To go now to the argument. The learned gentleman says that freedom of thought is a grand thing. Unfortunately, freedom of thought exists. What one of us would not put manacles and fetters upon his thoughts, if he only could? What persecution have any of us suffered to compare with the involuntary recurrence of these demons that enter our brain—that bring back past events that we would wipe out with our tears, or even with our blood—and make us slaves of a power unseen but uncontrollable and uncontrolled? Is it not unworthy of so eloquent and intelligent a man to preach before you here to-night that thought must always be free?
When in the history of the world has thought ever been fettered? If there be a page in history upon which such an absurdity is written, I have failed to find it.
Thought is beyond the domain of man. The most cruel and arbitrary ruler can no more penetrate into your bosom and mine and extract the inner workings of our brain, than he can scale the stars or pull down the sun from its seat. Thought must be free. Thought is unseen, unhandled and untouched, and no despot has yet been able to reach it, except when the thoughts burst into words. And therefore, may we not consider now, and say, that liberty of word is what he wants, and not liberty of thought, which no one has ever gainsaid, or disputed?
Liberty of speech!—and the gentleman generously tells us, "Why, I only ask for myself what I would cheerfully extend to you. I wish you to be free; and you can even entertain those old delusions which your mothers taught, and look with envious admiration upon me while I scale the giddy heights of Olympus, gather the honey and approach the stars and tell you how pure the air is in those upper regions which you are unable to reach."
Thanks for his kindness! But I think that it is one thing for us to extend to him that liberty that he asks for—the liberty to destroy—and another thing for him to give us the liberty which we claim—the liberty to conserve.
Oh, destruction is so easy, destruction is so pleasant! It marks the footsteps all through our life. The baby begins by destroying his bib; the older child by destroying his horse, and when the man is grown up and he joins the regiment with the latent instinct that when he gets a chance he will destroy human life.
This building cost many thousand days' work. It was planned by more or less skillful architects (ignorant of ventilation, but well-meaning). Men lavished their thought, and men lavished their sweat for a pittance, upon this building. It took months and possibly years to build it and to adorn it and to beautify it. And yet, as it stands complete tonight with all of you here in the vigor of your life and in the enjoyment of such entertainment as you may get here this evening, I will find a dozen men who with a few pounds of dynamite will reduce it and all of us to instant destruction.
The dynamite man may say to me, "I give you full liberty to build and occupy and insure, if you will give me liberty to blow up." Is that a fair bargain? Am I bound in conscience and in good sense to accept it? Liberty of speech! Tell me where liberty of speech has ever existed. There have been free societies, England was a free country. France has struggled through crisis after crisis to obtain liberty of speech. We think we have liberty of speech, as we understand it, and yet who would undertake to say that our society could live with liberty of speech? We have gone through many crises in our short history, and we know that thought is nothing before the law, but the word is an act—as guilty at times as the act of killing, or burglary, or any of the violent crimes that disgrace humanity and require the police.
A word is an act—an act of the tongue; and why should my tongue go unpunished, and I who wield it mercilessly toward those who are weaker than I, escape, if my arm is to be punished when I use it tyrannously? Whom would you punish for the murder of Desdemona—is it Iago, or Othello? Who was the villain, who was the criminal, who deserved the scaffold—who but free speech? Iago exercised free speech. He poisoned the ear of Othello and nerved his arm and Othello was the murderer—but Iago went scot free. That was a word.
"Oh," says the counsel, "but that does not apply to individuals; be tender and charitable to individuals." Tender and charitable to men if they endeavor to destroy all that you love and venerate and respect!