After the Civil War, people familiar with Jesse James' criminal activities didn't agree about whether the robberies and violence were justified.

Ex-Confederate soldier John Newman Edwards thought Jesse was largely a victim of his times. "We called him outlaw," Edwards wrote, "and he was; but fate made him so. When the war closed Jesse James had no home. Proscribed, hunted, shot, driven away from among his people, a price put upon his head -- what else could the man do, with such a nature, except what he did do?"

But Robert Pinkerton of Pinkerton's National Detective Agency, whose unarmed detective Jesse had murdered, rejected the idea that the young outlaw was a victim. In 1879 he wrote, "I consider Jesse James the worst man, without exception, in America. He is utterly devoid of fear, and has no more compunction about cold blooded murder than he has about eating his breakfast."

Was Jesse James' life of crime justified?

		Yes		No
	Did you watch the film, "Jesse James"? (Please vote "yes" if you watched at least half of the film.)
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	If yes, did it influence your answers?
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