He applied the word "beneficent" to a rule that put a man in the penitentiary on a presumption.
The Court. He was conservative.
Mr. Ingersoll. He ought to read some work on the use and abuse of words. Now, Judge Field says further:
The purport of all this was to tell the jury that although the defendants must be proved guilty beyond a reasonable doubt, yet if the Government had made out a prima facie case against them, not one free from all doubt, but one which disclosed circumstances requiring explanation, and the defendants did not explain, the perplexing question of their guilt need not disturb the minds of the jurors.
That is this case exactly: that is the exact claim of Colonel Bliss in this case. Gentlemen, you have only to take into consideration, he says, what we offered to prove and what the Court would not allow us, and what the defendants failed to prove. "Why didn't they call Bosler?"
Now, gentlemen, we claim the law to be this: That while notice is given us to produce books and papers and we fail to do it, the only legal consequence is that the Government may then prove the contents of such books and papers, and that their proof of the contents must be passed upon by you.
The next thing to which I call your attention is the crime laid at our door, that we exercised the right of petition. It is regarded as a very suspicious circumstance that petitions were circulated, signed, and sent to the office of the Second Assistant Postmaster-General. Why did these people petition? Let me tell you. If you will look in every contract in this case you will find certain provisions relative to carrying the mail. Among others you will find this: That no contractor has any right to carry any newspaper or any letter faster than the schedule time; that he has no right to carry any commercial news, or to carry any man who has any commercial news about his person, faster than the schedule time. No mail can be carried by anybody except the United States, and if a community wants more mail it has no right to establish an express that will carry the mail faster, because the United States has the monopoly. Now, if you want more mail, what are you to do? You cannot start one yourself; the Government will not allow it. What have you to do? You have to petition the Government to carry the mail faster or to carry it more frequently; and the reason you have to ask the Government to do this is because the Government will not permit you to do it; consequently you have only one resort. What is that? Petition. And in this very case I believe his Honor used this language:
Every man carrying the mail has the right to take care of his business. He has the right to get up petitions. He has the right to call the attention of the people to what he supposes to be their needs in that regard. He has the right to do it, and the fact that he does it is not the slightest evidence that he has conspired with any human being.
Now, if the man carrying the mail has the right to call the attention of the people to their needs, have not the people the right to do all that themselves? If the man carrying the mail has the right to get up a petition, surely the people have the right; and if the people have the right, surely the man has that right. That is the only way we can find out in this country what the people want—that is, to hear from them. They have the right to tell what they want.
But these gentlemen say, "Anybody will sign a petition." Well, if that is true, there is no great necessity for forging one. Very few people will steal what they can get for the asking. If a bank or a man offers you all the money you want, you would hardly go and forge a check to get it. I will come to that in a few moments.