JB_022_201.xml

Title: [1820. Octr. 12 Spanish liberticide measures]

Description: 1820. Octr. 12 Spanish liberticide measures 13 §. 2 I. Press violation Reasons

against libel laws

Thus it is that by every endeavour on the part of a public functionary to

destroy or narrow this liberty two things are made probable not to say certain:

in his mind a consciousness of inaptitude on the part of himself or his

associates in the system or both, and a desire to seek /derive/ such a

gratification to himself from the /another’s/ sufferings of another: from the

sufferings of an individual by whose exertions service has been done to the

public /by whom the public has been served/: criminality and vindictiveness:

criminality, or at the least inaptitude: and the severer the punishment, and

taking all together the greater the force he employs or endeavours to employ for

this purpose, the deeper he affords reason to conclude has been or is intended

to be his guilt, or else the sharper his vindictiveness.

JB_022_203.xml

Title: [1820. Octr. 12 Spanish liberticide measures]

Description: 1820. Octr. 12 Spanish liberticide measures. 15 §. 2. I. Press violation

Reasons against libel laws

1. If such things were allowed of, no government could stand. Persuasive or no,

till the government of the Anglo-American United States had risen, and stood a

certain length of time this argument was impregnable. For, as till then, no

government in which such things were allowed of had ever been in existence, the

prophecy had been constantly and universally made, and had never been

disfulfilled. But now, such things having for so many years been allowed of, and

all the time a government standing and that such a government – a government in

comparison of which the least bad of all other governments is a compound

/mixture/ of tyranny and anarchy, the prophecy stands disfulfilled. But the

being disfulfilled is no hindrance to the pretence of a belief in it on the part

of those who see their interest in such a pretence.

2. By Such an allowance order would be disturbed /would be contrary to order/.

In point of fact this argument may be true enough: but in so far as it is true

it is nothing to the purpose. The order established by tyranny is order: and in

proportion to the extent given to such allowance would be the disturbance or at

any rate the risk of disturbance to the order established by tyranny.

3. By Such an allowance good order would be disturbed. In a certain sense this

is /There are certain means by which this may be rendered/ unquestionably true.

Good order is the order which it is our pleasure to maintain, whatsoever it be.

Let there on the one part be asserted or assumed, and on the other assented to,

the proposition is demonstrated. It passes for such among all such as under the

name of good order are occupied in the support of any system of misrule.

JB_022_192.xml

Title: [1820. Octr. 13. Spanish liberticide measures]

Description: 1820. Octr. 13. Spanish liberticide measures 5 §. 2. Press violation Reasons

against libel law

2. Prosecution if practicable /in these cases employable/ and commonly practised

/employed/ would not in any degree approaching to equality be effectual or

applied /employed/ in any thing like so small an expence. In any and every such

case, if punishment be the instrument employed, prosecution must precede it,

prosecution with its delay vexation and expence. Not to speak of private

business, from the interruption given to public business the mischief is

considerable considerable in the course of the year or term of years even where

the instances are few. How much more considerable if prosecution had place in

every instance where in any of the situations in question delinquency has /had/

place?

In the case where it is by the liberty of the press that the check to misrule is

applied the judicatory before which the matter is brought is the tribunal of

public opinion the tribunal of the moral or popular sanction. Expence none: pay

to actors in the drama /the dramatis personae/, prosecutors, witnesses, judges,

none: delay, of that factitious kind in the manufacture of which judicatories in

general have hitherto been so successfully industrious none: vexation, except to

the accused none: and to him the vexation /suffering from it/ rises in

proportion to delinquency and be it what it may, takes the place and operates in

lieu of, and spares /saves/ the expence of punishment.

In both cases the greatest multitude of appropriate facts and with it arguments

applying to them capable of being brought to view without the help of this

liberty is as nothing in comparison of what may be and naturally will be brought

to view under favour of and by this liberty.