522 
Solution of Difficulties relative to 
[July 1, 
ferent treatment from that which they ,fer on every miscreant who can write 
usually meet with in courts of law ; but 
to'confound with them legitimate stric- 
tures on any public topic, is like con 
founding a pi#s-pocket with a_ public 
benefactor. Separate therefore these 
distinct objects of literary jurisdiction, 
and all mankind will agree that science, 
morals, law, religion, politics, economics, 
and the public measures and conduct of 
public men cannot be too fully or too 
freely discussed ; but on the other hand, 
that too heavy a responsibility, and too 
severe a punishment, cannot well be-in- 
flicted on the deliberate, wanton, and 
malicious, violator of the sanctuary of a 
man’s fire-side and family circle. 
There can, nor ought to be, no restrics 
tions in speculative inquiries on abstract 
suBjects, or on topics of a public na- 
ture involving public interests, in which 
every man has a stake in his fortune or 
posterity, and therefore, as part of the 
grand jury of the public, he ought to be 
at hberty to indict and:present them 
through the press. But it would be a 
mischievous anomaly in jurisprudence, 
and would tend to disorganize all the 
social relations, if every man, through 
the instrumentality of the press, were to 
bé allowed to usurp all the powers of 
a grand jury, in regard to his neigh- 
bours;—if every malicious unprincipled 
éharacter were to be armed with the 
powers of an authorised grand jury, and 
be suffered publicly to indict and put on 
his defence every other man whose su- 
perior virtues were the objects of his 
envy or hatred ! ; 
Private vices, when they exist, are 
properly cognizable only before the tri- 
bunal of a man’s friends and family; 
they are alone within the jurisdiction of 
his own conscience, of his religion, and 
of his Maker; but, if they ever become 
the instruments of publig wrongs, they 
are then cognizable before a legal tri- 
bunal, and punishable according to the 
énormity of their effects. | 
It isa monstrous doctrine therefore to 
confer on an anonymous or malignant 
writer, the province of a grand jury, 
and to expect one who has been slan.- 
dered, and who secks redress at law, to 
prove that the slander is in every sense 
false. It ought to be enough to shew 
that the libeller of private character has 
published wantonly and malignantly, that 
which, whether true or false, is spe- 
cially or palpably injurious. To ask 
for more of him who prosecutes for 
a personal libel, is at once ta cons 
<- 
in the language of Billingsgate, and 
who, from lack of principle, gares not 
what he says, the powers of a grand 
jury of the country. It is to put a man 
on his defence without the qualifications 
of number, property, oath, or honour, in 
his grand, jury, and to expose him to 
the worst and most ferocious of tribunals 
—the conscience of an anonymous ac- 
cuser, who, unseen, unknown, devoid per- 
haps of every honourable sentiment, and 
stimulated by a thirst of revenge, would 
seck to satiate his diabolical passions in 
blood, but for the legal responsibility at- 
tending murder. ‘ 
Let us for a moment look to the effects 
of personal slander: a man writes a libel 
on another, and obtains its circulation 
through a public newspaper: the Jibel 19 
read by ten thousand persons in all parts 
of the empire,and an extensive and Jast- 
ing prejudice is created against the li- 
belled, highly prejudicial to bis comfort, 
family, fortune, ard laudable ambition: 
whether true or false, deserved or un- 
deserved, the effect is the same on nine 
thousand nine hundred of those who 
divert themselves in reading it. They do 
not take the trouble to ascertain its truth 
or falsehood; it is not worth their while 
to do so; and, if they chose to do it, they 
have not the or,portunity. Besides, who 
is to gauge the precise degree of its foun- 
dation; the premises may be innocently, 
true, and the inferences false and ma- 
licious; and after it has in some supposed 
way been sifted and proved to te partly 
false, partly true, how few of the tem 
thousand take the trouble to discharge 
their minds of the first prejudice; and 
how many never read the coutradictior 
who read the libel, and, while under ers 
ror, spread it among ten thousand more. 
No contradiction, no apology, no das 
mages, no punishment of a personal lis 
beller, can, therefore, competently atone 
to the party, and entirely wipe away the 
stigma imposed upon him, Ought, there- 
fore, such a license to be tolerated under 
any limitation? Ought it not rather to: 
be deemed a crime in its very concoction 
and genera, without considering either 
its quality or species? 
} assume it as a general and well 
founded position, that whatever it.is the 
duty of one man to propagate about an+ 
other for any alleged benefit to the pub« 
fic, may be made the foundation of a 
legal accusation before a grand jury; 
and the criterion of its fitness for difu-~ 
siov, will be ascertained by their deci+ 
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