THE DELUSION OF EMPATHY

“Hark, I hear the heavy thump of the avenger. There he comes, with uplifted dagger in his hand, to strike the blow that never misses. How fast he wings his way. How sharp his dagger looks, and how eager he is to do the deed. Who art thou?”

“I am the angel of death.”- Austin Reed The Life and Adventures of a Haunted Convict

    I ride into the valley mistaken for a home, some distant thought of mischief made, and how it all gone wrong—of peckers whacking senselessly, tongues wrapped ‘round their brains, my head laid down in ma’s lap, the horse out in the rain. I come upon a man I knew who never did me wrong, and stuck him with my little blade and then I just moved on. I didn’t give a second thought, I’d do it all again. I caught a branch right in the eye. That’s right my merry men. Tore down that road that cuts across, then ducked into the woods, thought knew the way, but then got lost. I done all that I could for you and still was never right, so here I stand blood on my hands and yours are lily white. And then my horse, he stumbles, says I had it planned, but swear to God, back of my mind, such thought would never land. My heart was always with him, my tears are proof enough, so stuck my spear between his ribs and left him in the rough.

    A country founded by elite capitalists, added and abetted by ecumenical imperialists, using slavery, white supremacy and genocide as core founding principles is not well situated to offer up compassion. But the illusion is easy. So called freedom and “pursuits of happiness,” are codified textually, and reenforced through the barrage of mass media. This hallucination of democratic egalitarianism falls short in actual practice. But, does anyone even notice? A constant diet of propaganda leads to historical amnesia and perpetuates the facade. Race is always an issue, but as scholars point out, not the only one. Economics supersede legislation, the judiciary and religion. When an entire society is based on transactional motivations, as opposed to humanitarian, or even political interface, the most surprising factor is that we’ve made it this far.

          

     The only reason Henry Seward could afford to take on the Wyatt case was he had just (very lucratively) defended James G. Wilson, the patent holder of a revolutionary wood- planing machine in Albany. Remember those gallows benches at the hanging of Dunning and Teed, or that “14 inch x half inch thick, planed on both sides, with a lumber count in pencil on one side, basswood board,” that Capt. Tyler had laid up side Bill Freeman’s head? Well, until the invention of this planing machine the only way to get such boards, was to hire a carpenter to hand plane a piece of rough sawn wood and hopefully not hit you in the head with it when you complained, “That took you all day?”

      Planing wood “on the flat” is a very difficult and labor-intensive process, for even the best of carpenters. Wilson’s machine radically changed commercial woodworking (therefore the furniture making business) and cabinetry industry for all time. Patent law may have been a cash cow, but it was boring and Henry had larger aspirations. He was trolling for a much juicier case.

      With his land investments and Wilson as a steady source of cash, Henry Seward had the flexibility he needed to take on pro-bono, capital cases, like Henry Wyatt’s. He knew the press attention would serve him well, and with Wilson’s patent money he could reinvent himself politically as a crusader. Wyatt’s was a hanging case and capital punishment was newsworthy item of the time. The other interesting element in regard to Henry Wyatt was the question of “state of mind.” This comes very closely on the heels of C.W. Hardenbergh’s case. Both Henrys were about to wander into the wilderness together.

    

    Whether Gordon had or hadn’t snitched on Wyatt, was unimportant. The prison grapevine said Gordon was a snitch and that was proof enough for the homicidal Wyatt. Henry Wyatt was smart, devious, and ruthless. He was especially dangerous if he felt threatened. 

    Earlier in the year, along with two other inmates named Smith and Washington, Wyatt had plotted a brilliant plan of escape. Even the keeper who ordered him beaten to pulp, Capt. Ulysses F. Doubleday, had to admit it was the best escape plan he’d ever come across. But it wasn’t quite good enough. Once the plan had been thwarted Capt. Doubleday ordered (with all due respect) Wyatt flogged within an inch of his life. As Henry Wyatt pleaded with the Capt. for mercy, Doubleday told his men to “give him another dozen,” just for good measure.

     Wyatt may have been a smart criminal, a cold blooded killer, but he wasn’t stoic. He wasn’t a man who could stand physical pain. When the three inmates were captured, Smith and Washington took their floggings in stride, dutifully returning to their cells, to nurse their wounds. But, Wyatt crumbled under even the threat of the lash. The more he complained the worse it got. They whipped him harder and harder as Henry Wyatt screamed louder and louder. The keepers turned it into a sadistic game; until they went too far and the rough highwayman mentally cracked. According to his defense counsel, Henry Seward, this is what led to Gordon being murdered— not the fact Gordon was a snitch. No. Gordon was killed because Captain Doubleday and his men drove Henry Wyatt “temporarily insane.” It was the fault of the institution, and its henchmen.

     This would be Henry Seward’s strategy, not the guilt or innocence of Henry Wyatt, but the breaking of the covenant that the Institution had with the public, implicit in the word “keeper.” James Gordon was murdered while he and Henry Wyatt were both in state custody. The state (and Captain Doubleday) had failed miserably as custodians of both, putting one man in the grave, and turning the other into his murderer. It was a brilliant strategy. Here was another conspiracy at work. It was the Auburn System that William H. Seward would put on trial. The System had killed James Gordon and used Wyatt as their assassin. The "insane" Henry Wyatt had only temporarily held the scissors. Seward’s indictments had little effect on the institution. Local merchant and prison agent, Captain Ulysses F. Doubleday, would go on to be elected to congress.