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.