PREAMBLE.
Gentlemen of the Committee:
I feel it my duty to say one word in defence of the Petitioners, in reply to Dr. Walker’s statement, that, “in his opinion, nineteen twentieths of the petitioners did not know nor care what they petitioned for, and that they signed it out of compliment to the lady.”
I differ from Dr. Walker in opinion on this point, for this reason. I obtained these names by my own individual appeals, except from most of the members of the “Common Council,” who signed it during an evening session, by its being passed around for their names. I witnessed their signing, and saw them read it, carefully, before signing it. And I think they signed it intelligently, and from a desire for safer legislation. The others I know signed intelligently, and for this reason. And I could easily have got one thousand more names, had it been necessary; for, in selling my books, I have conversed with many thousand men on this subject, and among them all, I have only found one man who defends the present mode of commitment, by leaving it all to the physicians.
I spent a day in the Custom House, and a day and a half in the Navy Yard, and these men, like all others, defend our movement. I have sold one hundred and thirty-nine books in the Navy Yard within the last day and a half, by conversing personally with gentlemen in their counting-rooms on this subject, and they are carefully watching your decision on this question.
Now, from this stand-point of extensive observation, added to my own personal experience, I feel fully confident these two Bills are needed to meet the public demand at this crisis.
No person shall be regarded or treated as an Insane person, or a Monomaniac, simply for the expression of opinions, no matter how absurd these opinions may appear to others.
REASONS.
1st. This Law is needed for the personal safety of Reformers. We are living in a Progressive Age. Everything is in a state of transmutation, and, as our laws now are, the Reformer, the Pioneer, the Originator of any new idea is liable to be treated as a Monomaniac, with imprisonment.