UNITED STATES OF AMERICA FOUNDED 1836 WASHINGTON, D. C. GPO 16—67244-1 A TIN THE EFFECTS OP PARTIAL. INSANITY UPON ALL THE MENTAL FACULTIES OF A WHEN EXPOSED TO THE ARTIFICES OF A COGNIZANT, FRAUDULENT PLAYER ON DISORDERED ANIMAL MACHINERY, CHARLES HALL & MICHAEL DEADERICK, OF DAVIDSON COUNTY, TENNESSEE. INCLUDING A PHILOSOPHICAL ANALYSIS OF MIND, With an'exposition of the Testamentary Compotency, and some observations on the influ- ence of Jealousy, a disease of the passions, over the intellectual system. Designed as an aid to Jurors Physicians and Lawyers, in testing wills and testamentary codicils, offered for probate and record in courts of ordinary; and to obviate tbe effects of injustice by curative or ■noit.cupative bequests of estates. BY A MEDICAL OBSERVER OF NASHVILLE. NASHVILLE: -riNted for the author. IW*. «•«•*• ADVERTISEMENT. In case9 of the character of that now before us, judges should be reminded with much emphasis, that the celebrated writers Heis- ter, Boerhaave and Haller, of Germany; Coke, Haslam and Hale, , of England, authorities of the greatest nttgtrt and repate in fo-^t^/^i^tt reign judicatures, as well as in the United States, when speaking J on the occasion of introducing scientific testimony in courts, for Jhe ^^, purpose of conveying information to juries, have very propeTry ^V> remarked, that a physician should not come into court merely to give his opinion, but should be prepared to explain it. and assign the rea sons which influence his decisions; and without such elucidation" opinion becomes only an assertion or dictum, claiming precedence without courtesy or obligation to science; and as the ground on which, flQlir evidence is now called for, may admit of some objection to the right of passing the ipse dixit of individual conjectural statement. Jtsshould therefore be insisted, on behalf of these defendant heirs and their mother, whose right and reputation may be grievously affected by the result of*k**r inquiry, that it be required of those who may be desired by competent authority, to extend the aid of medical jurisprudence on this occasion, to present their testimony in writing, and in as intelligible language as practicable, with the remarks and reasoning in support of the opinion offered to the court, jury and bar, to prepare them for a satisfactory adjudication of this important state cause, embracing points of some doubt and no small difficulty with the uninformed in the science of juridical medicine. Destitute of which illumination, a jury cannot render justice to parties in such a controversy. And this may be the more necessary, in case a jury is not composed of the three learned professions, to try the will in dis- pute, under every advantage fiom the history of man, and that branch of science treating particularly on the subject of the present investigation; and this will be the more expedient, as the technical language of the professions united in this inquiry, being commonly of such mysterious obscurity, that most students seem to have acquired only names and phrases without seeing their force and legitimate import ; and employ them more irom habit than comprehension, whir h may require an etymology, of words of important meaning; and to expiess the manifestation of mind and its diseases, by the most fa;n;l:ar expressions generally understood, and clear of the servi- tv > of professional nomenclature. The principal reason for making this request is, that Judge Stuart delivered an opinion in his charge to the former jury, in discrepance with one expressed very emphati- cally on the trial of-a similar case some years ago at Lebanon and at Nashville, and which may have occurred as well for want of capa- city to comprehend the doctrine and science exhibited in the able. independent and appropriate address of Patrick Darby, as for wauf .\ O-J. L'l j IV uftlre additional light which can be cast upon the interesting topics now before us, including some notes on, with a short sketch of the history of the recent case of our vanquished Governor and heroic General Houston, of Jackson laurels; and whose imbecile mind, con- trolled by the exuberance of his passions and polluted imagination, subjected him to the fate of many immoralists and debauchees, while under the shock of the sentence of the supreme court of Tennessee, against a similar transgresser ; and prostrating all his hopes of a re-election even by his deluded populace and voters; also disqualified from correet judgment and free suffrage, by undue influence of ima- gination and passions upon the other powers of mind; and positively jlPscribed by our wise political charter, as well as all sage advocates of republican institutions, INTRODUCTORY PREFACE. After an inquiry into the merits of the cause of an aspersed widow* and three defrauded children, resulting in a mis-trial, and after con.. suming, as is customary with the superficial and venal, several days, by a tedious and laborious examination and interrogation of witness- es, with eight or ten long speeches; and for want of a well informed and independent judge, the following discourse, furnishing the scien- tific testimony called for, on the scrutiny of the imputed will an^cl testament of Charles Hall, deceased, was prepared for the insight of a. future court and jury, with a view to elucidate the civil and ecclesi- astic law on phrenary incompetency, and to secure to legal and moral claimants, their righiUhe inheritance from progenitors. But, the contents of our briefoutline being impressed upon the ingenious and susceptible mind of Mr. Bledsoe, formerly judge in Kentucky, and the only literate and scientific advocate that appeared on the part of the defrauded widow and minor heirs, a compromise was effected at a subsequent term of court, without another forensic canvassing of a paper characterizing a palpably invalid will, by reason of a condem- natory testament, in the hand writing of an attorney for tha defend- ants; and conceding the right of those who had been disinherited by a husband and father under the dominion of zealotypia furabunda, arising from the operation of physical causes affecting the imagina- tion and passions of a dying testator and non compos mentis. But, without a verdict and judgment in favor of the injured mother and her offspring, as there should have been, and charging the whole of the cost to the advocates of the self-condemning testament, as was due to those who had been slandered by the adult heirs, and threa- tened with infamy and want of protection, the charge of Judge Stu- art being on the first trial, opposed to the spirit of such a Will; but inconsistent with, and adverse to that delivered by himself at Nashville and Lebanon, on the examination of Deaderick's Will by Searcy, drafted by a familiar acquaintance and a much interested pupil of the J----n School, and affirmed in favor of a strong conspi- racy against the heir at law, and evidently less sustainable than Hall's, for differing from a previous, more rational and parental dis- position in the devisor's own manuscript, drawn with great care and neatness, to meet the eyes of posterity, and deposited, in a lucid interval, for safe keeping and perpetuation, with the directors of the Nashville Bank, with the necessary attestation by himself and observ- ant witnesses. As this print is designed also to counteract any impressions that may have been made by the elaborate and vehe- ment speech of Attorney Breckenridge, in opposition to the matured opinion, supported by the ablest arguments, and concise though ner- vous reasoning of the supreme court, reported by Littell of Ken- tuckv. Tvhere infideWv; anti-christian tenets or fanataci?m, and an VI unsound religion have been making rapid progress with the delusion of the people for thirty years; as well as in opposition to the senti- ments and cogent reasoning of the learned and independent Judge Haywood, on the subject of the statute of Wills and testamentary- faculty, it is hoped our efforts will not be less acceptable to those whose attention has been directed to the expanding study of the ele- ments of the philosophy of mind, and to that branch of juridcal medi- cine, insanity, which has derived so much from the literature of the ancients on this important subject of the inquiries of the medico-civil philosopher; and no little improved by modern writers on the economy of mind and body. The Widow and infant heirs of Charles Hall, vs. John B. Hall and other adult devisees of said Testator. Circuit Court for Davidson County, Tennessee, No- vember Term, 1828. To qualify for a scrupulous discharge of the duties enjoined on this branch of government, composed of a judge, sufficiently informed jurors and the officers of the bar, now engaged in an examination of the manuscript of Attorney Martin, presented to our inspection under the caption of the last will and testament of Charles Hall, deceased; and to enable us to determine how far that husband, father and member of society had a natural, legal and moral right to execute such a partial distribution of his terrestrial estate, it will be necessary to advert to his age, confirmed habits, &c. and to weigh the data and circumstances detailed by the witnesses who have been interrogated in courts while we introduce a scientific description of will and the testa- mentary capacity referred to by writers on the statute of wills, on medical jurisprudence and the philosophy of mind; and winch capacity, doubtless arises from a well arranged and correctly toned corporeal and attuned mental machinery, since by defy- ing that man is a machine, we are in danger of imbibing the impious and delirious notion that God is a machine, and of act- ing under the influence of so discomposing and disqualifying a tenet. To do justice to the contemplated inquiry, and to be prepared to comprehend the nature, design and end of that im- portant transaction denominated a testamentary bequest, and to assist us to understand perfectly the use and advantage of scientific testimony which is often relevant in bases of doubtful attestation from superficial and deficient observance, it may be advisable to premise a short physiologic, metaphysical analy- sis of mind into its component parts or true elements, admitting nothing that is factitious; as a faint epitome of the philosophy spread upon those extensive maps of the intellectual kingdom which have been unfolded by the genius of Mal-Branche, Des- cartes, Locke, Sidney, Hartley, Reid, Stillingfleet and our countrymen Edwards, Gross and Rush, and that have been so judiciously reviewed and condensed by S. Miller in his Retro- spect of science and literature for the eighteenth century. A brief sketch of the science of mind will be very useful to us at present, because, without it we cannot scan the state and effects of mental dis-arrangement, nor comprehend what is expressed in authors by the saxonic termsund, and this knowledge will explain to a jury the operations of the body on mind and vice y versa, while it teaches that no physician, ecclesiastic or civilian unacquainted with this science, should prescribe for, or give his opinion on mania or intellectual disorganization; (by this term, wnich is compounded of the two Greek words men ana, and in La- tinmens seorsim or separatim,is meant mind distracted,or interrup- ted in its component cords or faculties, by the influence of causes that are excluded by inculcations of medical and legal institutes, from any agency in making of wills:) and that without the acqui- sition of some information and knowledge assumed to be correct, and impressed by the experience and attentive observation of jurists and jurors, as well as physicians and divines, it will be difficult to discharge the duty required in the developement of the subject under disquisition. In treating of the state of man, with the infirmities and depra- vity consequent to his fall—that we may be able to counteract the objections, arguments and reasoning used in Mr. Brecken- ridge's famous speech, which will probably be quoted, as it was designed to be by the author, when he had the same recorded with the opinion of the supreme court of Kentucky, by their state reporter, with a view to unsettle the law, and illuminate, as he thought, the people and judiciary of the west, and so to destroy the decisions which had been made in the United States, while the precedents from England might be rejec- ted, to multiply contention and promote the interests of men of his cloak; the heir of Deaderick having been refused his filial claim—it will be proper to assume and urge that mind and body act reciprocally on each other at all times, but more perceivably in sickness, disease or pain and disorder, which is as self-evident as that conceit can kill and cure, or that heat and light on our globe are produced by a stimulating prin- ciple daily derived from the sun, the sensory of the universe. In the conveyance of Will now claiming a civil and sci- entific investigation, and which takes its philosophical etymo- logy from one of the most prominent faculties ofc the human mind, giving us the power of reason, and distinguishing man from brutes, and has effected all that is great in the world, not only all the sensorial powers are employed, but the exercise of reason is also concerned, which includes memory, imagination and understanding. Of what then is the mind of man compo- sed, and in what does that testamentary capacity consist, about which there has been so much confusion in jury trials in the southern and western states, for want of a key to comprehend the technical phraseology of those able writers on civil and medi- cal jurisprudence, Justinian, Swynburn, Bacon, Coke, Roberts, Gross and Benjamin Rush, and others of no small fame in the world ? Haslam being most conspicuous. 9 By Mind is to be understood all its faculties, whieli are divided into Memory, Imagination, Understanding, Will, Passions and Moral Powers, the latter being divided into Moral Faculty, Sense of Deity and Consciousness: and however distinct in their number and separate in their situation in the sensorial bowl, they consti- tute a wonderful unity and symmetry in their harmonious concert* Secondly. That every act of the Will and all the intellectual ope- rations depend on certain motions excited in the cerebellous, cere- bral and spinal apartments—the trinary chambers of mental go- vernment, by external impressions upon the corporeal senses, the well known avenues to the mental citadel. It is quite imma- terial in the prosecution of the present inquiry, whether these motions depend on an ether or electroid fluid, it being sufficient that they are excited by external and internal stimuli. Thirdly. We must assume, that from the phenomena of several diseases, obstruction, debility or inaction, call them what we may, they are more or less of disorder, unsoundness or non compos mentis state in the brain, that organ where these faculties are seated, or that instrument referred to by poets, and composed of the nervous cords or faculties which we are endeavoring to expose to the comprehension of the jury. Fourthly. We are to take for granted that the perfect exercise of our faculties depends upon a certain medium of the brain: this medium or temperature depending on a certain consistency and firmness in the sensorium, disclosed by anatomical dissections. Hence, the softness of this organ in children and the hardness thereof in old age and certain dis- eases, as misplaced gout, madness, torpor of mind from exces- sive spirituous potation, instilling into the stomach the juice, by mastication and absorption, of the odious narcotic-nicotian bane, the aliment of the African goat, the maniac's stupifier, and the mentor of the slave and savage, disqualifies this organ for proper exercise or motion. Memory is the most astonishing faculty of our minds, and is much employed in volition and devising of estates. It is the power of recalling past scenes, of putting us in reminiscence of our duties and obligations, and would appear as wonderful as being able to predict future events, if we were not accustomed to its daily and hourly exercise. Imagination embraces present as well as future events. Understanding is so essential to our minds, that the mind is often designated by it; and it is the business of this sublime faculty to receive impressions, both external and internal, and without it memory would be a mere magazine of ideas and imaginations. By the Will, the fourth original attribute, is meant that impor- tant faculty of mind by which we arc impelled to do good and to 10 ■Ivdid evil. It has long been contested by some philosophers amd Certain divines, whether the Will acts by free agency or moral necessity. This contest will probably be finally settled by the physiologist and anatomico-medical philosopher, as it cannot be determined by the fanatic zealot, the hypochondriac religion- ist, nor the mercenary advocate, although endowed with the genius,the specious talents, and all the verbose display of flowe- ry diction, frothy metaphor and declamatory parade of a Joseph Cabell Breckenridge of Kentucky, opposed to the sound science and extensive literature of a Rush; and the clear and satisfactory judicial civil laconism of a Haywood, in the instances of White vs. Cox, and Keeble vs. Cumings, of Tennessee, and reiterated by the supreme court of our neighboring state, in the case of Johnson vs. More's heirs, after the fantastic display of their fo- rensic orator, ascribable to the mere flights of a fruitful imagina- tion, calculated chiefly to conceal the want of observation and the ignorance of their inventor, entirely in the dark as to the import of liberty or freedom in man's Will; and whose great ob- ject seems to have been, in his day, to unsettle the well digested English law on insanity adopted by the courts of the United States, for the purpose, like too many in our limes, of multiply- ing litigation on a subject of so much interest to attorneys and advocates of a venal forum, and for which end he was prompted to publish his splendid and elaboiate speech under the opinion of court reported by Littell, of Kentucky. In that speech the author seems to have studied withholding from the mind of the court and jury all sound science on this subject, and-of guard- ing against the impressions that willing is a mode and conse- quence of the faculty of feeling, and that liberty is the power of executing our Will; that it is our first good and includes them all: that constraint, from the influence of any cause or causes, includes all our ills, since it is a privation of the power to satisfy our wants and accomplish our desires: that all con- straint is sufferance and all liberty is enjoyment: and the total value of the liberty-of an animated being is equal to that of all his faculties-united. A self moving power in the Willis as absurd as to say the body possesses a self moving power; and the acts of our Wills depend as much on impressions as animal life depends on stimulus the musical tones of the organist upon his fingers, and heat and light on our globe depend on solar influence. The Will certainly de- rives its resources from Memory and Imagination, and acts with and without the consent of the Understanding, through the instrumentality of the Passions; and these are to our minds in the language of that generous benefactor of the human race Benjamin Rush, the author of a treatise on Mind, remarkable II for the acquisition since the time of Hippocrates, of great addi* tional learning and information on this subject, as well as for perspicuity of style and the admirable arrangement of its mat* ter, deriving great authority from the exposure of its founda- tions, and furoishi-.ig a finished specimen of the inductive medi- cal phil >so:>hy, co-istitu ing a legacy of the highest value to the world, notwithstanding the opinion of Mr. Breckenridge to the contrary, " what boats are to a ship in loading and unloading,'' said that distinguished American in the plenitude of his benefi- cence under the enjoyment of unhampered liberty in his sound and free will. They seem to convey motion to the memory, imagination and understanding, and are the executive powers of the will* Moral powers receive their impressions from particular things onlv, and are innate or congenital, and will perform their office while themi'id is sound and well composed, or speaking in the spirit of science, well organized, and possessed of perception and a collected and disposing memory. These are moral facul- ty, properly so called, senseof deity and conscience. The Mo- ral Faculty seems to act as legislator, while Conscience performs the office of judge in the triune parliament of the sensorial chambers. The first resides in the will and the second in our understanding. By the former St. John, who like Moses, Paul and the second redeeming Adam, often displayed its supreme control over the whole mental system, and particularly in ex- tending of sedative and moral influence to all the passions, must have meant that light or divine spark which lighteth every man that cometh into the world, and it will direct our course through life's bewildered race, until immoral habits, vicious practices and corporeal disorder, by extending their influence, in the hands of the designing and more depraved, to the nervous cord- ed instrument, interrupt the duties of life, and involve dying mortals in more error; when it will become necessary for the medical jurist, the metaphysician and theologist, to unite with the conscientious ministers of law in civilized and enlightened society, in arresting the hand of avarice and injustice, and in rendering relief to, and in making the necessary provision for the household and legitimate offspring and claimants of the non compos mentis, viz. the distracted and legally disqualified from testamentary exertion. Sense of Deity, implies a sense of Supreme Being, as a first great cause, the author of all good and preventer of evil. This divine impression distinguishes man from other animals in crea- tion, who possess many of the other faculties; but sane and iational man alone possesses a sense of deity; and it is as natural as any faculty of the mind, and belongs as much to the charac- V2 ter of man to be religious as to be social with his species, and provident for and just to the offspring of his loins. This sense, it is true, may sometimes be perverted, melancholy experience teaches us, like the understanding in the worship of Juggernaut and crocodiles in eastern countries, or of ravagers renowned only in savage imagination for devastation, murder and triumph in fields of blood. But, man's religion will always produce some good effects under the direction of a correctly toned mind, and prompt all, under due influence of sense of deity and moral pow- ers, to the duties enjoined by lawful vows and compacts, unless prevented by the worst of all diseases, referred to by the Roman jurist and physiologist, infidelity to the conjugal covenant, which can deny to a man's own household, the provision and support claimed by natural, moral and municipal law; and when con- trolled by the syren impulse of an interested player upon animal machinery shattered with phrenetic jealousy, may suffer the exe- cution of the most injudicious, irrational and unparental devises of property, and with which accountable probationers have no more right to do as they please, agreeably to advocate Breck: enridge's libertine conceptions of freedom of will, than to abuse and degrade those talents, and to waste that time which have been furnished by infinite wisdom for good. The exercise of this exalted sense furnishes great and necessary incitement to the mind, by holding out rewards to be obtained and punish- ments to be avoided by a discharge of obligatory duties; and is as necessary a monitor as food is an essential stimulus to our bodies, for producing and keeping up that arrangement of the mental faculties, so absolutely necessary to an exhibition, ac- cording to the spirit of law. and the import of the word testa- mentary, of the evidence of a sound mind and disposing memory* A striking example of the necessity of a religion, or the due weight and influence of this divine regula regulans, as well as of the evils arising to a depraved world, from the want of connec- tion and association with civil and political government, has been clearly demonstrated to the enlightened people of our planet, by the French revolution, during the prevalence of the politico-military phrensy of that infatuated nation; and which was excited by a directory of the despotic agents of the author of anarchy, and of scenes of the most unprecedented human slaughter ever heard of, under pretence of emancipating the world from the tyranny of kings and the religion of nature's God, influenced by a deranged regicide, religioncide, and a homicidal emperor, whose bewildered and extravagant imagination unre- strained by sense of the ubiquity of deity, had planned within the walls of a Gallic college, in his youth, the subversion of both human and divine gorernments on earth; and no doubt, like some 13 of our pretended sovereign patriots, for the acquisition of wealth and temporary aggrandizement among the deluded sub- jects of his reign. (But, may the further propagation of such democracy through delusion of our inhabitants, be prevented and perpetually stayed by the appeal now made to the higher pow- ers, the judiciary councils in our united republics:) The ab- straction of which cheering stimulus from the minds of the rulers of the sham Gallic republic and their aspiring dupes, im- pelled them by the artifices of their satanic chieftain, to the unsound will of atheism with all its gloomy horrors to that nation, producing the greatest sedative to animal life, and calculated to keep up the sorest obstacle to a sane and correct operation of judgment at all times, and more especially on a death bed sick- ness, which so much affects the volition and nolition of those subject to its dominion. From the foregoing portrait of mind, its state and functions, the followingcorollaries arise, and should regulate, it is believed, the decision of a sound court and jury on the present occasion, directed by the premonitory scientific testimony which has been called for on the examination of witnesses introduced on the trial of the paper said to contain the last will and testament of Charles Hall, of Davidson county, who was long in evident dotage, from the combined influence of old age, mania a potu, or delirium tremens, the inebriating and paralyzing effects of the excessive use of tobacco and of jealousy, producing their usual effects of torpor of nervous energy, disease of passion, derange- ment of will, and probably disarrangement, atonia, or non compos state of the whole mind. Corollary 1. What the eye is to the body, reason or under- standing is to the soul, said that irresistible physiologist and unrivalled sound jurist, St. Paul. Cor. 2. The eye is framed in such a manner as to be capable of seeing, and reason in such a manner as to be capable of hearing. But, Cor." 3. The eyes of the body cannot see without light, and reason, though ever so perfect, cannot know without instruc- tion conveyed to the mind by experience, observation and reflec- tion, through the corporeal senses of man. Cor. 4. The eye may be what sees, but light is the cause of its seeing. Cor. 5. Reason is that which knows, but instruction is the cause of its knowing, and is therefore the eye of the mind. In the cases reported in foreign as well as American Medical jurisprudence, we have exemplifications of the advantage of sci- entific over positive occular testimony in autopsical examination or actual inspection, demonstrating that one person, through 14 the eye of science directed by the light of medical and chemical philosophy, can see, understand, and know more at the distance of some hundred miles, than many men can discover and detect with their eyes almost in contact with a subject of their inspec- tion, unaided by those glasses which are often effectual in pre- venting imposition upon bodily optics, and in supplying the place of deficient or ambiguous testimony in juridical medicine. In further illustration of the subject in disquisition, and as the causes of the defrauded heirs were analogous by involving the same leading question, for additional information to this jury, we will introduce, with the court's permission, a report of the trial of the will ascribed to George M. Deaderick, with a com- mentary on the evidence, arguments and reasoning applicable on the examination made on that occasion, under circumstances extremely unfavorable to the rights of a legitimate heir, oppo- sed by an interested, influential combination, notwithstanding his advocate had, by the aid of the most credible testimony afford- ed, clearly demonstrated his superior rights, in consequence we have been advised of an injudicious and unsustainable opinion, and a defective charge from the presiding judge, and which was in the following words, viz : "Gentlemen of the jury: it is not for you to think or say what you should or would have done in the situation of Deaderick. You roust look at the testimony and take notice of what has been stated as to the sanity or insanity of the testator's mind at the time of signing that paper; and if the witnesses have stated he was in his sound mind and possessed of sufficient memory, you must sanction and admit to record this will, without regard to what you think the face of the paper shows to the contrary, or whatever youriudgment may be of its incorrectness." In other words, regardless of the internal evidence of the transaction not being supported by settled law, and the reason of things, and the conjugal pact or bilateral cove- nant entered into for the education and maintenance of mutual offspring as insisted by Mr. Darby; the Wills referred to having been written by attorneys of legal information and of no small practice in the probates of Wills, &c. the first by Mr. Martin, who like most men employed to do such business, feels an interest in the sustentation of the same ; and the latter from the pen of Robeit Searcy, who was much interested in passing his manu- script for the Will of Deaderick, who had deposited, in his own hand writing, and drawn in a very neat and careful manner, a very different disposition, parentally and judiciously prepared for safekeeping with the directors of the Nashville Bank, and at a small distance from the place of his decease, when Sear- cy's paper was presented and signed without any recantations of the first, or any evidence that he had any intention to revoke 1K> it, the former having been, probably, written in his usual healthj with all the advantages of solitude and reflection, and the arranging effects of digesting and writing a lengthy manuscript, and when not under the influence of his habitual, inordinate suspicions and the intoxicating influence and deranging stimulus of groundless jealousy, which had so often disputed the birth- right of an only son and legal claimant, as was stated by the witnesses examined in court before Judge Thomas Stuart. On the subject of the testimony introduced in court in rela- tion to the last illness of C. Hall and G. M. Deaderick, including a brief sketch of their lives and the state of their minds under the dominion or delusion of jealousy, a disease of their imagina- tion and passions, constituting a partial insanity which affected them for several years, the latter in a very unusual degree, and the former so much as to be often perceived by his visiters, and recorded in the paper hefore us, the following statement is now submitted, with a forensic medical opinion respecting their tes- tamentary incompetency, and answering the questions as to capacity to compose or dictate, and a legal and moral right to execute the Wills imputed to them in the manuscripts of Searcy and Martin, and offered for the sanction of a coui-t of justice; and which opinions and statement, with the arguments and rea- soning annexed, have been prepared to meet popular animad- version with the speech of Mr. Breckenridge before the public, with a list of the jury empannelled on the present trial, inclu- ding the opinion and suchacharge as may be given on this occa- sion, by the present judge, for the benefit of the people of Ten- nessee. From the detail of circumstances and the diagnostic symptoms mentioned by several witnesses who were examined on behalf of Deaderick's heir at law, and particularly Mr. Cas- sady, Major Lewis arid Norton, and some of the doctors in attend- ance, it is believed that the disordered and dissolving condition of the body and mind of said victim of jealousy, was produced by what has been termed retrocedent gout, as it could have been nothing less at his age, in a person of his luxurious living, licentious habits and debauched manner of life, after the pre- cursory disease of violent distorting external rheumatism, which is an inferior grade of internal and vital gout, or obstruction affect- ing the vital organs and animal functions, exciting great direct or indirect debility of the stomach and liver, heart and lungs, and frequently sympathetic disorder of the h ad, inducing im- becility, irrationality and insanity or disarrangement of the mind, the seat of the Will-making faculty. And from the known action of body on mind, and mind on body, and of the recipro- city of action subsisting between the mental faculties when exercised together and in close succession as they should be in hi die testamentary transaction, and all important treaties or con- tracts for real or personal estate, we are to infer that an Unsound state of his mind must have physically and morally ensued; for it is no less an inculcation of physiology and the science of mind than of the dictates of sound common sense, that the mutual influence of body and mind unavoidably subjects the mental powers to the influence of corporeal debility and disorder, espe- cially when those parts which are more intimately connected with the mental throne, are the seats of weakness and disease. We were informed by some witnesses, that the subscriber to Ro- bert Searcy's paper, who was not heard to mention Will, son or heir, nor known to have heard that paper, as it was called be- fore witness Bradford, read, when he asked his witnesses to sign it, (and which is the sine qua non every where,) and who would thereby have had, according to Swinburne, the construction of the Justinian law, and the learned and scientific German J. D. Gross, and Erskine, a fair opportunity of testing the state of that testator's mind, and with the application of their own cor- poreal senses to his physionomical index, when consulted and examined on the subject of such a transaction of'.he combined faculties of his mind, disclosed much disorder of the head and heart, bv an intermittent pul-e, severe pain, difficult respiration and resistance to tired nature's restorative from fatigue and exhausting pain, amounting to a total suspension of that kind tranquilizer for four or five days and nights, before said paper was signed, while opiates were ineffectually administered, and which are known to increase mental incompetency, when inju- diciously used or where they fail of their wonted success in procuring sleep and rest in sick: ess, and which are more effec- tual in arranging distracted minds than all the anodynes in the physicians Mat. Medica,or any other extended from the kingdom of Heaven to disordered and delirious mortals: the absence of which, for only a few durnal periods, is apt to render uncol- lected any one, and to impair reminiscence in the best health. If such be the effects of its privation in full health, how can it be possible to the physiological eye, or to the apprehension of sound common sense, remote from supernatural aid or miracu- lous interposition, to which such Wills show no claim nor influ- ence, for a patient so disordered and sleepless as he was said to have been, when all the corporeal avenues were closing and ceasing, by the laws of the animal economy, to transmit their stimuli, to enjoy that collectedness, soundness of mind and dispo- sing state of memory in a sufficient degree, to have enabled him to compose and execute, after reading or hearing read, and of which the necessary evidence was not produced in court, a devise of a large and extensive estate, and so materially variant 17 from that be. had prepared some time before in a neat and care- fill manuscript of his own? and probably in a lucid interval, with the advice of some conscienctious jurist, as to furnish for the ratification and record of court, the internal testamentary conviction of a sound Will, and like that deposited at bank by his, own hands; and which appears to have been the requisition of the Justinian Statute, and the English and American medical jurisprudence, expounded by Johannes D. Gross and other mo- derns, as well as the injunction of perfect and immutable law. Such an important transaction, it is believed, was not practicable with those two victims of disorder and disqualification from the operation of the physical causes mentioned and to be adverted to, nor any persons subject to dementia fvribunda from the influ- ence of several causes upon a moral faculty, and particularly the Causes occasioning that idiosyncracy which disposes to zelotypia furiosa sine ratione, an evident disease of the passions the most unmanageable and deranging cord of the hymenial bond, when preternaturally excited by jealousy, and which has often impell- ed a father, in contempt of the most solemn obligation of life, to disown and disinherit offspring with features, &c. strongly marking their patrimaternal origin. That 6uch a disease of the passions preyed upon the imagination and other departments of mind in those two fathers, (and which disease we are taught by the experienced Ovid in his history of love, originates from de- fect as well as excess of this affection, existed in a sufficient measure to affect all theother powers of mind,) is in evidence from the witnesses introduced as well as from the letters of Deaderick; and we have heard and seen so much of the effects of jealousy in that man, that the conclusion unavoidably fol- lows, if there ever was a jealous maniac, G. M. Deaderick was an unfortunate subject of it, who, by such baleful influence on his passions, and through its consequent effects increased by much corporeal debility, affecting the other faculties of mind, was prevented from the correct operation of his judgment, and of the power of sound will, which we are to recognize in the human understanding, and into which the faculty of thinking or feeling necessarily revolves itself, when decomposed into its true elements, excluding every thing factitious; and may thus have been disqualified from rendering justice to a legitimate child and his household, which may be numerous and extensive in the west. Of the existence of the same disorganizing disease in the head and heart of C. Hall, constituting likewise a legal and moral incompetency, we have proof from witnesses, as well as on the paper presented for record, with the false reasoning and futile argument offered by said subscriber, in as far as that provision for hh wife and children has not been made, which 3 18 should have been made, and would have been thought neces- sary by a testator in discharge of his duty, uninfluenced by the causes mentioned. By the principles of the science of natural and moral rec- titude, we are taught that parental love, the tendcrest affec- tion, taking a lively interest in all that concerns the happi- ness of children, cannot cease, in a sound mind, but with life, and ought to be visible in its effects after death. We set it down as a natural parental duty, that parents leave some of their effects to their children after their decease. It is on this account chiefly,that nature has vested persons with the right of property, that they may render their family useful to society; and the most divine man that ever lived on earth, except one, has said, in the language of inspiration, that the greatest good the father of a family can do, is to take care of his own household; and nothing appears from the principles of nature, nor the lights of the science quoted, why the wife should not have the same right, together with a generous maintenance from the estate of her husband, in case he should be found unfaithful to his matri- monial engagements, to enable her to perform those duties of natural guardian to their offspring, that have been forgotten or disregarded by an unfaithful lord of his household. When I came out to West Tennessee to reside, Major C. Hall lived where he died, near the Clover Bottom. I had, soon afterwards, frequent opportunities of seeing him at home on my road, and of observing his appearance and conduct in presence of two wives and his children, in ordinary health and in sickness of himself and second wife, whom I attended. He appeared to be declining fast in strength of body and vigor of mind; and at all times when I saw him, seemed to be, like too many others, under the influence of the combined noxious effects of the narcotic and inebriating influence of tobacco and spirit- uous tippling, two causes which, when associated with the infir- mities of old age, are remarkable for impairing the memory in most persons, but more especially the superannuated, who sel- dom if ever recover the propel exercise of the powers of mind, after such causes are removed; and are very apt to fall into greater debility and atony of both mind and body, and which is natural to our tenure of the forced state of animal life. He appeared to be illy calculated to manage his domestic affairs, or to aid in the education of his children, and to manage his negroes, stock and plantation to much advantage. The ap- pearance and habiliments of his person, as well as the condition of the house, in which I often saw him, were those of a man whose mental powers were not in proper tone or exercise. His mouth was always full of tobacco, and the saliva impregnate!! 19 with its juice, was trickling out of the corner of his lips, over his chin, and shewing its traces on his clothes, in demential cos- tume; and I do believe he was, in the general, such a man as should have had a guardian appointed under such an act of legislature as has been passed in Pennsylvania, dictated by the wisest of medical men and civilians, for the most humane purpo- ses, in imitation of sage statutes of the ancients, and to take care of his property and person, injustice to his wife and children, who were helpless, as he was failing much in corporeal and mental stamina. He was certainly much addicted, if not uncom- monly, to the ingurgitation of ardent spirits, and to the mastica- tion of that drug not mu« h less prostrating to the mental system;. audi think had suffered to > much by their morbid and corruptii g effects, to be restored sufficiently at his period of life, to take care of his family and estate, if he could have lived without them, or was to be prohibited their use for the residue of his days, by medical council. I have had no knowledge or suspicion of the influence of jealousy on his passions, nor of any unchasteness in his wife; but am not surprised to hear that a person who had married under the circumstances that he did, was affected, with that hal- lucination, after so long intemperance, when I observe in his testamentary exhibition that he has neglected to provide for the education and support of his minor heirs, or to enable his wife to discharge effectually the duties of a mother and guar- dian to their mutual offspring, in conformity to that compact of divir.e institution, and which all married men and sound or well composed testators ought to think of, and respect on the confines of another state of existence, when leaving them in this demo- ralizing and corrupting world. In the Will imputed to Hall, we can discover no increase of power in sense of Deity and Conscience, from the absorption of the faculty of his memory; and on reference to, while profiting by our observations on the history of dying parents, sustained by the lights of the science quoted above, we cannot perceive in the paper before us, any excitement of intense solicitude for the welfare of husband and father Hall's wife and minor heirs, to authorize an approxima- tion of a Will so palpably unparental and defective in this res- pect, to a sound or well composed mind; and by thus encourag- ing parties in the matrimonial compact, to disregard and violate their obligations, we may undermine the principles of virtue, on which civil government is only secure, agreeably to the most 6age constitutionalists, lawgivers and moral philosophers in ancient and modern times. Some of the witnesses examined in the case of Deaderick's Will stated, that his mind appeared to (hem to be sound and well 20 composed, notwithstanding the admission ui many of the s)u*f- toms; but,iu such admission, they have furnished in my judg- ment—grounded upon an understanding of said case, from the symptoms detailed—the most satisfactory evidence of the contra^ ry, viz. " that he was dying when they left him, soon after that transaction, and could not survive his wrecked situation." Which was equal to saying, a patient when disorganized and dis- solving with disorder in the most important organs and func- tions of life, distracted and sleepless with severe pain, could possess a vigorous state of mental powers, and which ought to be pronounced a medical paradox, by a pathologist and an adept in the anatomy of mind, and which teach us that which is physio- logically and metaphysically false, ought not to command our belief and confidence. The most cursory reading of pathology, physicks and of those laws regulating the system of animal na- ture, not confused with that study unknown to oppress by its plethora, the intellectual functions of too many of our modern doctors, courtmen and petty legislators, should convince per- sons possessed of only talents and observation for profiting by fhe experience of the common subjects of pain and corporeal dis- order, that such an opinion should bow at the shrine of science and succumb to expanding observation, and must yield to the reason of things, and should not be advanced, nor could be main- tained by those acquainted with the relation of causes and effects. Other witnesses, with those above referred to, thought that DcadericWs case was at one time in a prosperous wayv But, in this opinion they wefe likewise mistaken, for the progress of the disease to dissolution, was marked by the symptoms given, and proven by their event in death; and no signs were pointed to us, from which there was reason to infer any amendment had taken place, to authorize an impression that his internal and actually mental gout, was at any time returning to an external and less fatal form, and thereby showing a recovery of tone and vigour to the organs of life and animal functions; death, therefore, could not have occurred proximately, from what is called re- lapse. Major Lewis, Mr. Cassady, Mr. Norton, and Cason, an overseer, four witnesses examined in court, the first of which is , a man of as much useful learning and discernment as any that was examined, and whose integrity and impartiality are sur- passed by none of those interrogated, have told us that they believed G. M. Deadrick was not qualified for the testamentary transaction at any time when they saw him. Cassady and Cason the overseer, were much about the house and saw him very often, in sickness and health, alone and in company, with and without his bottles. Two of these witnesses also stated what I believe to be consonant with good sense, observation and ex- 21 jjerience of all competent and candid men who had felt the enervating effects of the annual epidemics of our country, that a sick man's mind will not be in a condition to make his Will, when his physician and other transient visiters discover nothing in the state of his mind, unfitting him for that solemn, perplex- ing and important transaction, often requiring the sound state of every faculty; and that a patient may not be sensible of inca- pacity, until a recovery of more strength and health: but, that a person in constant attendance, and with the eye of sympathi- zing watchfulness and sobriety, and well acquainted with a man in ordinary health, will often perceive what Norton's mothe.E did, and which had escaped the perceptions of himself and the observation of others in their short visits. Major Lewis, whom I attended in his illness referred to, when I had no apprehensions of danger, declared on his examination, that on his recovery from fever, he was satisfied he had been disqualified by weak- ness and disorder, from testamentary exertion, when neither his physician nor attendants were apprized of any danger of his life. The same was stated by Norton, who added that his as- siduous and attentive old mother was correct in her opinion, when he and his transient visiters did not concur with her; and he was persuaded, after getting better, that he and his visiters were deceived, as was Major Lewis' physician, and that his mo- ther alone was right when she said "he had been out of his senses." This opinion I well recollect to have heard delivered above thirty-five years aero, by the Observant, scientific and be- nevolent Rush, in his public lectures, the correctness of which has been confinedby my annual observation and experience, viz. «' that nurses and intelligent old women in constant attendance on the sick, will frequently discover what eludes the notice of pas- sing visiters, and even eminent physicians and persons of inordi- nary research;" and related an instance of an old nurse cor- recting him in a mistake, and enabling him thereby, to cure a patient of whose life he had despaired; and therefore recom*' mended to his pupils to counsel and advise with nurses and old women, and pay respect to their reports and suggestions on the situations of patients, in preference to the prattling of mongrel graduates and pedlers in medicine. Those doctors and some other witnesses attending Deaderick and Hall, were probably deceived for want of attention to observe what others saw, and what the result of that sick man's case proved to have existed and confirmed by their Wtlls, viz: such great disorder of the vital organs and animal functions, as to cast the mind off its pivots of motion and proper exercise, and to cause that dissolu- tion between soul and body, which we have been informed cer- tainly did occur, notwithstanding any opinions or hopes enter-' tained to the contrary by some persons. The persons who attended upon Deaderick and Hall in tiit character of physicians, and other transient visiters that were examined in court, and have given us to understand that they thought they were in a sound and rational mood of intellectual conference and qualified for a faithful discharge of the duties enjoined, may have staled what to them appeared to be correct; but, that they have not been sufficiently informed, and conse- quently authorized by the study of the science referred to, and of experimental observation, to justify the delivery of so unsci- entific and peremptory opinions, will clearly appear to a court and jury, in support of the opinions now expressed, on reference to the following English, American and German, if not Gallic authorities, or Napoleon authorities, (that might please one of Mr. Breckenridge's tenets better,) the most material of which can be had, and may be read to the court and others in need of those lights to common sense, if this statement is not sufficient to guide us in the present inquiry. These books cannot be denied to be of the first character. The authors quoted arc Grotius, Bacon, Boerhaavc, Ovid's history and remedy of love, Kaimes, Gross, Sydenham, Cullen, Thomas, Edwards, Rush, Ricketson, Chap- man, Mitchell, Ewell, Haslam and others; to which we may add that celebrated Roman jurist and physiologist, the apostle of eternal truth, St. Paul; whose works left to our world, exhibit not only proofs of the most sane and active intellectual powers, but feuch incontrovertible evidence of vigour of mind and strength of memory, as to have associated their Wills with the control of Deity, in the distribution of such extensive good and of so import- ant legacies among their fellow men; by which they have dis- charged, as far as was human, the obligations imposed upon man's earthly state, and have exhibited, by the features of their mental transactions, strong claims to omniscience or divine control. Jealousy, the partial insanity of Deaderick, appears from the testimony of his wife, Doctor Sappington and others, as well as by his own letters, to have affected him deeply for many years, with short if any respite; and was often so furious as to impel him to disown his only legitimate son, whose features trace his paternal origin. The same disease, it has been stated, preyed upon the superannuated, dotingtippler Charles Hall, in a lighter degree, and was very probably the cause of that consequent dis- arrangement of his mind in all its faculties which prevented him from doing justice to his wife and children. Under the influence and deranging power of such delirious ideas, constituting mdnia- cal hallucination that existed in each of those testators, the neces- sary evidence of a sound Will, respecting the rights of disputed children, could not be exhibited, inasmuch as \he operation of 28 judgment which is involuntary in all sound minds, stimulated by sufficient memory, was prevented in those husbands and fathers, who must have been disqualified from moral, rational and correct action on any subject during its control, except those which are the diseased mind's instinctive resort for relief from painful ideas, as the amusements and avocationsof cards, chess playing,the dog chase, gambling, intoxication, speculation, epicurean indulgence and military parade. With this strong predisposition of Deade- rick to a partial and consequent general mania, occasioned by a course of life becoming a second nature to him, and which seems to have levelled, from the statement of witnesses, the morality of his wife, his neighbours and visiters, with his own licentiousness, how easy was it to one so well acquainted as Robert Searcy must have been with the extent of the intoxicating stimulus of jealousy without cause or r