JB_037_038_001.xml

Title: [1821 April 29 Constitution Penal Law]

Description: 1821 April 29

Constitution Penal Law

Needless Constituted

Under Representative Democracy there is no such thing as a seditious

libel,— under the General Government of the Anglo

American United States there is no such thing as a seditious libel. Charge

the President of Congress, charge the Vice President, charge the Chief

Justice with having taken a bribe — do this in print, circulate

the print all over the United States no one of them will cause you to be

punished as for a seditious libel, no one of them will have it in his power

so to do: for no such injury

will any criminal prosecution lie: no information

granted ex officio, without motion: no information

granted a motion: no, nor so much as any indictment. Action civil i.e. non

penal, yes, viz. as for defamation. Prove thereupon the imputation to be

well-grounded, in a man on whom it has been cast, and he will be

punished accordingly: tho' such is the effect of blind obsequiousness to

a corrupt original, be the evidence ever so complete it will have to

be delivered over again in a needless & worse than useless

prosecution, required by lawyercraft for the purpose. If you fail in the

proof, you may be punished for the injury by being obliged to pay

money on that account to the individual

injured: and it is right you should be so if you had not before you a

reasonable ground for believing the imputation

two; much more if you are conscious of the falsity of it.

In this there would be nothing but what is right: for tho' he is neither a

view-god, nor a Magnate. The person in question is an individual, and an

individual whom you have injured.

037_037.xml

Title: [1821 April 29 Needless continued]

Description: 1821 April 29

Needless continued

Constitution

Penal Law

Under an absolute Monarchy, any discourse of a nature otherwise than agreeable to the Monarch, (or any of those by whom execution and effect is given to his will,) is, if uttered by word of mouth in the hearing of any other person, a seditious discourse: if committed to print or writing, a seditious libel: such of course is the character of every discourse by which intimation is given, that in this or that particular, still more if in general, the system pursued, or the conduct of those who act under it, might if different from what it is, be better than what it is -

Under a limited Monarchy the case, is in these respects the same,

Under a Representative Democracy suppose conspiracy not impossible - suppose it not groundless - still there could be no need of it. Under a Representative Democracy, individuals in any numbers, may in any place, at any times, meet and say and here /hear/ whatsoever, (whether in relation to the system pursued or in relation to the conduct of those who act under it), is agreeable to the respective speakers, to whatsoever degree it may be otherwise than agreeable to the hearers, or to their common rulers. Be the purpo/rt/se of what is thus said what it may, the speaking of it will not be seditious speaking: written or printed, unpublished or published, a paper in which it is contained, will not be a seditious libel. Suppose a proposition made for killing, or beating a Judge, a Governor, a President: for pulling down or plundering his house, a proposition to any such effect if followed by any correspondent endeavour will be an offence against person or property as the case may be and punishable as such: for a Judge, a Governor, a President is an individual: But in neither case would it be either true /lese/ Majesty humain[?] or /divine or human or/ so much as sedition: at any rate, if by the Legislature of any such state, the Judge, was suffered to punish it as such, it would be in humble imitation of an original, by the imitation of which on any one occasion, they ought to be covered with shame.

JB_022_205.xml

Title: [1820 Oct. 8 liberticide measures 1 §. 2.]

Description: 1820 Oct. 8 liberticide measures 1 §. 2. *I. Liberty of the press –

destruction

Now then what I say is – that by the prosecution, if it be followed by

punishment, the liberty of the press, to every such purpose as that of operating

as a check to misrule, is destroyed.

The people of Spain – do they know that nothing of this sort could have happened

in the Anglo-American United States no such punishment no such prosecution could

have had place? That matter for /terms of general/ vituperation nor for

defamation itself howsoever wilful /wilfully false/ as well as simply false the

defamatory assertion may be can a /any/ man be punished, as for a criminal

offence although the party defamed be a functionary ever so high in authority,

nor in a word can any suffering under the name of punishment be inflicted? that

neither for vague vituperation nor for determinate defamation itself can a man

be prosecuted there as for an offence against the state? and that where the

object of the offence is the highest functionary in the state, the offender can

no otherwise be called to account than by an /a sort of/ action termed a civil

action from which to the offender nothing worse can ensue than an /the/

obligation to pay money to the party so injured in satisfaction for the injury?

that against injury from abuse of the faculty of discourse whether by speech or

writing, a functionary there, be he of ever so high an order has no protection

whatsoever over and above that which is afforded to every other member of the

community? Do they know /Know you my friends/ that for the having given to

themselves for a time this needless and mischievously exclusive protection, the

rulers of that union lost the confidence of the people /their constituents/, and

what in that only seat of good government is the necessary consequnce of that

loss, the situations for which they were indebted to that confidence? Do they

know, /Know you what I know for his son related it to me/ that for no other

cause than the having headed[?] this measure of supposed security, John Adams in

the service of the first President of Congress in the United States /of the

illustrious Union/ that for this cause this John Adams notwithstanding all his

merit was consigned to obscurity for the rest /remainder/ of his life? Know you

this my friends? If not it is high time you should know it: for it is worth

knowing, and I will tell it you, for it was his son that related it to me.