“You have this day been found guilty,” proceeded the judge, “and, in the opinion of the court, upon clear and satisfactory evidence, of a crime marked by a character of revenge, which I am bound to say must have proceeded from a very malignant spirit.  It was a wanton act, for the perpetration of which your motives were so inadequate, that one must feel at a loss to ascertain the exact principle on which you committed it.  It was also not only a wicked act, but one so mean, that a young man bearing the character of spirit and generosity which you have hitherto borne, as appears from the testimony of those respectable persons who this day have spoken in your favor, ought to have scorned to contemplate it even for a moment.  Had the passion you entertained for the daughter of the man you so basely injured, possessed one atom of the dignity, disinterestedness, or purity of true affection, you never could have stooped to any act offensive to the object of your love, or to those even in the remotest degree related to her.  The example, consequently, which you have held out to society, is equally vile and dangerous.  A parent discharges the most solemn and important of all duties, when disposing of his children in marriage, because by that act he seals their happiness or misery in this life, and most probably in that which is to come.  By what tie, by what duty, by what consideration, is not a parent bound to consult the best interests of those beloved beings whom he has brought into the world, and who, in a great measure, depend upon him as their dearest relative, their guardian by the voice of nature, for the fulfilment of those expectations upon which depend the principal comforts and enjoyments of life?  Reason, religion, justice, instinct, the whole economy of nature, both in man and the inferior animals, all teach him to secure for them, as far as in him lies, the greatest sum of human happiness; but if there be one duty more sacred and tender than another, it is that which a parent is called upon to exercise on behalf of a daughter.  The son, impressed by that original impulse which moves him to assume a loftier place in the conduct of life, and gifted also with a stronger mind, and clearer judgment, to guide him in its varied transactions, goes abroad into society, and claims for himself a bolder right of thought and a wider range of action, while determining an event which is to exercise, as marriage does, such an important influence upon his own future condition, and all the relations that may arise out of it.  From this privilege the beautiful and delicate framework of woman’s moral nature debars her, and she is consequently forced, by the graces of her own modesty—­by the finer texture of her mind—­by her greater purity and gentleness—­in short, by all her virtues, into a tenderer and more affecting dependence upon the judgment and love of her natural guardians, whose pleasure is made, by a wise decree of God, commensurate with their duty in providing for her wants and enjoyments.