date

1820 Oct. 8 liberticide measures 1 §. 2.
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.
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    5

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