by John Marshall Harlan

“ The court, in effect, said-or the jury may, not unreasonably, have understood the court as declaring-that preparation by arming, although for self-defense only, could not be followed, in any case, by manslaughter, if the killing, after such arming, was not, in fact, in necessary self-defense. Such we understand to be the meaning of the charge. ”

“ Whenever that exists, we have malice, and nothing else, unless it is a case where a man prepares himself for self-defense, and then, in order to exonerate himself from that killing, he must execute that preparation where the law gives him a right to do it, and in a defensive way. He may prepare himself for self-defense, but if he kills when there is no case of self-defense, such act of previous preparation becomes criminal in its character because of his subsequent act, and it becomes attached to that act. ”