told, and they in turn have told others." Told
what?  At this period-November, 1870-Mr. Beecher says
* See Abbott's Report, I., 439.
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THE BEECHER TRIAL.
he had no idea that even a suspicion was entertained in reference to him and Mrs. Tilton. And yet, here is Mrs. Tilton's
own mother writing to him in reference to a secret which was
manifestly known to him and to her. But mark the extraordinary language which she proceeds to use:   "Do  you
know, when I hear of you cracking your jokes from Sunday to
Sunday, and think of the misery you have brought upon us, I
think with the Psalmist,' There is no God.'?"  She goes on to
say that, admitting it all to be the "invention of his [Tilton's]
half-drunken brain, the effect is the same, for everybody believes it." She complains of him for not getting her brother
into the custom-house, and says "Elizabeth was as disappointed" as herself.  And then, referring to Tilton, she says:
"He swears as soon as her breath leaves her body, he will
make this whole thing public, and this prospect, I think, is one
thing which keeps her living."
Now, no specific charge is made in this letter; but the
whole tone of it is clearly that of a woman who knows that a
man has done her daughter a great injury, and feels that she
has a claim upon that man.   If we ask, " Is it likely that a
mother would thus assume her daughter's guilt?" we are met
by another inquiry, "Is it likely that a minister of the gospel would allow a woman to address him in this threatening
and insolent strain, if he did not, in some way or other, feel
that he was at her mercy?" Mr. Beecher handed this letter
over to Moulton. Mr. Fullerton asked him why he had done
so?  He answered (April'9) that Mr. Moulton was "the
depositary of all the papers that related in any way, directly or
indirectly, to the case." He thus admitted that the letter did
relate to the case. His answer to the letter was cautious, but
by no means that which any one might have supposed he would
have returned to so impudent a series of demands and reproaches.
III.-HOW THE CHAR GE WAS MET.
We have next to consider the way in which Mr. Beecher
met the charge -and this is one of the vital parts of the case.
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How an entirely innocent man would have acted, when unjustly accused by an intimate friend of attempting to seduce
his wife, Mr. Beecher's chief counsel, Mr. Evarts, took great,
and as some will think injudicious, pains to describe. He
said:
"Ah! gentlemen, we must look this crime in its face. Why,
there is not a sailor in Wapping, with a strumpet on either knee,
badgered and beaten in the debauches of long voyages and frequent ports, but that if a comrade should venture to suggest to
him that he had seduced the daughter of an old shipmate, or the
wife of a young comrade, he would bury the sheath-knife in the
heart of his accuser. There has never been a coarse and vulgar
debauchee voluptuary, that would flaunt his wealth and his vices
in the face of our citizens here or in New-York, and ride the fourin-hand of his riches, packed with courtezans, the fact that one of
his boon companions should accuse him of seducing the companion
of his daughter, the wife of his friend, who had been trusted to
his care, but that would send a bullet through the heart of his
accuser. "
That, probably, is the kind of impulse, wrong or right,
which most men would feel under these trying circumstances.
But when Mr. Evarts laid so much stress upon it, he imprudently forgot how different was the course which his client
pursued. Mr. Beecher did not in any way resent the insult.
He did not even go to any old and trusted member of his
church to take counsel on the subject. He went to a comparatively slight acquaintance-Mr. Moulton.   He showed no
indignation over an accusation which might well have stirred
the most sluggish nature. The first thing which happened
after he was commanded by Tilton to resign his position and
quit Brooklyn was this: he obeyed a peremptory summons to
go to Moulton's house to meet Tilton on the very night of the
Plymouth Church prayer-meeting. It was most inconvenient
for him to go. His church expected him. But Moulton, who
brought the summons, would take no denial. Mr. Beecher
sent a message in hot haste requesting some one else to oc
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THE BEECHER TRIAL.
cupy his place at the Plymouth Church services. The prayermeeting was neglected in order that the pastor might be led
against his will to an interview with a man who had just
ordered him to depart from church and home. He then
manages to see Mrs. Tilton, and causes her to write the letter
of retraction. This he does unknown to the husband. It is
from the wife that Tilton afterwards hears that the letter had
been written-not from Beecher.
What happened next is still more remarkable. We do not
hear of any protest frqm Mr. Beecher-of any consultation
with a lawyer, with Mr. Shearman, or the famous Mr. Tracy.
On the very next day he parts with the letter of retraction,
and on the day following that he dictated the celebrated "letter of contrition." That he did say substantially what is to-day
found written in that document, no one who reads his crossexamination can for a moment doubt.  Mr. Fullerton took the
letter clause by clause, and asked Mr. Beecher whether he
said this or that, or not? After much dexterous and elaborate
fencing with the question, Mr. Beecher was in every case
obliged at last to answer, "I did." We must quote one or two
examples of this kind:
FIRST INSTANCE.
Mr. Fullerton-I call your attention now, Mr. Beecher, still
further to this document: " He would have been a better man in
my circumstances than I have been." Did you say anything to
that effect?
Mr. Beecher-I did not say that sentence that I recollect, sir,
but I said something which I can well understand might have been
put down for short in that sentence.
Q.-Did you say anything that conveyed that sentiment?
A.-! did.
SECOND INSTANCE.
Mr. Fullerton-I read another sentence: "I can ask nothing
except that he will remember all the other hearts that would
ache." Did you say anything that conveyed that idea?
Mr. Beecher-Not in that bold way.
2*
I7 
THE BEECHER TRIAL.
Q.-Well, how did you say it-did you say that in substance?
A.-Not in its apothegmatic form, as it stands there.
Q.-Did you express that sentiment, whether you clothed it
in that language? A.-I discoursed with him.
Q.-Did you express that sentiment? A.-No, not in that
close way in which you press me for an answer.
(2.-Well, something akin to it? A.-I can give you almost
the very thing.
Q.-Something akin to it-something in that neighborhood?
A.-I DID, SIR.
And so on, throughout the cross-examination.
Moreover, Mr. Beecher admits that he wrote with his own
hand, at the foot of the letter, "I have trusted this to Moulton in confidence. Henry Ward Beecher." As this fact has
been denied, we must once more quote from Mr. Beechers
own evidence:
Cross-examination of Mr. Beecher, Afril I5.
Q.-You did not then put your name to that paper for the
purpose of authenticating it? A.- Iput my name to that    Q.-I ask you that question, and I want you to answer it.
A.-I did not put my name to that paper for the purpose of authenticating the form of its contents.
Q.-You say    "I have trusted this to Moulton in confidence."
A. -Yes.
Q.-That is your handwriting, I believe? A.-I think it is,
sir.
Q. —Well, have you any doubt about it? A.-No, sir;!
have no doubt about it; I think it is.
It is a great tax on ordinary credulity to be asked to believe that Mr. Beecher would have written these words on a
letter, and signed his name to them, and then have handed
over the letter to a third person for use, without knowing or
surmising what were its contents.  Moreover. in a note from
Mr. Beecher to Moulton, dated June I, i873, he thus refers to
this document: "The agreement was made after my letter
through you was written." Here he distinctly acknowledges
i8
-A; 
THE BEECHER TRIAL.
it as his own production, and calls it a letter-and he was
forced to repeat that acknowledgment in his cross-examination.
And what does this letter say?  "I ask, through you,
Theodore Tilton's forgiveness, and I humble myself before
him as I do before my God." Why? Because Tilton had
accused him of seducing his wife? It is strange to find an
innocent man, writhing under so outrageous a charge as that,
talking of "humbling" himself before his accuser.  "I will
die before any one but myself shall be inculpated." Inculpated through what? It seems, then, that there were two persons liable to be "inculpated."  This treatment of the charge
is less like a denial of it than an admission.  "I will only ask
him to remember the other hearts that would ache." Why
should a man who had been wrongfully accused of seducing
a friend's wife write such a letter as this to the friend within
three days of the accusation? Who was the injured manBeecher or Tilton? Beecher, according to the theory of the
defense. And yet here and everywhere else in the case we
find him "humbling himself before Tilton," and pleading for
mercy.
Let us now recapitulate the events of five days-five memorable days.   How do Mr. Beecher's actions and conduct on
those days accord with the theory of his innocence?
Alonday, Dec. 26.-Tilton sends a note to Beecher demanding his retirement from Plymouth Church and Brooklyn. The
following is the document-an extraordinary one for an innocent man to receive without taking instant steps to punish or
expose the person who sent it:
" DEC. 26, 1870, BROOKLYN.
" HENRY WARD BEECHER-Sir: I demand that, for reasons
which you explicitly understand, you immediately cease from the
ministry of Plymouth Church, and that you quit the City of Brooklyn as a resident.
(Signed,)           "THEODORE TILTON."
Thursday, Dec. 29-Mrs. Tilton writes her confession.
I9
I
r 
THE BEECHER TRIAL.
Friday, Dec. 30. —Mr. Beecher receives a peremptory summons to go to Moulton's house to meet Tilton. He goes.
Mr. Fullerton puts this question to him:  "Then you went off
at the beck of the man who had insulted you on the 26th, to
know what he wanted?"  Mr. Beecher answered, "I did,
sir." He is told of Mrs. Tilton's confession, and charged
with the adultery.   After  leaving  Moulton's  house, Mr.
Beecher goes to Tilton's, and induces Mrs. Tilton to retract
her charge.
Saturday, Dec. 3I.-Moulton goes to Beecher's house and
tells him he has acted basely in forcing the retraction from
Mrs. Tilton. Thereupon, Beecher hands over the retraction
to Moulton.
Sunday, Gan.  I, I87i.-Beecher dictates the celebrated
letter of contrition, in which he "humbles himself before
Theodore Tilton as before his God," and pleads for forgiveness.
But now we are face to face with another extraordinary
fact. On the 7th of February, 187xi-more than a month
after Tilton had accused Beecher of a crime which his counsel
says would have justified him in "burying a knife" in Tilton's
heart-he writes to Moulton an urgent request that he will
make him and Tilton friends again.  And he adds: "Theodore will have the hardest task in such a case, but has he not
proved himself capable of the noblest things?" So that we
are to understand that to accuse an intimate friend and a
pastor of adultery is a "noble thing."  And the wrongfullyaccused man is to go to his accuser and beg his forgiveness.
And the false accuser-traitor, villain, perjurer-is to be conceded to have the hardest part to play in the reconciliation.
These are startling propositions to lay down-and yet they are
the only deductions to be drawn from the theory of the defense. Another difficult fact to explain is that whenever Mr.
Beecher wrote a letter on this subject, he always referred to
Tilton as an ill-used man. Thus, in his letter denouncing Dr.
Storrs, he says: "I am in hopes that Theodore, who has borne
20
..4 
THE BEECHER TRIAL.
so much, will be unwilling to be a flail in Storrs' hand to strike
at a friend." Always there is the same fear of Tilton, and the
same anxiety to induce him to be silent. In his letter of February 7th, i87I, to Moulton, he says:  "Of course I can
never speak with her [Mrs.'ilton] again, except with his permission." Why should he assume that this condition would be
imposed by the husband? He says that there was nothing
wrong between himself and the wife.
On the 20th of May, i871i, Mr. Beecher, according to his
own evidence (given on the 5th of April last), went to Tilton's
house-not for the purpose of "burying a knife in his heart,"
but in order to plead again for forgiveness. He thus describes
what took place-we purposely follow Mr. Beecher's own narrative:
"I only know that when I went in Mr. Tilton received me
moodily, and that after a little conversation and explanation which
took place he became gracious, and that he fell into an easy and
unbusiness-like chat; and that in the course of it, sitting there in
the old-fashioned way in his house, I went up and argued the
matter-sat down on his knee in order to make the appeal closer,
and when I was sitting there Mrs. Tilton came into the room and
burst out laughing; I recollect the interview, and I think when
she came into the room she came up and kissed me very cordially."
Thus, the victim of a charge which is enough to ruin any
man, to say nothing of a great minister, never seeks to
clear or defend himself-he merely "appeals" to his accuser,
and sits down on his accuser's knee to "make the appeal
closer."
We are unable to discover any time at which Mr. Beecher
attempted to defend himself until the charge against him had
been made public through the newspapers. Then something
had to be said and done. From the 3oth December, i870,
down to last summer, he was incessantly engaged in a despairing effort to conceal something which, if made known, he felt
sure would ruin him. The Moultons evidently knew the
2I 
THE BEECHER TRIAL.
secret; and his piteous appeals to Mr. Moulton to help him
are on record in his own letters. In all this correspondence,
Mr. Beecher constantly represented himself as the offender.
Down to so late a period as June I, 1873, Mr. Beecher wrote
to Moulton a letter in which his own culpability and Tilton's
past generosity are assumed as perfectly well understood between all the parties. He says in the course of the letter:
"He  [Tilton] had condoned his wife's fault."  Very strange
language, considering that the wife had committed no fault.
Of course this fatal passage could not be reconciled with the
general theory of the defense-that Mr. Beecher and Mrs.
Tilton were both ill-used persons, and perfectly innocent of all
wrong.  Consequently, Mr. Evarts suggested that the "fault"
in Mrs. Tilton above referred to was that of having divided
her affections between her husband and Mr. Beecher. But in
a previous part of his speech Mr. Evarts declared that she had
never acted  thus-that Mr. Beecher had been  "imposed
upon" when he was led to believe that she had.  One of the
most curious features of the defense is the rapidity with which
Mr. Beecher's legal advisers have from time to time substituted
one theory for another-constructing elaborate chains of explanations, then repudiating them, then returning to them,
then discarding them again, and so on ad infnilum. Every
theory which Mr. Beecher put forward to account for his conduct before the trial was expressly contradicted by himself or
his counsel upon the trial. Every theory advanced by Mr.
Beecher during the trial is expressly contradicted by his own
former admissions and letters.
Mr. Beecher knew, after the 3oth December, I870, that he
was accused of adultery.  He must have known, months before, that Tilton accused him of it; but it was not until December that he found out that the charge rested on Mrs. Tilton's
own confession. The letters, conversations, and negotiations
which from that time forth passed between all the chief personages in this miserable tragedy obviously proceeded upon the
understanding that Mr. Beecher had committed some grave
22 
THE BEECHER TRIAL.
offense, the consequences of which would be utter destruction
to him, so that rather than face them he cried out for death.
That was the common ground on which all these persons met.
It is the key, and apparently the only key, to the long series
of letters, compromises, and interviews. The fact of guilt was
taken for granted on all sides. It was acknowledged in all
Mr. Beecher's interviews with Moulton and Mrs. Moulton, it
had been confessed to Mrs. Tilton's mother by herself (as the
Marietta letter conclusively shows), and it was proclaimed by
Mr. Beecher in all his letters. On the 7th of February, i871,
he implores Mrs. Tilton to trust implicitly to Mr. Moulton's
guidance. "His hand it was," he says, "that tied up the
storm that was ready to burst upon our heads." What necessity was there for using language of this sort to a woman who
had done no wrong, and could have no reason to fear any storm?
In February, 1872-exactly a year later-Mr. Beecher offers *
to abandon his church and position altogether if Tilton felt disposed to exact such a penalty. "If my destruction," he wrote,
"would place him, Theodore, all right, that shall not stand in
the way. I am willing to step down and out. * * * I do
not think that anything would be gained by it. I should be
destroyed, but he would not be saved. E. and the children
would have their future clouded." The last sentence is full of
dreadful meaning. It is a plain admission that something had
taken place which, if known, would not only ruin Mr. Beecher,
but cloud thefuture even of Tilton's children. What was there
to destroy Mr. Beecher in his having advised Bowen to discharge Tilton, or suggesting a separation between man and
wife-even if he had done these things? Or how many acts
can a mother commit which will "cloud the future" of her
children? The same kind of reference to the children appears
in Mr. Beecher's letter to Moulton of June I, i873. Referring
to Tilton, he says:  "He had enjoined upon me with the utmost earnestness and solemnity not to betray his wife, nor leazve
his children to a big,ht.  I had honestly and earnestly joined in
* See letter to Moulton, pp. 38z-4 of Abbott's Report.
23
I. 
THE BEECHER TRIAL.
the purpose."* Supposing Mr. Beecher to be innocent, how
could he have betrayed Tilton's wife? What was there to
reveal?   The language which he declares that Tilton used to
him exactly coincides with the position described by the wit
nesses-namely that the adultery was admitted, but that Tilton
wished to keep the fact a secret for the sake of his wife and
children, and did so keep it until he was accused of con spiracy by Plymouth Church. Mr. Beecher went on in the
same letter to declare that he was suffering "the torments of
the damned," and that he was living "on the sharp and rag ged edge of anxiety, remorse, fear, despair." Why remorse?
And above all, why fear?  Supposing that he advised the wife
to leave her husband-which is purely a supposition-why fear
for himself?  He protests that he had done all he could "to
allay prejudices against Tilton," and to suppress "tendencies
which, if not stopped, would break out into ruinous defense
of me." How could the defense of Tilton ruin Beecher?
And why should Mr. Beecher have been so anxious to keep all
his friends from defending him, unless from the fear of provoking Tilton to make public explanations-the very catastrophe which afterwards happened?
Even when Tilton reproached Beecher for forcing Mrs.
Tilton to retract her charge, what was the minister's attitude?
Did he turn upon his accuser in indignation? No-he simply
complained that he thought "an unfair advantage had been
taken of him." Tilton rejoined that it was he who had acted
unfairly, in extorting the retraction. "f I argued the point with
hini," says Mr. Beecher. (Evidence, April 15.) It is difficult
to imagine a man, who had been innocently accused of adultery, condescending to argue such a "point" with the scoundrel who had trumped up the charge   Mr. Beecher had obtained a retraction to which, on his own version of the affair,
he was thoroughly entitled. He then apologized for having
obtained it, and handed it back to Moulton.  The ordinary
principles or motives upon which human conduct can be ex
* See Abbott's Report, I., 40z.
24 
THE BEECHER TRIAL.
plained utterly fail to reconcile such a course as this with
conscious innocence.
It is impossible to feel surprise that all the ingenuity of Mr.
Beecher's counsel failed to convince the jury, and has failed to
convince the public, that Mr. Beecher's method of meeting
this charge was worthy of a Christian minister, or could have
been prompted by a "conscience  void of offense."   Mr.
Beecher has told a dozen different stories in explanation of his
letters and conduct-and every one of them crushes the other.
Apart, moreover, from the versions of the affair given by the
witnesses on the trial, there are.the letters of the principal persons in the case; and the endless efforts which have been made
to place an innocent construction upon these letters fail to
reduce them to a level with ordinary correspondence. The
following quotations clearly relate to the same transaction,
whatever that may have been, and they demand the most careful attention. We bring them together here for the purpose of
comparison:
MRS. TILTON TO HER HUSBAND.
"Oh, my dear husband, may you never need the discipline of
being misled by a good woman as I have been by a good man."
" When, by your threats, my mother cried out in agony to
me,'Why, what have you done, Elizabeth, my child?' her worst
suspicions were aroused, and I laid bare my heart then, that from
my lips, and not yours, she might receive the dagger into her
heart."
"Did not my dear child, Florence, learn enough by insinuation, that her sweet, pure soul agonized in secret, tillshe broke out
with the dreadful question? I know not but it hath been her
death-blow."
"When you say to my beloved brother,' Mr. B.' preaches to
forty of his mistresses every Sunday, then follow with the remark
that after my death you have a dreadful secret to reveal, need he
be told any more ere the sword pass into his soul!"
"Would you suffer were I to cast a shadow on any lady whom
you love? Certainly, if you have any manliness you would. Even
so, every word, look, or intimation against Mr. B., though I be in
3
25 
THE BEECHER TRIAL.
no wise brought in, is an agony beyond the piercing of myself a
hundred times."
(To her mother.) "I should mourn greatly if my life was to
be made yet known to my father; his head zeould be bowed in-.
deed to the grave."
BEECHER TO MOULTON.
"I ask, through you, Theodore Tilton's forgiveness, and I
humble myself before him as I do before my God."
"He [Tilton] had condoned his wife s fault. He had enjoined
upon me with the utmost earnestness and solemnity not to betray
his wife, nor leave his children to a blight."*
"If my destruction would place him all right, that shall not
stand in the way.   I am willing to step down and out.  I do not
think that anything would be gained by it. I should be destroyed,
but he would not be saved. E. and the children wouldhave their
future clouded."
"To live on the sharp and ragged edge of anxiety, remorse,
fear, despair, and yet to put on all the appearance of serenity and
happiness, cannot be endured much longer."
"Would to God, who orders all hearts, that by your kind mediation, Theodore, Elizabeth, and I could be made friends again.
Theodore will have the hardest task in such a case; but has he
not proved himself capable of the noblest things? I wonder if
Elizabeth knows how generously he has carried himself towards
me."
MRS. MORSE TO MR. BEECHER.
"Do come and see me.  I will promise that the secret of he~
life, as she calls it, shall not be mentioned.   I know it's hard to
bring it up, as you must have suffered intensely, and we all will, I
fear, till released by death."
"The publicity he [Tilton] has given to this recent and most
crushing of all trouble is what's taken the life out of her.   I know
of twelve persons whom he has told, and they in turn have told
others."
"Do you know, when I hear of you cracking your jokes from
Sunday to Sunday, and think of the misery you have brought upon
us, I think with the Psalmist,'There is no God.' "
* See Abbott's Report, I., oz.    t Abbott's Report  I., 373-74.
26
-4 
THE BEECHER TRIAL.
"He [Tilton] swears, as soon as her breath leaves her body
he will mnakc this whole thing iublic, and this prospect, I think,
is one thing which keeps her living."
It cannot be pretended that these extraordinary letters are
without meaning. Then what do they mean? To what
"secret" do these three persons, writing to or.,of each other,
thus constantly refer in a spirit of alarm or remorse? Can it
be supposed that they were merely pursuing shadows?
IV — THE ANSHIrERS TO THE CHARGE~.
These are so few, when sifted out from the enormous mass
of verbiage under which they have been buried by the lawyers,
that they can be brought into a comparatively brief compass.
The direct replies to the charge are all comprised in the follow
ing abstract:
I. That no accusation of adultery was ever made. This, as
we have shown, is disproved not only by the evidence of Mr.
Tilton and Mr. and Mrs. Moulton, but by the letters of the
two persons chiefly involved. There is nothing to support
this part of the defense but the oath on the trial of the de
fendant himself, and with that oath his own previous course of
conduct and his correspondence are disastrously in conflict.
2. That the charge wzeas concocted for blackmailing purposes.
Mr. Beecher has disposed of this. He only paid over, from
first to last, $7,000 towards business projects in which Tilton
was engaged. So far from exacting money from Mr. Beecher,
Tilton, on one occasion at least, expressly refused to receive
"any pecuniary or other favor" at his hands. (Tilton to
Beecher, May 2, i874). As for the $7,000, Mr. Beecher
swore on the trial that he had paid it willingly.  "Not the
slightest pressure" was brought to bear upon him.   (Beecher's
evidence, April 20.) The reader had better examine Mr.
Beecher's own words on this subject:
From Mr. Beecher's Cross-examination, April 20.
"Q.-Well, did you think that was obtained from you by
27
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THE BEECHER TRIAL.
Mr. Moulton in any improper way? A. No; that was not my
feeling at all.
Q.-You did not regard it as blackmail, then? A. I did not.
Q. -Can you tell how much was paid prior to the payment
of the $5,000? A. Not accurately, sir; I have an impression
that the whole sum amounted to $7,ooo-over that than under.
Q. - That is including the $5,ooo000? A. Including the $5,ooo.
Q.-Was the $2,000 paid before the payment of the $5,o00oo?
A. Yes, sir, I think so.
Q.-Did you pay any after the $5,600oo? A. I think not.
Q. -Did you look at any of these payments in the light of
blackmail? A. I did not, sir.
Q.-You felt entirely satisfied with the money you had given?
A. And I rejoiced to be able to give.
Q.-And did it willingly?  A. I did it cheerfully.
Q.-And rejoicingly?  A. And rejoicingly.
Q.-Without finding any fault with anybody?  A. Without
finding the slightest fault.
Q.-Or thinking that you had been taken advantage of? A.
I did not dream of it.
Q.-Or imposed upon?  A. Or imposed upon."
In fact, Mr. Beecher admitted that the idea of blackmailing never entered his head until it was put there by those two
"smart " lawyers, Tracy and Shearman.  Mr. Beecher said it
had been "rubbed into him" by these worthy men.  Not until
October, i874, did he "give in to them "-that is, not until
the Tilton and Moulton charges and papers had been published, and it was necessary to make a reply to them. It
was in that desperate situation, when concealment was all
over, and when something must be said to destroy the effect
of Tilton's and Moulton's statements, that the blackmailing
explanation was first produced. On this point Mr. Beecher's
admissions are clear, and they appear to be absolutely destructive of the blackmailing hypothesis. He was asked when he
finally surrendered to the Shearman-Tracy tactics:
" A.-Well, I think it was since I returned from the White
Mountains.
2'8
4
I1
I 
THE BEECHER TRIAL.
Q.-Well, when was that? A. That was about October, 1874.
Q.-Then you gave up and came to the conclusion that it was
blackmail because they told you so? A. Well, I didn't dare to
say in their piresence any more thoat it was not blackmail; I had
been so constantly disciplined by them that I did not dare to say it
was not blackmail.
Q.-Then they intimidated you and treated you a great deal
worse than Moulton did? A. Oh, a great deal worse.
Q.-Mr. Beecher, your answer to the question I put to you,
whether you now believe that Francis D. Moulton intended to
levy blackmail upon you, has not been answered satisfactorily to
some of my associates, and I will put it to you again, as to your
present belief? A. Well, sir, if you mean by blackmail he levied
contributions for his own advantage on me, I don't think he did.
Q.-Yes? A. But if you mean that he levied money upon me,
using my generous feelings as the instrument, for the benefit of
Mr. Tilton, I think he did,
Q.-Well, when did he take the advantage of using your generous feelings? A. Well, I think he did in regard to the $5,ooo000,
though I did not at the time, and though it is entirely an after
judgment and an arti'fcialjudgment.
Q.-Entirely voluntary that payment was?  A. It was, sofar
as I was concerned, perfectly so."
And again:
"Q.-It never occurred to you, then, that the payment of this
money, which gave you so much joy in it, was blackmail until
you had a lawyer tell you of it? A. I was fought with and actually beaten into the use of the term. I defended Mr. Moulton up
and down, and said he had no thought of the kind. I would not
believe it of him, and it was in subsequent conferences that they
made me. I was made ashamed of my simplicity -that is, they
told me I was green."
In most cases of blackmail, it is generally the blackmailed
person who first finds out, by bitter experience, that he has
been victimized, and then he goes to the lawyers to get advice
as to some means of saving himself. In this case the money
was paid "with joy," and it required two lawyers to discover
that it was really a blackmailing operation.
3*
I
29
-i 
THE BEECHER TRIAL.
3. That the charge was the reslt of a conspiracy.  But there
must be an animus shown before such a theory can be establish ed, and no successful, or even serious, attempt of the kind has
been made. Mr. and Mrs. Moulton had no motive for desiring to injure Mr. Beecher. On the contrary, it is clear that
they did their best for three or four years to hush the matter
up, and Moulton does not hesitate to avow that he "told lies"
to shield Beecher during that period, as perhaps most men
would have done to save a friend under similar circumstances.
The Moultons refused to stand by Mr. Beecher when he denied his own words to them, and then for the first time they
were accused of being conspirators. The reward they have
met with for endeavoring to shield Mr. Beecher will probably
discourage them from attempting anything of that kind in
future. We have also to bear in mind the fact that Mr.
Beecher's and Mrs. Tilton's own letters supply most damaging
evidence against them; and we thus are forced to the conclusion that if there was a conspiracy, Mr. Beecher and Mrs.
Tilton must be regarded as the chief conspirators.
4. That Tilton makes the charge from malice, and knowing it
to be false. Here, as throughout the case, it is the evidence of
Mr. Beecher which overwhelms the defense set up by Mr.
Beecher's lawyers. For he admits that it was Mrs. Tilton who
made the charge. When he went to her room on the 20th of
December, the following scene took place-described by himself in his recent evidence:
"Elizabeth, he says that you have told him that I had won
your affections from him and that you had transferred the wifely
affection to me," and that I think it was, though I will not be certain about that matter; the tears ran down her cheeks and she
made still no response. I went on and said to her, "Elizabeth,
Mr. Tilton says that you have declared to him that I have made
improper advances towards you," and she was very much agitated;
I said, "Elizabeth, have you ever said that to your husband?"
and she bowed her head, and then it was that I spoke to her with
more emphasis than I had done."
In his cross-examination by Mr. Fullerton, April I5, he
30
-i
."4 
THE BEECHER TRIAL.
was asked why he did not resent the injury which Mr. Tilton
had done to him in making the charge. He answered, " If
the charge was a correct one he did not injure me." Surely a
most remarkable answer. Presently he said, " My conclusion
was that Mr. Tilton had reason for making that charge; that
he had evidence of itfrom his wife."  Again-we quote question
and answer: " Q.-Then you suppose Mr. Tilton was acting
in good faith in making these charges against you? A. I
supposed he had reason to think that I had been a wronger of
his family."
One more quotation from evidence which Mr. Beecher's
own counsel ought to have read before they persisted in this
line of defense:
" Q. -Did you regard it simply as a charge made by Mrs.
Tilton? A. Certainly I did.
Q.-And not as a charge by Theodore Tilton? A. As a
charge that he represented he made from her.
Q.-Did you not understand him as making that charge on
his own behalf against you? A. I had no doubt that he supposed
the charge to be as she had written it to him at that time."
It is clear from these'admissions of Mr. Beecher himself
that he never believed either that Tilton had concocted the
charge, or that Mrs. Tiltonmade it under coercion.  Inshort, he
upsets all the ingenious theories put forward by his own lawyers.
5. The fifth answer is that MAfrs. Tilton never confessed adultery.  Several witnesses swear that she did.   Her own letters
are not reasonably open to any other interpretation. It is true
that she does not use the word "adultery," but her language
can only relate to a great crime. And the defendant did
not venture to call her, although the plaintiff offered in court
to consent to her being called. Presumably she was a hostile
witness to the plaintiff, and had he called her he could not
have cross-examined her, and of course the other side would
have had no motive for doing so. Therefore, when the
plaintiff offered to interpose no objection to receiving her as a
witness, he did all that he could do.
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THE BEECHER TRIAL.
6. Mr. Beecher swears he is innocent. This must, of course,
be taken into consideration with the fact that several witnesses
swear that he repeatedly confessed his guilt to them, and that
his letters go to substantiate their assertion, while on any other
hypothesis it is impossible to explain them.  In all such situations, it cannot be assumed that one person alone tells the
truth, unless he is borne out by a powerful sequence of circumstantial evidence and his own general conduct.   It is clear
that Mr. Beecher is not so sustained. He had abundant opportunities for denying the charge long before the publication
of 1874, but he avoided them all. One such opportunity demands special attention, since it was clearly Mr. Beecher's
duty, supposing his innocence, to have instantly profited by it.
A certain Mrs. Bradshaw had been a member of Plymouth
Church for upwards of twenty years, was devoted to the pastor, and could not bear to hear stories repeated to his discredit.
In August, i 870, as appears from the "West charges," Theodore
Tilton accused Mr. Beecher of adultery, in her presence. In
October 1873, the charges having by that time become more
and more widely circulated, this lady wrote to Mr. Beecher
asking him whether she "must accept Theodore's awful story
for the truth." Surely Mr. Beecher ought to have said _Vo,
if he had been innocent.  But he did not say it.  He merely
advised Mrs. Bradshaw [letter of October 7, i873] not to interfere, and added "whatever differences have arisen have
been amicably adjusted by those most deeply concerned."
Now, here was a distinct appeal to him, made  by a valued
member of his congregation, to deny "Theodore's awful story"
-and he refused to do it. The witnesses for the plaintiff were
substantially unshaken during cross-examination, and all the
documents in the case go to the verification of their narratives.
There is some doubt about a date in Mrs. Moulton's evidence,
but Mr. Beecher admits that he had a long, interview with her
somewhere about the time alleged, and the actual date is, therefore, of no importance.
7. That Mr. Beecher's remorse arose from his having
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THE BEECHER TRIAL.
caused Til/ton's dismissal by Bowen.   But Bowen swears that
this advice did not cause the dismissal in question-and the
letters in the case evidently refer to some transaction of a
totally different kind.   Moreover, Tilton was not dismiss ed by Bowen until after he had made the charge against
Beecher. This is proved from the records of Plymouth Church
itself.  The "West" charges against Tilton, for accusing Mr.
Beecher of adultery, alleged that he had thus accused his pas tor, in the presence of Mrs. Bradshaw, on the 3d of August,
i870. Now Bowen did not break his contract with Tilton
until December 3ist, I870. Obviously, then, the charge could
not possibly have been prompted by motives of revenge for
the dismissal in question.
8. That Afr. Beecher merely advised the separation of the
Tiltons. It is sufficient to say in answer to this that no reference to the fact appears in any of his letters or conversations.
All that he wrote or said manifestly referred to something of a
much more serious and ruinous character. But it must also
be stated that Mrs. Tilton herself denies ever having even contemplated separation from her husband.  "I indignantly deny," she says (letter of January 4, i87i), that I ever sought
separation from my husband." This is one of the numerous
letters which Mr. Beecher's counsel found it more convenient
to overlook than to explain.
Such appear to us to be the facts in this melancholy case.
That they tell heavily against Mr. Beecher will be universally
regretted, for it is a mournful sight to see a great preacher of
religion resting even under the suspicion of a dark crime. And
for the persons on the other side, it is impossible to feel pity or
respect. That Tilton should have known of his wife's guilt;
that he should have gone on living with her; that he should
even have consulted with her alleged seducer as to the paternity of one of her children, and that, finally, he should declare
on this very trial that she is a "pure, white-souled woman " —
all this puts him a long way outside of the range of public
~ * *      e.:e 
33
1,i 
THE BEECHER TRIAL.
sympathy. As for the woman who has been the immediate
cause of these darkened homes and blighted reputations, she
may be dismissed to the general contempt of mankind. A
city-full of such women would not be worth the trouble and
misery which this one has occasioned. She constructed a
form of religion to suit her own circumstances and desires, and
easily convinced herself that there was nothing wrong in her
breaking her marriage vows, and afterward "sacrificing" her
husband. She told her husband that Mr. Beecher knew better than he or she did what was wrong or right. Mr. Beach
seems to have accurately described her ideas on the subject
when he says that she held the belief that she, her husband,
and Mr. Beecher might form a sort of triple "friendship," and
"indulge all their desires without any infringement of the law
of God or the law of morality."  She calls it herself a "trinity
of friendship." Revolting as such an idea must be to every
decent mind, the evidence and letters afford a strong presumption that it was for years entertained by this degraded and
worthless woman.
There is only one good result which can possibly follow
from this exposure and trial. It may lead people in Brooklyn
and elsewhere to distrust the new Gospel of Love, and to
allow no priests or ministers to come between husband and
,, ife, or to interfere with family ties or sully family honor.
Lastly, it may induce them to return to the older and safer
moorings which alone can prevent society from drifting into
chaos. If this should be the fruit of the trial, a scandal which
poisoned the air for six long months will not have been
dragged to the light in vain.
34
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3.