[clx. 350]

1822 July 14

Constitut. Code Rationale

Securities Counterforce

4 Legal responsibility

5 Moral responsibility

Evidence etc its necessity?

The power /efficiency/ of the popular or moral sanction with its Public-Opinion Tribunal can not be strengthened, but the efficiency of the law in so far as its force is employed in augmentation of the happiness of the people is also strengthened. In so far as misdeed, which by reason of its detrimental effect on happiness is vicious, and thereby exposes the agent to punishment at the hands of the Public-Opinion Tribunal is moreover criminal - an act of delinquency against the law exposing the agent to punishment at the hands of the law, every channel through which defamation as above may be divulgated is a channel through which in so far as the defamation takes this turn, strength and efficiency is given to the law. Through these channels men who in themselves are, and would otherwise remain, helpless, receive help, and abatement of their sufferings: injuries and sufferings which would otherwise swell to an indefinite bulk, /a boundless magnitude, and rendered altogether remediless/ are met by complaint, and kept within bounds: through this channel men who by their own indigence and the rapacity of lawyers are rendered destitute /deprived/ of all help at the hands of the legal sanction with its tribunals /judicatories/ find a limit and thence a mitigation to their sufferings For suppose the act in question to be of the number of those to which punishment is /stands/ attached as well by /at/ the hands /power/ of the legal sanction as at the hands of the popular or moral sanction, as well at the hands of the legal judicatories as at the hands of the Public-Opinion: this being the case, to give intimation of it to the members of the community at large in their capacity of members of the Public-Opinion Tribunal is to give indication by the help /light/ of which not only witnesses, but prosecutors at the bar of the competent legal tribunal, may be brought into action, and the further investigation of whatsoever relevant facts would otherwise remain in darkness promoted /produced/: that which to the uncorrupted free and ever open Public Opinion Tribunal is evidence to the purpose of conviction in an immediate way, being to the legal tribunal, evidence to the purpose of investigation for the obtainment of ulterior evidence, such as suffices in the first place for a ground to accusation, and in the next place for the obtainment of such evidence as shall suffice for conviction and punishment.