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Speaker 1: You're listening to History on Trial, a production of iHeart Podcasts.

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Speaker 1: Listener discretion advised. On August twentieth, eighteen seventy four, Theodore

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Speaker 1: Tilton strode into the Brooklyn City Court, his golden hair

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Speaker 1: glowing in the sunlight. Nearly a head, taller than most

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Speaker 1: men and famous to boot, Tilton drew attention wherever he went.

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Speaker 1: But today he wasn't trying to be recognized. He was

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Speaker 1: here on private business. Private for now, at least. Tilton

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Speaker 1: was in the courthouse to find a notary public. The

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Speaker 1: day before, his lawyers had drafted a civil complaint on

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Speaker 1: his behalf against his former boss. Now Tilton needed to

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Speaker 1: swear to the truth of his complaint in order for

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Speaker 1: his suit to move forward. It wouldn't be easy for him.

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Speaker 1: The contents of the complaint were humiliating. To put it mildly.

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Speaker 1: In the complaint, Tilton alleged that his former boss had

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Speaker 1: engaged in an affair with his wife. The affair had

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Speaker 1: ruined Tilton's marriage, his family, his reputation, and his career.

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Speaker 1: He had suffered so greatly. The complaint claimed that he

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Speaker 1: now asked for one hundred thousand dollars in compensation more

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Speaker 1: than two and a half million in today's money. It

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Speaker 1: was an enormous sum, yes, but the wrongs that Tilton

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Speaker 1: alleged were certainly grievous. After all, he and his wife

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Speaker 1: Elizabeth had once shared a happy home, filled with laughter

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Speaker 1: and bolstered by their shared faith than God. But now

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Speaker 1: every day at home for Tilton was torture and he

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Speaker 1: was losing his faith. Rumors of his wife's affair were

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Speaker 1: already circulating, with competing narratives popping up, and Tilton wanted

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Speaker 1: the chance to tell his story. The legal system was

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Speaker 1: his last resort. What Theodore Tilton started that day, as

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Speaker 1: he swore to the truth of his complaint, would snowball

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Speaker 1: into one of the nineteenth century's most shocking trials, one

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Speaker 1: with implications for not just Tilton, but for all of

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Speaker 1: New York City, the United States, and even the Christian Church.

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Speaker 1: Because the man that Tilton had just publicly accused of

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Speaker 1: quote wrongfully and wickedly seducing his wife was a man

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Speaker 1: of God. He was none other than the most famous

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Speaker 1: preacher and perhaps the most famous man in all of America,

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Speaker 1: Henry Ward Beecher. Welcome to History on Trial. I'm your

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Speaker 1: host Mira Hayward. This week Theodore Tilton v. Henry Ward Beecher,

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Speaker 1: the man who allegedly had had an affair with Theodore

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Speaker 1: Tilton's wife. Henry Ward Beecher was born in eighteen thirteen

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Speaker 1: in Connecticut. His father, Lyman Beecher, was one of the

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Speaker 1: pre eminent clergymen of the day. Few who knew young

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Speaker 1: Henry thought that he was destined to follow in his

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Speaker 1: father's footsteps. Lyman Beecher was a Protestant of the old kind,

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Speaker 1: steeped in the puritanical Calvinist tradition. He raised his ten

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Speaker 1: children on a steady diet of fire and brimstone, impressing

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Speaker 1: upon them the idea that they were inherently sinful and

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Speaker 1: likely destined for damnation. Despite his rigid religious beliefs, Lyman

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Speaker 1: was also a deeply loving father who encouraged his children

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Speaker 1: to develop empathy and compassion for others. All the Beacher

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Speaker 1: siblings were well educated, including the girls, and the dinner

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Speaker 1: table hosted lively debates over politics and theology. Henry Ward

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Speaker 1: Beecher chafed against this moralistic, competitive environment. He was a

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Speaker 1: rambunctious child who struggled with both a stutter and an

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Speaker 1: incurable impulse to break the rules. He knew that his

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Speaker 1: father wanted him to enter the clergy, but Beecher felt

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Speaker 1: deeply unsure of his own faith. Despite his doubts, he

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Speaker 1: followed the path to preaching, attending college and then seminary.

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Speaker 1: Along the way, he fell in love with one of

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Speaker 1: his classmate's sisters, a young woman named Eunice. And then

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Speaker 1: one day he had a revelation. What if God, instead

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Speaker 1: of being the angry, vindictive figure of his father's theology,

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Speaker 1: was actually more like his father at home, a loving,

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Speaker 1: benevolent parent. What if being good in a religious sense

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Speaker 1: and being happy were not incompatible. As Debbie Applegate writes

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Speaker 1: in her fabulous biography of Beecher, titled The Most Famous

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Speaker 1: Man in America, this idea might not sound so revelatory

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Speaker 1: to many of us today. She writes, mainstream Christianity is

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Speaker 1: so deeply infused with the rhetoric of Christ's love that

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Speaker 1: most Americans can imagine nothing else but trust me. For

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Speaker 1: the eighteen thirties, Beecher's thinking was revolutionary, and Beecher was

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Speaker 1: just the man to spread this new gospel. He was

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Speaker 1: an enormously skilled orator who could bring his audience to

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Speaker 1: tears or laughter with equal ease. His sermons were not

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Speaker 1: based solely on the Bible. He drew from his own experiences,

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Speaker 1: from the stories of those he met, and from the

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Speaker 1: world around him. These sermons were emotional, exhilarating, empathetic, and provocative. Somehow,

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Speaker 1: Beecher reflected, I have always had a certain sympathy for

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Speaker 1: human nature, which has led me to see instinctively how

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Speaker 1: to touch the right chord in people, how to reach

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Speaker 1: the living principle in them. This sympathy and his ability

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Speaker 1: to translate it into words were gifts that would serve

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Speaker 1: him well all his life, both as a preacher and

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Speaker 1: eventually in the courtroom. After seminary, beacher honed his speaking

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Speaker 1: skills in rural Indiana for more than a decade, building

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Speaker 1: a reputation as a new kind of preacher, one who

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Speaker 1: could win over even the most hardened cynics, and soon enough,

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Speaker 1: the big time came calling. In eighteen forty seven, Beecher

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Speaker 1: was recruited to serve as the head pastor of Plymouth Church,

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Speaker 1: a new congregation in Brooklyn Heights founded by some of

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Speaker 1: New York City's most prominent businessmen. It was a Plymouth

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Speaker 1: Church that Beecher truly made a name for himself. With

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Speaker 1: the backing of the church board, he began to radically

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Speaker 1: change the nature of worship. Most Christians of the era

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Speaker 1: had grown up like Beecher had, in austere churches, but

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Speaker 1: at Plymouth Church they experienced services overflowing with music and joy.

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Speaker 1: Beacher literally redesigned the church, creating a space that looked

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Speaker 1: more like a theater and filled it with flowers every Sunday.

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Speaker 1: Drawn in by the warmth of this atmosphere, the congregation

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Speaker 1: grew rapidly, eventually boasting nearly two thousand members, making it

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Speaker 1: the largest church in America. Soon, Beecher took his talents

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Speaker 1: on the road, joining the lecture circuit. Lectures were one

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Speaker 1: of the most popular social activities of the day, and

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Speaker 1: Beecher's speaking skills made him ideal for the job. By

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Speaker 1: the mid eighteen fifties, he was lecturing up to four

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Speaker 1: times a week at venues across the country. His fame

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Speaker 1: grew even greater once he began writing a newspaper column

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Speaker 1: where he wrote boldly about current events and religion. It

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Speaker 1: didn't take long for people all over America to know

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Speaker 1: his name Henry wasn't the only famous Beacher. Many of

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Speaker 1: his siblings had become well known public figures, including his

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Speaker 1: sister Harriet, who married a man named Calvin Stowe and

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Speaker 1: made quite a name for herself with the eighteen fifty

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Speaker 1: one publication of a little novel she wrote called Uncle

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Speaker 1: Tom's Cabin. Uncle Tom's Cabin became the second best selling

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Speaker 1: book of the nineteenth century, beaten only by the Bible,

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Speaker 1: and had a profound impact on the anti slavery cause.

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Speaker 1: Henry had also gotten involved in anti slavery work. Plymouth

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Speaker 1: Church became a stop on the underground railroad, and congregants

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Speaker 1: raised money to help enslaved people by their freedom. Many

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Speaker 1: people did not like Beecher's politics, but his bold progressive

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Speaker 1: stances raised his public profile even higher. There was something

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Speaker 1: very modern about Beecher's fame. Many people didn't just see

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Speaker 1: him as a public figure, they saw him as a friend. Today,

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Speaker 1: we might call this dynamic a parasocial relationship. Donald Horton

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Speaker 1: and Richard Woll, who coined the term parasocial relationship in

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Speaker 1: nineteen fifty six, wrote one of the striking characteristics of

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Speaker 1: the new mass media radio, television and the movies is

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Speaker 1: that they give the illusion of a face to face

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Speaker 1: relationship with the performer. The most remote and illustrious men

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Speaker 1: are met as if they were in the circle of

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Speaker 1: one's peers. Mass media in the nineteenth century, including newspapers

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Speaker 1: in photographs, served a similar purpose. People all over America,

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Speaker 1: wanting a small piece of their idol, begged Beecher for

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Speaker 1: a copy of his photographic portrait, and Beecher sent out hundreds.

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Speaker 1: Beecher's particular brand of vulnerability and generosity made him especially relatable.

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Speaker 1: Unlike preachers of the previous generation, he never mocked people

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Speaker 1: for their doubts. Instead, he boldly proclaimed his own, as

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Speaker 1: biographer Thomas Knox put it end quote painted in vivid colors,

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Speaker 1: the unhappiness of his thoughts, the terror of his fear,

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Speaker 1: and produced in their minds the impression that Beecher and

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Speaker 1: they were one and the same. Debbie Applegate describes his

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Speaker 1: fans as having a quote soul affinity for him, and

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Speaker 1: their obsession made even the most mundane details of Beecher's

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Speaker 1: life precious information. In an eighteen fifty nine column, Beecher

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Speaker 1: wrote with annoyed amazement about the life of a public

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Speaker 1: figure noting that quote. What you do or say, or

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Speaker 1: do not do or say, what you wear, where you go,

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Speaker 1: with whom you walk, when you get up, and when

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Speaker 1: you lie down, all are diligently observed and reported. In

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Speaker 1: other words, he was a nineteenth century influencer. Henry Ward

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Speaker 1: Beecher felt like America's friend, and America was always eager

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Speaker 1: to see what their friend would do next. Even those

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Speaker 1: who knew Beecher personally engaged in a kind of hero worship.

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Speaker 1: He cultivated an inner circle at Plymouth Church, filled with ambitious, intelligent,

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Speaker 1: and successful young men and women who hung on his

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Speaker 1: every word. The unofficial president of this fan club was

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Speaker 1: Theodore Tilton. Tilton, an ambitious young man twenty years Beacher's junior,

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Speaker 1: had been hired to help the preacher with his newspaper column.

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Speaker 1: He spent his days immersed in Beecher's sermons, culling quotes

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Speaker 1: that could be refashioned into articles in case Beecher midst

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Speaker 1: a deadline, which he regularly did, and growing ever more

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Speaker 1: in thrall of his charismatic hero mister Beecher, Tilton remembered,

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Speaker 1: was my man of all men. The two men became

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Speaker 1: extremely close referring to one another as father and son.

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Speaker 1: In eighteen fifty five, Beacher officiated Tilton's marriage to Elizabeth Richards,

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Speaker 1: a bright, deeply pious woman. By this point, Tilton had

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Speaker 1: even started dressing like Beecher, growing his hair out to

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Speaker 1: his shoulders and adopting a beecher esque cloak and slouchy

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Speaker 1: wide brim hat. But there's a downside to this kind

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Speaker 1: of hero worship too. Even Henry Ward Beecher wasn't perfect,

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Speaker 1: and the higher the pedestal, the greater the fall. By

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Speaker 1: the mid eighteen sixties, the relationship between Theodore Tilton and

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Speaker 1: Henry Ward Beecher had started to fray. Some of the

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Speaker 1: tension was political. After the Civil War, the Republican Party,

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Speaker 1: which had led the charge to end slavery, split over

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Speaker 1: how to approach reconstruction. Some Republicans, including Theodore Tilton, advocated

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Speaker 1: for temporary federal control of Southern States, complete equality for

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Speaker 1: black people, and punishment for former Confederates. Others, like Henry

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Speaker 1: Ward Beecher and President Andrew Johnson, preached forgiveness and reconciliation

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Speaker 1: with former Confederates. Beecher was an enthusiastic supporter of President Johnson,

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Speaker 1: which struck friends as strange. Beecher had spent years preaching

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Speaker 1: and slavery, while Johnson, a former slave owner, regularly vetoed

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Speaker 1: civil rights legislation. Beecher's changing politics rubbed many colleagues the

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Speaker 1: wrong way, but few more so than Tilton. In the

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Speaker 1: winter of eighteen sixty six, a visitor to the Tilton

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Speaker 1: house noticed that their plaster bust of Beecher had been

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Speaker 1: turned to face the wall. When asked why, Elizabeth Tilton replied,

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Speaker 1: quote Theodore says that our pastor has proved himself a

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Speaker 1: traitor to the Republican party. There were also professional tensions

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Speaker 1: between the two men. In January of eighteen sixty two,

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Speaker 1: Beecher had been made editor in chief of The Independent,

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Speaker 1: a popular newspaper run by a Plymouth church founder. Beecher

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Speaker 1: agreed to take the position on the condition that Tilton

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Speaker 1: became assistant editor, which may seem like a compliment to Tilton,

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Speaker 1: but in reality meant that Tilton would do all of

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Speaker 1: the work while Beecher got the credit. Tilton was gaining

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Speaker 1: a reputation for himself in other arenas. He was a

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Speaker 1: passionate lecturer, a courageous thinker, and an outspoken advocate for

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Speaker 1: political reform, but he always seemed to play second fiddle

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Speaker 1: to Beecher. As I grew older and mingled with the

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Speaker 1: world and saw other men, Tilton later said, the fine

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Speaker 1: gold of my idol gradually became dim and there was

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Speaker 1: something else simmering too, something more personal. In November of

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Speaker 1: eighteen sixty six, Tilton had gone on a four month

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Speaker 1: lecture tour, leaving his family behind. Despite the growing distance

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Speaker 1: between himself and Beecher, Tilton had asked the preacher to

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Speaker 1: check in on his family in his absence. Beecher took

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Speaker 1: to visiting Elizabeth Tilton, regularly consulting with her on his

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Speaker 1: novel in progress and bringing small gifts for the couple's

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Speaker 1: young children. Elizabeth wrote Tilton glowing letters about Beecher's friendship.

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Speaker 1: Tilton bristled. I think she regarded mister Beecher. Tilton would

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Speaker 1: later say, almost as though Jesus Christ himself had walked in. Plymouth.

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00:17:30,840 --> 00:17:34,640
Speaker 1: Church was aware of the strained relationship between Beecher and Tilton,

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Speaker 1: but it seemed like a private matter, at least for now.

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Speaker 1: In eighteen seventy two, this private drama exploded into the

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00:17:48,800 --> 00:17:54,399
Speaker 1: public eye thanks to the infamous suffragist, spiritualist, and first

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Speaker 1: female candidate for president, Victoria Woodhull. Woodhull was a good

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Speaker 1: friend of one of Beecher's sisters, the prominent suffragist Isabella

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Speaker 1: Beecher Hooker, but most others in the women's suffrage movement

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Speaker 1: kept their distance from Woodhull because of her radical positions,

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Speaker 1: including her advocacy of free love. Here's Woodhull herself summarizing

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Speaker 1: the political philosophy of free love. I am a free lover.

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Speaker 1: I have an inalienable, constitutional, and natural right to love

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Speaker 1: whom I may to love as long or as short

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Speaker 1: a period as I can, to change that love every

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Speaker 1: day if I please, And with that right, neither you

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Speaker 1: nor any law you can frame have any right to interfere.

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Speaker 1: This support for sexual freedom and non monogamy might not

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Speaker 1: sound particularly wild now, but for the eighteen seventies, it

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Speaker 1: was deeply shocking. When Woodhull announced her revolutionary presidential candidacy

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Speaker 1: in eighteen seventy, she hoped that her friendship with Isabella

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Speaker 1: Beecher Hooker would draw Henry Ward Beecher into her camp,

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Speaker 1: but he kept away. Even for a progressive like Beecher,

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Speaker 1: who believed that joy and pleasure were gifts from God,

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Speaker 1: free love was a step too far. Woodhull was furious

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Speaker 1: at his lack of support, especially because she saw it

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Speaker 1: as hypocritical. Hypocritical how in a September eighteen seventy two speech,

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Speaker 1: she hinted at her meaning, alleging that Beecher was a

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Speaker 1: free lover himself. The speech coincided with Beecher's twenty fifth

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Speaker 1: anniversary celebration at Plymouth Church, which got considerably more attention

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Speaker 1: than Woodhole's speech. Annoyed, she doubled down, saying, I will

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Speaker 1: make it hotter on Earth for Henry Ward Beecher than

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00:19:54,480 --> 00:19:59,199
Speaker 1: hell is below. She began writing an article set to

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00:19:59,200 --> 00:20:02,840
Speaker 1: be published in her her own weekly magazine, an article

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00:20:02,920 --> 00:20:08,520
Speaker 1: that she claimed would quote burst like a bombshell into

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Speaker 1: the ranks of the moralistic social camp, and boy did it. Ever.

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Speaker 1: Within days of its October eighteen seventy two publication, one

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Speaker 1: hundred and fifty thousand copies of the magazine were sold.

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00:20:24,840 --> 00:20:29,320
Speaker 1: New Yorkers could not believe what they were reading. In

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Speaker 1: the article, titled the Beecher Tilton Scandal Case, Woodhull alleged

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Speaker 1: that Henry Ward Beecher had had an extramarital affair with

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Speaker 1: Elizabeth Tilton. Her sources, she claimed, were Beecher and the

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Speaker 1: Tiltons themselves, as well as some of the most prominent

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Speaker 1: political figures of the day, including the suffragist Elizabeth Katie Stanton.

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00:20:55,359 --> 00:20:59,800
Speaker 1: Her motivation in revealing the affair, Woodhull claimed was not

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00:21:00,040 --> 00:21:04,840
Speaker 1: personal spite, but rather political passion. By revealing that the

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Speaker 1: most famous preacher in America was in fact a practitioner

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Speaker 1: of free love, she hoped she could get Beecher to

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Speaker 1: preach what he practiced. Sure, but most of the people

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00:21:15,640 --> 00:21:18,359
Speaker 1: who read the article could not have cared less about

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00:21:18,400 --> 00:21:23,119
Speaker 1: the politics. All they cared about were the dirty details.

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00:21:23,760 --> 00:21:29,040
Speaker 1: Henry Ward Beecher had had an affair with the wife

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00:21:29,080 --> 00:21:34,239
Speaker 1: of his protege. And what's more, the article claimed that

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00:21:34,359 --> 00:21:39,000
Speaker 1: Theodore Tilton had learned of the affair from his wife

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00:21:39,040 --> 00:21:43,919
Speaker 1: five years earlier, and that the Tiltons and Beascher, aided

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Speaker 1: by a mutual friend of theirs named Frank Moulden, had

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00:21:47,480 --> 00:21:51,119
Speaker 1: engaged in a cover up so that they could preserve

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00:21:51,160 --> 00:21:56,600
Speaker 1: their public reputations. It was nearly unbelievable, but more facts

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00:21:56,680 --> 00:22:00,760
Speaker 1: kept emerging in December, Tilton really, at least his own

271
00:22:00,880 --> 00:22:07,440
Speaker 1: version of the story. Papers across the country posted breathless updates. Suspiciously,

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00:22:08,200 --> 00:22:18,359
Speaker 1: Beecher did not immediately deny the story. It wasn't until

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Speaker 1: nearly seven months later that Beacher finally spoke out, writing

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00:22:23,200 --> 00:22:26,880
Speaker 1: in the Brooklyn Eagle, that the story was entirely false.

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Speaker 1: The country went wild, and Plymouth Church decided that they

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00:22:33,080 --> 00:22:37,000
Speaker 1: needed to get control of the story, commissioning an in

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00:22:37,160 --> 00:22:41,760
Speaker 1: house investigative committee to look into the case. To Theodore Tilton,

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00:22:42,119 --> 00:22:46,360
Speaker 1: the investigative committee seemed to be more interested in silencing

279
00:22:46,440 --> 00:22:50,720
Speaker 1: him than finding the truth, and his suspicions were confirmed

280
00:22:51,320 --> 00:22:54,760
Speaker 1: when the church voted to excommunicate him in October of

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Speaker 1: eighteen seventy three. Tilton called for an independent investigation of

282
00:22:59,800 --> 00:23:05,760
Speaker 1: his excommunication, but this investigation, conducted by local churches, also

283
00:23:05,880 --> 00:23:09,480
Speaker 1: seem inclined to protect their star preacher and only lightly

284
00:23:09,520 --> 00:23:17,080
Speaker 1: censored Plymouth's practices. Tilton fumed then, to add insult to injury,

285
00:23:17,680 --> 00:23:23,440
Speaker 1: Beecher's friends went on the attack. Another Brooklyn preacher, Leonard Bacon,

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00:23:24,000 --> 00:23:27,560
Speaker 1: gave a public speech where he called Tilton a knave

287
00:23:27,920 --> 00:23:33,800
Speaker 1: and a dog. Tilton's fury boiled over, and he published

288
00:23:33,960 --> 00:23:39,000
Speaker 1: several seemingly incriminating letters between himself, Beecher, and Elizabeth in

289
00:23:39,040 --> 00:23:43,679
Speaker 1: the paper, in which Beecher begged for Theodore Tilton's forgiveness

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00:23:43,680 --> 00:23:49,080
Speaker 1: for an unspecified crime. Elizabeth Tilton, too had reached a

291
00:23:49,080 --> 00:23:52,920
Speaker 1: breaking point. She was sick of having her private life

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00:23:52,960 --> 00:23:57,520
Speaker 1: splashed across the newspapers. She wanted to tell her story,

293
00:23:58,400 --> 00:24:02,960
Speaker 1: not just be a quote nonentity, a placing to be

294
00:24:03,200 --> 00:24:06,520
Speaker 1: used or let alone at will, As she told her brother,

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00:24:07,440 --> 00:24:11,400
Speaker 1: She had her chance that summer, when Plymouth Church convened

296
00:24:11,480 --> 00:24:16,680
Speaker 1: yet another investigative committee. Testifying in a friend's home, Elizabeth

297
00:24:16,880 --> 00:24:20,919
Speaker 1: vehemently denied the affair. She had only confessed to it,

298
00:24:21,119 --> 00:24:25,160
Speaker 1: she said, because of her husband's constant harassment and abuse.

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00:24:26,040 --> 00:24:30,240
Speaker 1: Theodore had been so convinced of the affair that Elizabeth

300
00:24:30,280 --> 00:24:33,160
Speaker 1: eventually felt it was just easier to give in and

301
00:24:33,400 --> 00:24:36,959
Speaker 1: tell him what he wanted to hear. She described her

302
00:24:37,040 --> 00:24:42,320
Speaker 1: husband as a vindictive pettyman who was so jealous of

303
00:24:42,359 --> 00:24:48,200
Speaker 1: Beecher's success that quote the determination to ruin mister Beecher

304
00:24:48,600 --> 00:24:52,280
Speaker 1: has been the one aim of his life. Less than

305
00:24:52,320 --> 00:24:56,040
Speaker 1: a week after this testimony, she told Tilton that their

306
00:24:56,119 --> 00:25:01,600
Speaker 1: marriage was over. Now a whole new side of the

307
00:25:01,640 --> 00:25:06,760
Speaker 1: story was inferling. Elizabeth wasn't the only one questioning Tilton's credibility.

308
00:25:07,720 --> 00:25:11,680
Speaker 1: Many wondered if Tilton's sudden willingness to discuss the alleged

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00:25:11,680 --> 00:25:15,680
Speaker 1: affair after nearly five years of helping cover up the story,

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00:25:16,520 --> 00:25:21,200
Speaker 1: stemmed from his jealousy of Beecher. Though Beecher had squandered

311
00:25:21,240 --> 00:25:25,119
Speaker 1: some popular goodwill with his controversial positions after the war,

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00:25:25,640 --> 00:25:27,679
Speaker 1: his star had again been on the rise in the

313
00:25:27,720 --> 00:25:31,800
Speaker 1: eighteen seventies. He was raking in money from appearances and

314
00:25:31,880 --> 00:25:36,600
Speaker 1: publishing contracts. The greatest men in the country consulted him

315
00:25:36,600 --> 00:25:40,159
Speaker 1: on personal and political matters. People stopped him in the

316
00:25:40,200 --> 00:25:44,639
Speaker 1: street to express their admiration. Theodore Tilton, on the other hand,

317
00:25:45,240 --> 00:25:50,080
Speaker 1: had been in a year's long downward spiral. His poetry

318
00:25:50,280 --> 00:25:54,800
Speaker 1: was panned by critics, his lecture fees barely covered his expenses,

319
00:25:55,280 --> 00:25:59,400
Speaker 1: and his reputation was in tatters. He would do anything

320
00:25:59,440 --> 00:26:04,800
Speaker 1: for attention, Some said, could his accusations be just another ploy?

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00:26:05,920 --> 00:26:10,800
Speaker 1: All across America, people clamored to know the truth. They

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00:26:10,840 --> 00:26:14,320
Speaker 1: were tired of the story trickling out in newspapers of

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00:26:14,400 --> 00:26:18,760
Speaker 1: living off the scraps of a scandal. They were unsatisfied

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00:26:18,800 --> 00:26:23,639
Speaker 1: by the private investigations and behind the scenes verdicts. They

325
00:26:23,680 --> 00:26:28,280
Speaker 1: will insist upind the Albany Evening Journal for hearing to

326
00:26:28,359 --> 00:26:32,800
Speaker 1: take place in quote the full eye of the public,

327
00:26:33,800 --> 00:26:38,520
Speaker 1: and they were about to get their wish. On August nineteenth,

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00:26:38,960 --> 00:26:44,080
Speaker 1: eighteen seventy four, Theodore Tilton commissioned the firm of Morris

329
00:26:44,119 --> 00:26:48,720
Speaker 1: and Pearsall to draft a civil complaint against Beecher, alleging

330
00:26:48,760 --> 00:26:53,080
Speaker 1: that Beecher had quote alienated the affection of his wife,

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00:26:53,720 --> 00:26:57,080
Speaker 1: causing personal and professional damages to the tune of one

332
00:26:57,200 --> 00:27:02,520
Speaker 1: hundred thousand dollars. On us August twentieth, Tilton swore to

333
00:27:02,560 --> 00:27:05,119
Speaker 1: the truth of the complaint at the Brooklyn City Court.

334
00:27:05,760 --> 00:27:11,360
Speaker 1: A trial date was set five months. Hence Theodore Tilton

335
00:27:11,560 --> 00:27:15,679
Speaker 1: and Henry Ward Beecher would face off in court in

336
00:27:15,760 --> 00:27:27,960
Speaker 1: the bloodiest battle of their combative careers. January eleventh, eighteen

337
00:27:28,200 --> 00:27:33,200
Speaker 1: seventy five, donned cold and glittering, but the weather seemed

338
00:27:33,200 --> 00:27:36,200
Speaker 1: to have no effect on the throngs of people gathered

339
00:27:36,240 --> 00:27:40,720
Speaker 1: outside Brooklyn City Court. They rubbed their hands for warmth,

340
00:27:41,400 --> 00:27:45,520
Speaker 1: puffed out steaming breaths and haggled over tickets to the

341
00:27:45,600 --> 00:27:50,720
Speaker 1: season's hottest event, the Beecher Tilton trial. Only those with

342
00:27:50,840 --> 00:27:53,879
Speaker 1: tickets would be admitted to the courtroom, and the price

343
00:27:54,000 --> 00:27:58,760
Speaker 1: reflected the demand. Tickets went for as much as ten dollars,

344
00:27:59,320 --> 00:28:02,800
Speaker 1: four times the average daily wage of an American worker

345
00:28:03,680 --> 00:28:07,200
Speaker 1: by a quarter to eleven. Those lucky enough to secure

346
00:28:07,200 --> 00:28:10,959
Speaker 1: a spot had filed into the courtroom alongside a bevy

347
00:28:10,960 --> 00:28:14,879
Speaker 1: of reporters. The plaintiffts table was just as packed as

348
00:28:14,920 --> 00:28:18,960
Speaker 1: the courtroom filled to bursting with Theodore Tilton, his friend

349
00:28:19,040 --> 00:28:24,960
Speaker 1: Frank Moulton, and three of Tilton's five lawyers. Beecher's legal

350
00:28:25,000 --> 00:28:29,280
Speaker 1: team was even bigger, consisting of seven men, but on

351
00:28:29,359 --> 00:28:33,119
Speaker 1: this the first day, only one lawyer was seated at

352
00:28:33,119 --> 00:28:37,520
Speaker 1: the defense table. As the eleven o'clock hour approached, the

353
00:28:37,560 --> 00:28:41,560
Speaker 1: courtroom door swung open and the crowd turned to see

354
00:28:41,680 --> 00:28:46,840
Speaker 1: Henry Ward Beecher walk in, accompanied to their surprise by

355
00:28:46,880 --> 00:28:52,840
Speaker 1: his wife. Like many wives past and present, Eunice Beecher

356
00:28:52,920 --> 00:28:56,880
Speaker 1: had made the choice to stand by her man. She

357
00:28:57,000 --> 00:29:00,920
Speaker 1: would attend nearly every day of the trial, keeping her

358
00:29:00,960 --> 00:29:06,360
Speaker 1: face impassive as witnesses discussed intimate details of her marriage.

359
00:29:06,440 --> 00:29:12,000
Speaker 1: At first, many observers found her presence disturbing. Surely, they said,

360
00:29:12,200 --> 00:29:15,200
Speaker 1: her place was at home, sheltered in the bosom of

361
00:29:15,240 --> 00:29:19,560
Speaker 1: her family and friends. But eventually they came to admire

362
00:29:19,720 --> 00:29:23,400
Speaker 1: her dignity and strength, which only lent credibility to her

363
00:29:23,480 --> 00:29:28,720
Speaker 1: husband's case, just as more cynical commentators would say, as

364
00:29:28,720 --> 00:29:32,960
Speaker 1: the defense team had planned it. Before the trial could start,

365
00:29:33,600 --> 00:29:38,080
Speaker 1: the lawyers had one concern. The courtroom was so crowded

366
00:29:38,280 --> 00:29:41,040
Speaker 1: that they barely had enough room to make their arguments.

367
00:29:41,960 --> 00:29:45,880
Speaker 1: They especially objected to the allocation of space to the press,

368
00:29:46,600 --> 00:29:50,120
Speaker 1: who had been given more space than the lawyers themselves.

369
00:29:50,760 --> 00:29:54,560
Speaker 1: In a symbolic illustration of the public's obsession with the case,

370
00:29:55,400 --> 00:29:59,280
Speaker 1: the judge agreed to a rearrangement of the courtroom. Once

371
00:29:59,320 --> 00:30:03,640
Speaker 1: this was done, the real business could begin. Samuel D. Morris,

372
00:30:03,840 --> 00:30:08,280
Speaker 1: attorney for Theodore Tilton, approached the jury box and started

373
00:30:08,320 --> 00:30:12,960
Speaker 1: his opening argument. Because so many facts of the scandal

374
00:30:13,040 --> 00:30:16,600
Speaker 1: were already known to the public, neither side planned to

375
00:30:16,680 --> 00:30:20,280
Speaker 1: introduce much in the way of new evidence. And I'll

376
00:30:20,280 --> 00:30:23,280
Speaker 1: take a moment to note here that because so much

377
00:30:23,280 --> 00:30:28,960
Speaker 1: of the trial testimony was repetitive exhausting and ambiguous. I'm

378
00:30:28,960 --> 00:30:31,200
Speaker 1: not going to go too much into the details of

379
00:30:31,240 --> 00:30:35,480
Speaker 1: each witness. Instead, I'm going to focus on the competing

380
00:30:35,760 --> 00:30:40,160
Speaker 1: stories of the plaintiff and the defense. As Debbie Applegate

381
00:30:40,200 --> 00:30:44,720
Speaker 1: puts it, more than with most trials, the verdict here

382
00:30:44,920 --> 00:30:49,960
Speaker 1: would depend largely on which side spun the evidence into

383
00:30:49,960 --> 00:30:54,520
Speaker 1: the most believable story. Morris's opening was the first chance

384
00:30:54,600 --> 00:31:06,800
Speaker 1: for Tilton's side to spin their story, and spin he did.

385
00:31:08,360 --> 00:31:11,240
Speaker 1: What Morris hoped to establish in his argument were the

386
00:31:11,400 --> 00:31:15,000
Speaker 1: stakes of the trial, stakes that went far beyond a

387
00:31:15,040 --> 00:31:19,480
Speaker 1: simple love affair. This is no ordinary case that now

388
00:31:19,520 --> 00:31:22,880
Speaker 1: engages the attention of this court and the attention of

389
00:31:22,920 --> 00:31:26,680
Speaker 1: the entire community, he said. It is a trial the

390
00:31:26,680 --> 00:31:31,400
Speaker 1: consequences of which reached to the very foundations of society,

391
00:31:31,920 --> 00:31:35,920
Speaker 1: the home, the marriage, relation with all that is dear

392
00:31:36,000 --> 00:31:40,640
Speaker 1: in that relation is upon trial in this case. Upon

393
00:31:40,760 --> 00:31:43,640
Speaker 1: the result of your verdict, to a very large extent,

394
00:31:43,760 --> 00:31:51,760
Speaker 1: also will depend the integrity of the Christian religion. Hyperbolic, absolutely,

395
00:31:52,600 --> 00:31:55,880
Speaker 1: but Morris's description wasn't far off from the feelings of

396
00:31:55,880 --> 00:31:59,920
Speaker 1: the public. America in the years after the Civil War

397
00:32:00,400 --> 00:32:05,480
Speaker 1: was a lost country, ravaged by violence, Devastated by death

398
00:32:05,720 --> 00:32:09,960
Speaker 1: and reeling in the face of radical social and political change,

399
00:32:10,440 --> 00:32:14,760
Speaker 1: Americans were desperate for something to cling on to. Henry

400
00:32:14,800 --> 00:32:19,240
Speaker 1: Ward Beecher, with his warm and welcoming ways, his gospel

401
00:32:19,320 --> 00:32:23,720
Speaker 1: of love, his preaching of acceptance, was just such a

402
00:32:23,760 --> 00:32:28,200
Speaker 1: port in the storm. This trial forced Americans to ask

403
00:32:28,280 --> 00:32:32,680
Speaker 1: if this man, their hero, was just as corrupt as

404
00:32:32,720 --> 00:32:36,080
Speaker 1: the rest of the country, And if he was, what

405
00:32:36,120 --> 00:32:40,600
Speaker 1: did that mean if you fall? Wrote a man named

406
00:32:40,680 --> 00:32:43,360
Speaker 1: Jo Smith in a letter to Beecher during the trial,

407
00:32:44,120 --> 00:32:48,440
Speaker 1: no more humanity for me if you should prove guilty

408
00:32:48,440 --> 00:32:51,600
Speaker 1: of the charges made against you, I should never place

409
00:32:51,680 --> 00:32:56,720
Speaker 1: confidence in any mortal being. Tilton's lawyers knew that much

410
00:32:56,760 --> 00:33:00,640
Speaker 1: of America, just like that letter writer, did not want

411
00:33:00,760 --> 00:33:03,920
Speaker 1: Beecher to be guilty. By laying out the stakes in

412
00:33:03,960 --> 00:33:07,160
Speaker 1: the way he did, Morris hoped he could convince the

413
00:33:07,240 --> 00:33:12,200
Speaker 1: jurors that finding against Beecher would only strengthen their political

414
00:33:12,240 --> 00:33:16,360
Speaker 1: and religious institutions. He was appealing to those who saw

415
00:33:16,440 --> 00:33:21,040
Speaker 1: Beecher's Gospel of Love as a slippery slope towards heathenism

416
00:33:21,400 --> 00:33:26,760
Speaker 1: and hedonism. To make his case, Morris used Beecher's own

417
00:33:26,840 --> 00:33:31,240
Speaker 1: words against him beginning with a particularly damning letter that

418
00:33:31,280 --> 00:33:35,920
Speaker 1: Beecher had sent to Tilton in January of eighteen seventy one.

419
00:33:35,960 --> 00:33:38,200
Speaker 1: This letter had come to be known in the press

420
00:33:38,320 --> 00:33:42,600
Speaker 1: as the Letter of Contrition. In it, Beecher begged for

421
00:33:42,680 --> 00:33:48,520
Speaker 1: Tilton's forgiveness for an unspecified transgression, writing I humble myself

422
00:33:48,520 --> 00:33:52,800
Speaker 1: before him as I do before my God. Morris hammered

423
00:33:52,880 --> 00:33:55,480
Speaker 1: in on Beecher's language with a level of sass that

424
00:33:55,560 --> 00:33:59,800
Speaker 1: I absolutely love, saying, a man comes to you and

425
00:34:00,120 --> 00:34:04,520
Speaker 1: accuses you falsely of an infamous crime, and the next

426
00:34:04,560 --> 00:34:09,320
Speaker 1: communication you have with him, you say, I humble myself

427
00:34:09,360 --> 00:34:13,759
Speaker 1: before you as I do before my God. Gentlemen, it

428
00:34:13,880 --> 00:34:16,880
Speaker 1: is a nonsense to argue that point, and I shall

429
00:34:16,880 --> 00:34:25,200
Speaker 1: not pursue it further. This certainly didn't bode well for Beecher,

430
00:34:25,760 --> 00:34:30,080
Speaker 1: but as Morris himself acknowledged, the plaintiff's case was almost

431
00:34:30,280 --> 00:34:33,960
Speaker 1: entirely based on vague letters like this. That is to say,

432
00:34:34,280 --> 00:34:38,040
Speaker 1: it was circumstantial. There was a natural reason for this,

433
00:34:38,239 --> 00:34:43,240
Speaker 1: of course, adultery, as Morris put it, is a crime

434
00:34:43,360 --> 00:34:46,880
Speaker 1: of darkness and of secrecy. It was a crime committed

435
00:34:46,920 --> 00:34:51,560
Speaker 1: out of sight. So unless one got very lucky or unlucky,

436
00:34:51,680 --> 00:34:54,799
Speaker 1: depending on your point of view, and happened to catch

437
00:34:54,840 --> 00:34:59,160
Speaker 1: their cheating spouse in the act, all while accompanied by say,

438
00:34:59,440 --> 00:35:03,120
Speaker 1: fifteen unimpeachable nuns who could testify to what they'd seen.

439
00:35:03,960 --> 00:35:07,240
Speaker 1: Any trial would have to depend on more sketchy evidence.

440
00:35:08,040 --> 00:35:12,400
Speaker 1: A judgment would have to rely on individuals subjective and

441
00:35:12,560 --> 00:35:18,320
Speaker 1: often highly differing interpretation of words and actions. And indeed,

442
00:35:18,560 --> 00:35:22,400
Speaker 1: that's exactly how the Beecher trial played out. Though the

443
00:35:22,480 --> 00:35:26,600
Speaker 1: defense and plaintiff teams would each question dozens of witnesses

444
00:35:27,239 --> 00:35:30,960
Speaker 1: one hundred and eleven in total over the course of

445
00:35:31,000 --> 00:35:35,600
Speaker 1: the next six months, the verdict would ultimately come down

446
00:35:36,080 --> 00:35:46,759
Speaker 1: to who the jurors believed more. Beecher's lawyers hoped that

447
00:35:46,840 --> 00:35:50,240
Speaker 1: the question of credibility would be decided in his favor,

448
00:35:51,000 --> 00:35:54,200
Speaker 1: a theme that lawyer Benjamin Tracy hit on in his

449
00:35:54,239 --> 00:35:58,680
Speaker 1: defense opening. Tracy began by laying out just why the

450
00:35:58,800 --> 00:36:02,799
Speaker 1: jurors should trust Beacher's account, saying that he would have

451
00:36:02,960 --> 00:36:07,520
Speaker 1: no trouble getting quote, thousands upon thousands of witnesses to

452
00:36:07,600 --> 00:36:12,080
Speaker 1: testify to Beacher's character. While he rejected Morris's idea that

453
00:36:12,120 --> 00:36:15,920
Speaker 1: the fate of American Christianity rested on the verdict. Tracy

454
00:36:16,120 --> 00:36:20,719
Speaker 1: wasn't shy about comparing his client to Christ himself, describing

455
00:36:20,840 --> 00:36:24,520
Speaker 1: Beecher's suffering at Tilton's hands as a being like a

456
00:36:24,520 --> 00:36:28,920
Speaker 1: crown of thorns. Once he was finished building up Beecher,

457
00:36:29,480 --> 00:36:37,040
Speaker 1: Tracy set about destroying Tilton. An all dominating selfish egotism

458
00:36:37,160 --> 00:36:41,320
Speaker 1: is the basis of Tilton's character, Tracy began, and because

459
00:36:41,320 --> 00:36:47,040
Speaker 1: of this egotism, he continued, Tilton became both enormously ambitious

460
00:36:47,640 --> 00:36:52,439
Speaker 1: and enormously jealous. It was just as Elizabeth Tilton had

461
00:36:52,440 --> 00:36:57,279
Speaker 1: told Plymouth Church Theodore Tilton had been jealous and resentful

462
00:36:57,360 --> 00:37:02,840
Speaker 1: of his mentor. In Tracy's words, Tilton saw Beecher as quote,

463
00:37:03,480 --> 00:37:07,200
Speaker 1: the one man who had prevented him from reaching the

464
00:37:07,239 --> 00:37:12,239
Speaker 1: topmost summit of fame. If Tilton could not be famous,

465
00:37:12,360 --> 00:37:16,839
Speaker 1: Tracy said, quote, he could at least be infamous, and

466
00:37:16,920 --> 00:37:23,239
Speaker 1: he preferred infamy to oblivion. Desperate for attention, running out

467
00:37:23,239 --> 00:37:27,120
Speaker 1: of money and rejected by the social and intellectual elite,

468
00:37:27,600 --> 00:37:31,960
Speaker 1: Tilton made his play capitalizing on his history with Beecher.

469
00:37:32,920 --> 00:37:35,800
Speaker 1: Mister Beecher had long been his friend and the intimate

470
00:37:35,840 --> 00:37:40,640
Speaker 1: friend of his wife, Tracy explained, that friendship, Tilton could

471
00:37:40,719 --> 00:37:44,560
Speaker 1: pervert and make himself the author and at the same

472
00:37:44,640 --> 00:37:48,680
Speaker 1: time the central figure of the most famous scandal of

473
00:37:48,800 --> 00:37:52,560
Speaker 1: modern times. If Tilton could not supplant Beecher in the

474
00:37:52,600 --> 00:37:57,080
Speaker 1: affection of the people, Tracy continued, he could scandalize him.

475
00:37:57,719 --> 00:38:01,160
Speaker 1: If Tilton had made it impossible for the honorable pen

476
00:38:01,320 --> 00:38:05,080
Speaker 1: to write his own biography, then was it worth any

477
00:38:05,239 --> 00:38:07,920
Speaker 1: cost to have a line devoted to him in the

478
00:38:07,920 --> 00:38:13,359
Speaker 1: biography of Henry Ward Beecher. This kind of argument that

479
00:38:13,400 --> 00:38:16,840
Speaker 1: those who bring suit or charges against celebrities are simply

480
00:38:16,880 --> 00:38:21,919
Speaker 1: doing it for attention has uncomfortable modern parallels. We've seen

481
00:38:21,920 --> 00:38:25,040
Speaker 1: the same claim made against countless people who told their

482
00:38:25,080 --> 00:38:28,879
Speaker 1: stories of sexual assault during the Me Too movement, and

483
00:38:28,960 --> 00:38:31,640
Speaker 1: for the most part, it's an easy claim to Rebut

484
00:38:32,320 --> 00:38:36,160
Speaker 1: few people would welcome the painful and invasive scrutiny that

485
00:38:36,239 --> 00:38:40,759
Speaker 1: comes with a high profile case. But Theodore Tilton may

486
00:38:40,960 --> 00:38:44,719
Speaker 1: just have been one of those people. As Tracy brutally

487
00:38:44,760 --> 00:38:48,360
Speaker 1: put it, Tilton was the kind of man who, quote,

488
00:38:48,960 --> 00:38:51,560
Speaker 1: if he could realize the sad truth that he was

489
00:38:51,719 --> 00:38:56,040
Speaker 1: morally dead, would still rejoice in this post mortem investigation

490
00:38:56,160 --> 00:39:01,560
Speaker 1: of his character. Tilton had always welcomed controversy thriving on

491
00:39:01,680 --> 00:39:06,800
Speaker 1: backlash and scandal. To many observers, it seemed entirely plausible

492
00:39:06,840 --> 00:39:11,399
Speaker 1: that Tilton had invented, or at least exaggerated, the entire thing,

493
00:39:14,880 --> 00:39:18,640
Speaker 1: and Tracy acknowledged that Beacher may have unwittingly helped Tilton

494
00:39:18,760 --> 00:39:23,040
Speaker 1: do just that due to his own naivete. The defense's

495
00:39:23,120 --> 00:39:27,000
Speaker 1: theory of the case ran like this. Beacher, a close

496
00:39:27,080 --> 00:39:30,440
Speaker 1: friend of both the Tilton's, had become a confidant and

497
00:39:30,520 --> 00:39:33,839
Speaker 1: spiritual guide to Elizabeth as she struggled in her marriage.

498
00:39:34,360 --> 00:39:38,880
Speaker 1: In the process, unbeknownst to Beecher, Elizabeth had developed feelings

499
00:39:38,880 --> 00:39:43,720
Speaker 1: for him. Eventually, concerned for her mental and physical well being,

500
00:39:43,960 --> 00:39:48,480
Speaker 1: Beecher had counseled Elizabeth to leave Theodore. It was for

501
00:39:48,719 --> 00:39:52,600
Speaker 1: these sins, for not realizing what Elizabeth felt for him,

502
00:39:53,040 --> 00:39:56,279
Speaker 1: for not consulting his old protege Theodore to get his

503
00:39:56,480 --> 00:40:00,279
Speaker 1: side of the story, for counseling Elizabeth to lie leave.

504
00:40:01,320 --> 00:40:04,600
Speaker 1: It was for these sins, and not the sin of

505
00:40:04,640 --> 00:40:08,800
Speaker 1: adultery that Beecher had apologized for in his letter of contrition.

506
00:40:09,719 --> 00:40:13,080
Speaker 1: He had aired as a pastor, but not as a man.

507
00:40:14,160 --> 00:40:17,440
Speaker 1: As Richard Whiteman Fox notes in his book Trials of

508
00:40:17,480 --> 00:40:22,799
Speaker 1: Intimacy quote the supreme irony of the trial is that,

509
00:40:22,880 --> 00:40:26,799
Speaker 1: while it was convened to determine whether Beecher had alienated

510
00:40:26,840 --> 00:40:30,840
Speaker 1: the affections of Missus Tilton from her husband, Beecher, in

511
00:40:31,000 --> 00:40:36,040
Speaker 1: order to exculpate himself conceded he had unintentionally done just that.

512
00:40:37,080 --> 00:40:41,719
Speaker 1: He admitted his moral fault to establish his legal innocence.

513
00:40:42,840 --> 00:40:45,920
Speaker 1: It was an argument that was not very flattering to Beecher.

514
00:40:46,400 --> 00:40:50,120
Speaker 1: It made him look clumsy and obtuse, but it fit

515
00:40:50,200 --> 00:40:53,680
Speaker 1: the facts, and it fit with what the public knew

516
00:40:53,760 --> 00:40:59,640
Speaker 1: of Beecher. He was enthusiastic, emotional, impulsive. Such a man

517
00:40:59,680 --> 00:41:02,719
Speaker 1: could easily get carried away by the vulnerability of a

518
00:41:02,760 --> 00:41:07,319
Speaker 1: woman and trapped by the machinations of her husband. There's

519
00:41:07,360 --> 00:41:11,280
Speaker 1: a beautifully illustrative story about Beecher from some years before

520
00:41:11,320 --> 00:41:15,400
Speaker 1: the trial that might help put the public's attitude into context.

521
00:41:15,840 --> 00:41:19,520
Speaker 1: On one chilly January night back in eighteen fifty seven,

522
00:41:20,200 --> 00:41:23,080
Speaker 1: Beecher had attempted to cross the ice of the frozen

523
00:41:23,200 --> 00:41:27,759
Speaker 1: East River from Manhattan to Brooklyn. The ice broke, stranding

524
00:41:27,800 --> 00:41:30,800
Speaker 1: him on a floe, from which he was eventually rescued

525
00:41:30,840 --> 00:41:35,600
Speaker 1: by a boat. As The New York Times observed, quote

526
00:41:35,680 --> 00:41:40,239
Speaker 1: Henry Ward Beecher never did a more thoroughly characteristic thing

527
00:41:40,400 --> 00:41:44,360
Speaker 1: in his life. He acted then precisely as he does,

528
00:41:44,400 --> 00:41:52,960
Speaker 1: always impulsively, courageously, rashly and successfully. He is always crossing

529
00:41:53,000 --> 00:41:56,319
Speaker 1: the ice somewhere or other. And though he has had

530
00:41:56,400 --> 00:42:01,680
Speaker 1: some narrow escapes, he has never yet fallen in. Now

531
00:42:02,200 --> 00:42:06,680
Speaker 1: Beecher had finally fallen in. But would he be punished

532
00:42:06,680 --> 00:42:10,200
Speaker 1: for it? That would be for the jury to decide,

533
00:42:10,719 --> 00:42:14,000
Speaker 1: And with the conclusion of arguments on June twenty third,

534
00:42:14,320 --> 00:42:18,760
Speaker 1: eighteen seventy five, more than one hundred and sixty days

535
00:42:18,800 --> 00:42:21,680
Speaker 1: after the trial began, they would have their chance to

536
00:42:21,760 --> 00:42:27,839
Speaker 1: do just that. For seven days, nothing was heard from

537
00:42:27,920 --> 00:42:31,719
Speaker 1: the jury. Then on July first, they sent a note

538
00:42:31,760 --> 00:42:35,239
Speaker 1: to the judge, May it please the court, we think

539
00:42:35,280 --> 00:42:38,040
Speaker 1: there is no possibility of our agreeing on a verdict,

540
00:42:38,480 --> 00:42:42,759
Speaker 1: and we respectfully asked to be discharged. Judge Nielsen, who

541
00:42:42,800 --> 00:42:46,000
Speaker 1: The New York Times had once described as quote a

542
00:42:46,080 --> 00:42:49,759
Speaker 1: man not to be trifled with, was not pleased. He

543
00:42:49,840 --> 00:42:52,640
Speaker 1: summoned the jury into the courtroom and lectured them on

544
00:42:52,680 --> 00:42:57,040
Speaker 1: their responsibilities. After a six month trial. The judge said

545
00:42:57,560 --> 00:43:01,520
Speaker 1: it would be quote humiliating for no verdict to be rendered,

546
00:43:02,120 --> 00:43:04,840
Speaker 1: especially in a case that had so much public attention.

547
00:43:05,800 --> 00:43:09,160
Speaker 1: It would be difficult to find any case, Judge Nielsen said,

548
00:43:09,680 --> 00:43:13,000
Speaker 1: where an agreement by a jury would be so desirable,

549
00:43:13,480 --> 00:43:19,239
Speaker 1: so imperative. Jury Foreman Chester Carpenter responded that it wasn't

550
00:43:19,280 --> 00:43:22,000
Speaker 1: that they didn't want to find a verdict, but that

551
00:43:22,080 --> 00:43:26,360
Speaker 1: they couldn't. It is a question of fact, a question

552
00:43:26,440 --> 00:43:29,360
Speaker 1: of the veracity of witnesses, on which we do not agree,

553
00:43:29,400 --> 00:43:32,080
Speaker 1: your honor, he explained, And I would say that I

554
00:43:32,120 --> 00:43:34,520
Speaker 1: think there is not a possibility of an agreement in

555
00:43:34,560 --> 00:43:38,000
Speaker 1: this jury. The judge asked them to try once more,

556
00:43:38,320 --> 00:43:43,000
Speaker 1: and they did, but returned the next day still stumped. Finally,

557
00:43:43,160 --> 00:43:46,760
Speaker 1: Judge Nielsen agreed to discharge the jury and the result

558
00:43:46,800 --> 00:43:51,040
Speaker 1: was announced. In the case of Tilton v. Beecher, the

559
00:43:51,160 --> 00:43:56,680
Speaker 1: jury was hung. It wasn't the verdict anyone particularly wanted,

560
00:43:57,160 --> 00:44:00,720
Speaker 1: but it was one that was somewhat expected. After all,

561
00:44:01,040 --> 00:44:04,040
Speaker 1: the jury foreman had put it well, it was difficult

562
00:44:04,080 --> 00:44:06,719
Speaker 1: to judge just who was telling the truth. On the

563
00:44:06,719 --> 00:44:10,319
Speaker 1: one hand, Theodore Tilton's explanation of the facts seemed to

564
00:44:10,320 --> 00:44:14,520
Speaker 1: make more sense. But on the other Henry Ward Beecher

565
00:44:14,840 --> 00:44:20,480
Speaker 1: was well Henry Ward Beecher America's best friend. As his

566
00:44:20,520 --> 00:44:23,440
Speaker 1: defense lawyer William Everts had put it during the trial,

567
00:44:24,239 --> 00:44:29,400
Speaker 1: I prefer to find in character the refutation of false evidence,

568
00:44:30,480 --> 00:44:33,800
Speaker 1: and the jury seemed to agree, though they had failed

569
00:44:33,800 --> 00:44:36,840
Speaker 1: to reach a verdict. A poll of the jurors found

570
00:44:36,880 --> 00:44:41,080
Speaker 1: that they leaned nine to three in Beecher's favor. In

571
00:44:41,120 --> 00:44:45,920
Speaker 1: his closing argument, Tilton's lawyer, William Beach had implored jurors

572
00:44:46,120 --> 00:44:49,840
Speaker 1: to quote judge Beecher as we would judge ourselves or

573
00:44:49,920 --> 00:44:53,600
Speaker 1: our fellow men generally, But in the end they simply

574
00:44:53,680 --> 00:44:58,480
Speaker 1: could not. For three decades, Beecher had been internationally celebrated

575
00:44:58,520 --> 00:45:03,960
Speaker 1: for his integrity, his courage, and his compassion. No courtroom

576
00:45:04,239 --> 00:45:07,799
Speaker 1: is a vacuum. What the jurors and the public had

577
00:45:07,880 --> 00:45:10,440
Speaker 1: learned in the course of the trial had been damaging

578
00:45:10,480 --> 00:45:14,360
Speaker 1: to his reputation, but in the end it didn't seem

579
00:45:14,440 --> 00:45:19,319
Speaker 1: to be enough to find Beecher guilty. However, there are

580
00:45:19,400 --> 00:45:22,200
Speaker 1: many things that were never brought up in the courtroom,

581
00:45:22,920 --> 00:45:28,279
Speaker 1: including a few facts that, had they been known, might

582
00:45:28,360 --> 00:45:32,080
Speaker 1: have made the world see Henry Ward Beecher in a

583
00:45:32,239 --> 00:45:40,960
Speaker 1: very different light. Henry Ward Beacher had always been a

584
00:45:41,040 --> 00:45:45,440
Speaker 1: ladies man. If we want to be armchair analysts, we

585
00:45:45,520 --> 00:45:49,160
Speaker 1: could trace this trait back to his childhood, when, in

586
00:45:49,280 --> 00:45:55,239
Speaker 1: Debbie Applegate's words, the potent triangle of an idealized absent mother,

587
00:45:55,680 --> 00:45:59,920
Speaker 1: a distant, critical stepmother, and a bevy of smart, strong,

588
00:46:00,040 --> 00:46:03,440
Speaker 1: rongwilled sisters and aunts who doted on the boy but

589
00:46:03,600 --> 00:46:06,879
Speaker 1: had little time to spoil him bred in him a

590
00:46:07,000 --> 00:46:12,520
Speaker 1: lifelong craving for the affection of attractive, intelligent women. He

591
00:46:12,680 --> 00:46:15,759
Speaker 1: liked women, and as he grew older and shed his

592
00:46:15,920 --> 00:46:19,520
Speaker 1: childhood awkwardness, he was delighted to find that they liked

593
00:46:19,600 --> 00:46:22,680
Speaker 1: him too. He might not have been the most handsome

594
00:46:22,719 --> 00:46:26,000
Speaker 1: man in the room. Mark Twain described him as quote

595
00:46:26,280 --> 00:46:30,080
Speaker 1: as homely as a singed cat, but he had it.

596
00:46:31,120 --> 00:46:35,680
Speaker 1: As Twain also said, mister Beecher is a remarkably handsome

597
00:46:35,719 --> 00:46:37,919
Speaker 1: man when he is in the full tide of sermonizing

598
00:46:38,000 --> 00:46:41,000
Speaker 1: and his face is lit up with animation. He could

599
00:46:41,000 --> 00:46:43,759
Speaker 1: turn on this energy in one on one settings, too,

600
00:46:44,440 --> 00:46:49,240
Speaker 1: to great effect. When he fell for his college roommate's sister,

601
00:46:49,560 --> 00:46:53,560
Speaker 1: Eunice Bullard in the early eighteen thirties. It hadn't taken

602
00:46:53,640 --> 00:46:56,560
Speaker 1: him long to convince Eunice and her family to accept

603
00:46:56,560 --> 00:46:59,400
Speaker 1: his proposal, even though it meant that she would have

604
00:46:59,440 --> 00:47:02,800
Speaker 1: to endure a seven year engagement while he finished college

605
00:47:02,800 --> 00:47:08,040
Speaker 1: and seminary. The engagement seemed for a moment to Saint

606
00:47:08,120 --> 00:47:13,840
Speaker 1: Beecher's desire for female affection. If you wish true, unalloyed,

607
00:47:14,040 --> 00:47:17,640
Speaker 1: genuine delight, fall in love with some amiable girl, he

608
00:47:17,680 --> 00:47:22,680
Speaker 1: wrote a friend. But this feeling didn't last long. When

609
00:47:22,680 --> 00:47:26,840
Speaker 1: the couple eventually married, the newlywed glow wore off quickly.

610
00:47:27,560 --> 00:47:31,760
Speaker 1: Beecher was an inattentive husband, constantly forgetting his new wife

611
00:47:31,840 --> 00:47:36,160
Speaker 1: at train stations and events, and Eunice was not temperamentally

612
00:47:36,200 --> 00:47:39,719
Speaker 1: suited to the life of a traveling preacher's wife. She

613
00:47:39,960 --> 00:47:45,120
Speaker 1: was jealous and critical, prone to martyrdom and hypochondria. By

614
00:47:45,160 --> 00:47:47,160
Speaker 1: the time the couple made it to New York, a

615
00:47:47,239 --> 00:47:52,160
Speaker 1: decade into their marriage, they were both deeply unhappy. Friends

616
00:47:52,200 --> 00:47:56,040
Speaker 1: and family knew about the couple's troubles, which they mostly

617
00:47:56,080 --> 00:48:01,919
Speaker 1: blamed on Unice. Unfortunately, as Debbie Applegate points out to outsiders,

618
00:48:02,280 --> 00:48:06,680
Speaker 1: hen pecking is more obvious than stealthy emotional neglect, but

619
00:48:06,920 --> 00:48:10,480
Speaker 1: few knew to what lengths Henry Ward Beecher would go

620
00:48:10,760 --> 00:48:21,319
Speaker 1: to once again find the genuine delight of love. In

621
00:48:21,360 --> 00:48:25,000
Speaker 1: the late eighteen fifties, Beecher had grown close to two

622
00:48:25,000 --> 00:48:30,600
Speaker 1: of his congregants, Chloe and Moses Beach. Yes Beach, not Beecher.

623
00:48:30,719 --> 00:48:35,200
Speaker 1: The names are annoyingly similar. Moses was an unassuming, clever

624
00:48:35,320 --> 00:48:39,080
Speaker 1: man who edited the New York Sun. Beecher liked Moses

625
00:48:39,120 --> 00:48:42,120
Speaker 1: a great deal, but he seemed even more drawn to

626
00:48:42,239 --> 00:48:47,960
Speaker 1: Moses's wife, Chloe, a self possessed, graceful woman. Soon the

627
00:48:48,000 --> 00:48:53,560
Speaker 1: two were spending quite a bit of time together alone.

628
00:48:53,680 --> 00:48:59,200
Speaker 1: Chloe and Beecher's relationship became so intense that Moses moved

629
00:48:59,239 --> 00:49:02,600
Speaker 1: his family out of Brooklyn several times throughout the eighteen

630
00:49:02,680 --> 00:49:07,200
Speaker 1: sixties in order, he wrote, to cut off the associations

631
00:49:07,239 --> 00:49:11,320
Speaker 1: which were constantly dragging me into a mire of unhappy

632
00:49:11,400 --> 00:49:15,399
Speaker 1: thought and depriving me of an affection which it had

633
00:49:15,480 --> 00:49:18,919
Speaker 1: been the one aim of my life to cherish and nourish.

634
00:49:19,520 --> 00:49:24,000
Speaker 1: Every time they left, though Chloe would become so miserable

635
00:49:24,280 --> 00:49:28,080
Speaker 1: that Moses would eventually relent. They would return to the

636
00:49:28,120 --> 00:49:33,320
Speaker 1: city and to Beecher. In January of eighteen sixty seven,

637
00:49:33,719 --> 00:49:38,319
Speaker 1: Chloe gave birth to a daughter named Violet. There is compelling,

638
00:49:38,600 --> 00:49:44,640
Speaker 1: circumstantial evidence that Violet was Beecher's daughter. At the time

639
00:49:44,680 --> 00:49:49,160
Speaker 1: of Violet's conception, Moses was stricken with typhoid fever. The

640
00:49:49,200 --> 00:49:53,360
Speaker 1: stomach problems and rashes associated with that disease make it

641
00:49:53,440 --> 00:49:56,320
Speaker 1: unlikely that the Beaches would have been intimate during this time,

642
00:49:56,840 --> 00:49:59,759
Speaker 1: and that's on top of the marital problems caused by

643
00:49:59,800 --> 00:50:04,640
Speaker 1: cl Loe's relationship with Beecher. When Moses learned of Chloe's pregnancy,

644
00:50:05,120 --> 00:50:09,480
Speaker 1: he literally fled the country and then spent most of

645
00:50:09,520 --> 00:50:13,680
Speaker 1: the first year of his daughter's life away from his family. Beacher,

646
00:50:13,800 --> 00:50:18,240
Speaker 1: by contrast, doted on Violet. He spoiled her with gifts,

647
00:50:18,480 --> 00:50:22,800
Speaker 1: played with her constantly, and wrote to her often. Debbie

648
00:50:22,840 --> 00:50:26,200
Speaker 1: Applegate managed to uncover pictures of Violet and Beacher together,

649
00:50:26,920 --> 00:50:30,840
Speaker 1: and the resemblance, at least in my opinion, is pretty striking.

650
00:50:31,719 --> 00:50:37,600
Speaker 1: And Chloe was not Beecher's only alleged mistress. His relationships

651
00:50:37,640 --> 00:50:41,319
Speaker 1: with a number of female congregants had been so concerning.

652
00:50:41,680 --> 00:50:45,200
Speaker 1: Plymouth Church founder Henry Bowen would later recall that a

653
00:50:45,239 --> 00:50:48,520
Speaker 1: group of the church's leading men had once sent a

654
00:50:48,600 --> 00:50:52,440
Speaker 1: representative to the preacher's house to confront him about his behavior.

655
00:50:53,120 --> 00:50:58,040
Speaker 1: According to Bowen, Beecher reacted to these accusations quote like

656
00:50:58,120 --> 00:51:03,000
Speaker 1: a guilty man, was grit lately embarrassed, and promise that

657
00:51:03,000 --> 00:51:07,520
Speaker 1: there should be no further occasion for such scandal. Beecher's

658
00:51:07,520 --> 00:51:10,640
Speaker 1: flirtatious behavior was not aknown to the public at the

659
00:51:10,640 --> 00:51:14,319
Speaker 1: time of the trial. Newspapers had dug up stories of

660
00:51:14,320 --> 00:51:18,040
Speaker 1: his close relationships with female students and congregants from throughout

661
00:51:18,080 --> 00:51:21,880
Speaker 1: his clerical career, but explicit discussions of his pattern of

662
00:51:21,920 --> 00:51:25,080
Speaker 1: adultery of the type that we have access to today

663
00:51:25,520 --> 00:51:28,959
Speaker 1: weren't around in eighteen seventy five, so the public could

664
00:51:28,960 --> 00:51:32,600
Speaker 1: only judge on what they knew, all of which inclined

665
00:51:32,640 --> 00:51:35,120
Speaker 1: them to give Henry Ward Beecher the benefit of the

666
00:51:35,200 --> 00:51:39,279
Speaker 1: doubt when it came to Theodore Tilton's allegations. Yes, not

667
00:51:39,440 --> 00:51:42,640
Speaker 1: everyone believed Beecher, but it's hard to ignore the way

668
00:51:42,680 --> 00:51:46,759
Speaker 1: his celebrities skewed both public opinion and the trial itself.

669
00:51:47,400 --> 00:51:50,600
Speaker 1: We've seen the same thing occur in modern celebrity trials,

670
00:51:50,680 --> 00:51:54,200
Speaker 1: from oj Simpson to Johnny Depp. When we feel like

671
00:51:54,320 --> 00:51:58,000
Speaker 1: we know a celebrity, it becomes that much harder to

672
00:51:58,080 --> 00:52:00,319
Speaker 1: believe that they could be guilty of a crime that

673
00:52:00,440 --> 00:52:03,960
Speaker 1: feels out of line with their perceived character. But every

674
00:52:04,040 --> 00:52:08,120
Speaker 1: public figure has a private life, and no matter how

675
00:52:08,200 --> 00:52:12,280
Speaker 1: strong our parasocial relationship with the celebrity is, we don't

676
00:52:12,360 --> 00:52:16,440
Speaker 1: actually know them. Celebrities in the courtroom make for an

677
00:52:16,520 --> 00:52:19,759
Speaker 1: uneasy mix. It's just as true now as it was

678
00:52:19,800 --> 00:52:23,080
Speaker 1: in the eighteen seventies. Though we often like to think

679
00:52:23,080 --> 00:52:26,399
Speaker 1: of a trial as a form of objective investigation into

680
00:52:26,440 --> 00:52:30,120
Speaker 1: a claim, how objective can that investigation be when the

681
00:52:30,160 --> 00:52:35,600
Speaker 1: court of law is, despite best intentions, inevitably influenced by

682
00:52:35,600 --> 00:52:40,680
Speaker 1: the court of public opinion. The Beecher Tilton case was

683
00:52:40,719 --> 00:52:45,200
Speaker 1: a scandal in the truest sense, too messy and complex

684
00:52:45,280 --> 00:52:48,839
Speaker 1: to be neatly captured or resolved by a court. When

685
00:52:48,880 --> 00:52:52,600
Speaker 1: the historian Richard Whiteman Fox began investigating the trial for

686
00:52:52,680 --> 00:52:56,560
Speaker 1: his book Trials of Intimacy, he initially wanted to determine

687
00:52:56,560 --> 00:52:59,520
Speaker 1: the truth of the case which side had it right,

688
00:53:00,239 --> 00:53:04,400
Speaker 1: But as he discovered quote the whole idea of two

689
00:53:04,640 --> 00:53:08,560
Speaker 1: sides was flawed. It was not a choice between guilt

690
00:53:08,640 --> 00:53:14,080
Speaker 1: and innocence, but an interpretation of multiple competing stories, each

691
00:53:14,120 --> 00:53:16,960
Speaker 1: of them much too complex to be encompassed by the

692
00:53:17,000 --> 00:53:22,840
Speaker 1: side metaphor. Our adversarial trial system, which requires two such

693
00:53:22,880 --> 00:53:26,160
Speaker 1: distinct sides in every case, is not always the best

694
00:53:26,200 --> 00:53:30,720
Speaker 1: fit for the irrational, chaotic reality of human life. Few

695
00:53:30,840 --> 00:53:34,960
Speaker 1: trials illustrate this failing better than the Beacher Tilton case.

696
00:53:36,120 --> 00:53:39,520
Speaker 1: That's the story of Theodore Tilton v. Henry Ward Beecher.

697
00:53:40,360 --> 00:53:42,640
Speaker 1: Stick around after the break to learn how the main

698
00:53:42,719 --> 00:53:46,120
Speaker 1: players from the trial fared in its aftermath, and to

699
00:53:46,160 --> 00:53:57,480
Speaker 1: hear one final revelation on the affair. After the trial,

700
00:53:57,760 --> 00:54:01,480
Speaker 1: Henry Ward Beecher was welcomed back by Plymouth Church with

701
00:54:01,680 --> 00:54:05,279
Speaker 1: open arms and a generous salary raise to cover his

702
00:54:05,360 --> 00:54:09,440
Speaker 1: legal costs. For his first sermon after his return, he

703
00:54:09,480 --> 00:54:13,920
Speaker 1: preached about compassion and forgiveness. Don't believe that all men

704
00:54:13,960 --> 00:54:16,400
Speaker 1: are bad because you have seen some of their weaknesses

705
00:54:16,760 --> 00:54:21,080
Speaker 1: or even their sins, he admonished the crowd. Despite his

706
00:54:21,160 --> 00:54:26,160
Speaker 1: projection of confidence, the trial had shaken him. Friends recalled

707
00:54:26,200 --> 00:54:29,879
Speaker 1: that he was colder and more distant after eighteen seventy five.

708
00:54:30,560 --> 00:54:35,360
Speaker 1: He was also broke in early eighteen seventy seven, he

709
00:54:35,440 --> 00:54:37,800
Speaker 1: went on a lecture tour to try to make money.

710
00:54:38,480 --> 00:54:42,840
Speaker 1: Fortunately for Beecher, the trial had only increased people's desire

711
00:54:42,960 --> 00:54:46,600
Speaker 1: to see him speak. Over the course of forty lectures

712
00:54:46,640 --> 00:54:51,120
Speaker 1: in seven weeks, he spoke to nearly seventy thousand people.

713
00:54:51,840 --> 00:54:55,040
Speaker 1: Using the proceeds of this tour, he built a mansion

714
00:54:55,040 --> 00:54:58,760
Speaker 1: in Upstate New York, telling his brother I have pride

715
00:54:58,800 --> 00:55:01,560
Speaker 1: in building the house and earning every penny that pays

716
00:55:01,600 --> 00:55:05,000
Speaker 1: for it, and that after the world, the flesh and

717
00:55:05,080 --> 00:55:08,960
Speaker 1: the devil conspired to put me down guests who supervised

718
00:55:08,960 --> 00:55:13,160
Speaker 1: the construction from her own house next door his alleged mistress,

719
00:55:13,360 --> 00:55:18,480
Speaker 1: Chloe Beach. Over the next decade, Henry Ward Beecher continued

720
00:55:18,520 --> 00:55:22,440
Speaker 1: to be outspoken on both political and religious issues. Though

721
00:55:22,480 --> 00:55:25,239
Speaker 1: the scandal had burned him, he had not lost his

722
00:55:25,360 --> 00:55:31,200
Speaker 1: taste for attention nor his ideological fearlessness. He continued to publish,

723
00:55:31,520 --> 00:55:35,680
Speaker 1: preach and lecture across America until he suffered a sudden

724
00:55:35,719 --> 00:55:40,000
Speaker 1: stroke on March second, eighteen eighty seven, dying six days

725
00:55:40,040 --> 00:55:44,600
Speaker 1: later at age seventy three. Fifty thousand people gathered in

726
00:55:44,640 --> 00:55:48,080
Speaker 1: the streets to mourn Henry Ward Beecher, and city Hall

727
00:55:48,160 --> 00:55:54,279
Speaker 1: was draped in black bunting. Theodore Tilton's reputation never recovered.

728
00:55:55,000 --> 00:55:57,480
Speaker 1: He also tried to capitalize off the scandal with a

729
00:55:57,520 --> 00:56:02,360
Speaker 1: lecture tour, but his audience was the world had lost

730
00:56:02,360 --> 00:56:05,239
Speaker 1: interest in him when the novelty of the scandal wore off.

731
00:56:06,280 --> 00:56:09,560
Speaker 1: He eventually moved to Paris, where he wrote poetry and

732
00:56:09,640 --> 00:56:13,520
Speaker 1: lived a quiet life before dying in May nineteen oh seven.

733
00:56:14,600 --> 00:56:18,840
Speaker 1: Unlike her husband and Beecher, Elizabeth Tilton had not gotten

734
00:56:18,880 --> 00:56:21,480
Speaker 1: to tell her side of the story at trial. The

735
00:56:21,560 --> 00:56:25,480
Speaker 1: lawyers all agreed that she was too unreliable of a witness.

736
00:56:25,760 --> 00:56:28,560
Speaker 1: She had tried to speak out, giving the judge a

737
00:56:28,600 --> 00:56:31,920
Speaker 1: prepared statement that she asked him to read aloud. The

738
00:56:32,000 --> 00:56:35,120
Speaker 1: judge had declined, but the statement, of course, made its

739
00:56:35,120 --> 00:56:39,000
Speaker 1: way to the papers. In it, Elizabeth once again denied

740
00:56:39,000 --> 00:56:41,799
Speaker 1: the affair and implied that she had been forced by

741
00:56:41,880 --> 00:56:45,320
Speaker 1: her husband to make a false confession. After the trial,

742
00:56:45,520 --> 00:56:48,239
Speaker 1: she lived with her mother and children in Brooklyn and

743
00:56:48,360 --> 00:56:52,719
Speaker 1: shunned public attention up until eighteen seventy eight. That is,

744
00:56:59,200 --> 00:57:03,040
Speaker 1: on April state sixteenth, the Morning Papers carried a shocking

745
00:57:03,120 --> 00:57:07,440
Speaker 1: letter written by Elizabeth Tilton to her lawyer. In the letters,

746
00:57:07,480 --> 00:57:11,560
Speaker 1: she swore that the charge brought by my husband of

747
00:57:11,600 --> 00:57:17,640
Speaker 1: adultery between myself and the Reverend Henry Ward Beecher was true.

748
00:57:17,920 --> 00:57:21,920
Speaker 1: Two months later, she told a Plymouth church committee, I

749
00:57:22,040 --> 00:57:25,480
Speaker 1: now repeat and affirm that the acknowledgment of adultery was

750
00:57:25,520 --> 00:57:28,920
Speaker 1: the truth and nothing but the truth, and that having

751
00:57:29,040 --> 00:57:33,880
Speaker 1: previously published a false statement denying the charges, I desired

752
00:57:34,000 --> 00:57:37,680
Speaker 1: to make the truth as worldwide as the lie had been.

753
00:57:38,680 --> 00:57:41,400
Speaker 1: But she did not have the same platform as Beecher

754
00:57:41,960 --> 00:57:46,280
Speaker 1: or her husband, and most people dismissed her statements. Though

755
00:57:46,320 --> 00:57:49,680
Speaker 1: she was a central player in the scandal, Elizabeth Tilton

756
00:57:49,800 --> 00:57:53,880
Speaker 1: was never taken seriously. She had become just as she

757
00:57:54,000 --> 00:57:57,680
Speaker 1: feared she would, only a plaything, the rope and a

758
00:57:57,760 --> 00:58:01,640
Speaker 1: vicious tug of war between two powers, poorful, egotistical men.

759
00:58:02,320 --> 00:58:06,640
Speaker 1: After eighteen seventy eight, she never spoke out publicly again, and,

760
00:58:06,840 --> 00:58:11,080
Speaker 1: according to one obituary, banned all newspapers from her home.

761
00:58:12,000 --> 00:58:16,960
Speaker 1: She died on April thirteenth, eighteen ninety seven, five weeks

762
00:58:17,040 --> 00:58:21,760
Speaker 1: after Unice Beacher. Both women are buried in Greenwood Cemetery

763
00:58:21,880 --> 00:58:27,640
Speaker 1: in Brooklyn. Elizabeth Tilton's headstone simply says, grandmother Eunice Beacher

764
00:58:27,760 --> 00:58:31,080
Speaker 1: shares a headstone with her husband. Her section of the

765
00:58:31,120 --> 00:58:35,040
Speaker 1: stone bears only her birth and death dates. Henry got

766
00:58:35,080 --> 00:58:40,520
Speaker 1: an epitaph quote he thinketh no evil, from his favorite

767
00:58:40,520 --> 00:58:45,920
Speaker 1: Bible chapter, First Corinthians, chapter thirteen. But after meddling through

768
00:58:45,960 --> 00:58:49,560
Speaker 1: the murky waters of the Tilton Beacher scandal, the next

769
00:58:49,640 --> 00:58:52,800
Speaker 1: verse might be a more appropriate conclusion to this episode.

770
00:58:53,560 --> 00:59:00,400
Speaker 1: Rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth. Thank you

771
00:59:00,440 --> 00:59:04,080
Speaker 1: for listening to History on Trial. The main sources for

772
00:59:04,120 --> 00:59:08,120
Speaker 1: this episode were the trial transcript, Debbie Applegate's book The

773
00:59:08,120 --> 00:59:12,080
Speaker 1: Most Famous Man in America, Biography of Henry Ward Beecher,

774
00:59:12,480 --> 00:59:16,800
Speaker 1: and Richard Whitman Fox's book Trials of Intimacy, Love and

775
00:59:16,920 --> 00:59:20,920
Speaker 1: Loss in the Beecher's Hilton Scandal. For a full bibliography,

776
00:59:21,160 --> 00:59:23,959
Speaker 1: as well as a transcript of this episode with citations,

777
00:59:24,440 --> 00:59:29,160
Speaker 1: please visit our website History on Trial podcast dot com.

778
00:59:31,320 --> 00:59:35,200
Speaker 1: History on Trial is written and hosted by me Mira Hayward.

779
00:59:35,760 --> 00:59:38,880
Speaker 1: The show is edited and produced by Jesse Funk, with

780
00:59:38,960 --> 00:59:44,600
Speaker 1: supervising producer Trevor Young and executive producers Dana Schwartz. Alexander Williams,

781
00:59:45,000 --> 00:59:48,640
Speaker 1: Matt Frederick, and Mira Hayward. Learn more about the show

782
00:59:48,720 --> 00:59:52,680
Speaker 1: at History on Trial podcast dot com and follow us

783
00:59:52,720 --> 00:59:57,880
Speaker 1: on Instagram at History on Trial and on Twitter at Underscore.

784
00:59:58,120 --> 01:00:02,880
Speaker 1: History on Trial and more podcasts from iHeartRadio by visiting

785
01:00:02,880 --> 01:00:06,920
Speaker 1: the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to

786
01:00:06,960 --> 01:00:07,880
Speaker 1: your favorite shows.