[clx. 349]

1822 July 12

Constitut. Code Rationale

Securitites Counterforce

4 Legal

5 Moral

Evidence necessity of?

Defamation necessity of

They may be considered as crying out - I am a scoundrel! etc.

Those who cry out against what they call the licentiousness of the press, as if it were so much uncompensated evil, for /against/ which compleat suppression would be an appropriate and innoxious remedy /cure/ might with much more reason cry out against the pure and simple abolition of all punishment without distinction and in particular against all punishment at the hands of the legal sanction and the tribunals by which the force of that sanction is applied: for in no other form, at once so gentle and so efficient and in particular in no form of legal punishment could punishment be employed in the repression of any thing that has ever been characterized by the names of crime or vice by the name of vice.

Punishment as applied by the legal tribunals - punishment applied under the name of punishment attaches to such mischievous /evil/ acts alone the mischief of which has place as well in a shape sufficiently detrimental, and /as/ in a quantity sufficiently great to warrant the application of evil in the shape and in the quality in which it is so denominated /the denomination of punishment is in common use/. Punishment as applied by the Public Opinion, applied as it is in effect without the name, attaches itself to mischief in all shapes in which the hand of man can without special and sufficient justification be instrumental to the production of it.

Applied by the legal tribunal, punishment is not only thus narrow in its application /applicability/ and thence in its use: but exposed continually exposed to the danger of running into excess: excess from /such/ the danger of which the punishment which the Public-Opinion Tribunal makes application of is altogether exempt and free.