The question in the American or
English court is not whether the accused be guilty. It is
whether he be shown to be guilty, by legal proof, of an offence
legally set forth. It is the duty of the advocate to perform
his office in the mode best calculated to cause all such considerations
to make their due impression. It is not his duty or his right
to express or convey his individual opinion. On him the responsibility
of the decision does not rest. He not only has no right to
accompany the statement of his argument with any assertion
as to his individual belief, but I think the most experienced
observers will agree that such expressions, if habitual, tend
to diminish and not to increase the just influence of the
lawyer. There was never a weightier advocate before New England
juries than Daniel Webster. Yet it is on record that he always
carefully abstained from any positiveness of assertion. He
introduced his weightiest arguments with such phrases as,
"It will be for the jury to consider," "The Court will judge,"
"It may, perhaps, be worth thinking of, gentlemen," or some
equivalent phrase by which he kept scrupulously off the ground
which belonged to the tribunal he was addressing.
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