prosecution, might have sold no others. She might have changed her intention to sell. The pamphlets might have lain like bad verses untouched on the shop counter, till they were turned over for waste paper, and not a soul have ever known of their contents. The Association, therefore, by their insidious and plotted purchase for the sole object of prosecution, have provoked the act of publication, and they, who provoke crimes are the criminals, and ought to be the culprits; and those, who would punish the crimes that they have provoked, are devils, and not men; “the tempters ere the accusers.” When I contemplate such conduct—but I will not waste another word, or another moment of your time upon this miserable Association. If I had consulted my better judgment, I should have passed them in silence; thus much my indignation has wrung from my contempt.
I shall now, gentlemen, proceed to the examination of the libel, or rather that which is charged as a libel itself; and I shall begin with the last part so charged in the indictment, instead (as my learned friend has done) with the first; and let me beg your regard to one remarkable fact, that at the very point of the paper, at which the motives, and design of the writer present themselves to the reader; at that very point this indictment stops. It has not, as you will presently see, the candour to proceed a single syllable farther. I will now read the passage, “Reform,” it says, “will be obtained when the existing authorities have no longer the power to withhold it, and not before, we shall gain it as early without petitioning as with it; and I would again put forward my opinion that something more than a petitioning attitude is necessary.” This it has been urged to you, with great emphasis, is an excitement to insurrection; and you are called upon to
draw that inference, though the author immediately afterwards disavows, expressly disavows any such intention. But even, if the words stood alone, I deny that you are compelled to such a construction. Gentlemen, will any one venture to say, that I, standing in this place, and in the very exercise of my profession, mean any thing, but what is strictly legal, when I say myself, that supposing reform in Parliament be necessary, something more than mere petitioning is requisite to obtain it? But in saying this, do I mean any thing violent or illegal? Heaven forbid; No: but I would have societies formed, and meetings held for the purpose of discussing that momentous subject. If reform be necessary, and the desire of a great majority of the country, I would have that desire shown unambiguously to the legislature, by resolutions and declarations at such meetings. Who will deny such societies and meetings to be legal? Yet, such meetings would be more than mere petitioning, much more: and the author means nothing beyond this; for I say, that in the absence of all other criteria, the only means of judging of a writer’s intentions are his words. Look then at the words which immediately follow the assertion, that “something more than a petitioning attitude is necessary.” If those words had been included in the indictment, this prosecution must have been at an end upon merely reading the charge, and those words, therefore, the Association avoided, as cautiously as they would the poison of a viper. They felt, that though the indicted words standing alone might perhaps admit of a doubt for a moment, yet the context completely explained them, and gave an air of perfect innocence to the whole passage. But you shall judge for yourselves: I will read the passage,—“Something more than a
petitioning attitude is necessary. At this moment I would not say a word about insurrection; but I would strongly recommend union, activity, and co-operation. Be ready and steady to meet any concurrent circumstance.” Now what kind of union, activity, and co-operation does he mean? Is it military association, marches, and attack? No. Hear the writer’s own words again:—“The Union Rooms at Manchester and Stockport are admirable models of co-operation, and are more calculated than any thing else to strengthen the body of reformers.” For what do the reformers assemble in these rooms? How do they co-operate there? Is it to consult how they shall arm and organize themselves, and seize with a violent hand the reform which they despair of gaining by petition? Nothing like it. The writer himself still tells you his meaning. “Here (that is at the Manchester and Stockport rooms) children are educated, and adults instruct each other. Here there is a continual and frequent communication between all the reformers in those towns.” This, then, and no other, is the co-operation which the author intended, and proposes. If any man, taking the paper in his hand and reading the whole paragraph, can say that any thing more is meant, to his reason I should cease to appeal. I should sit down in silent despair of making any impression on such an understanding; but you, gentlemen, I ask you, adding the words which I have read to the broken passage, which is insidiously separated and included in the indictment, can there be a doubt remaining in any rational and unprejudiced mind, that the union and co-operation called for by this Address from those who desire reform in Parliament, is nothing more than the establishment at other places, of rooms, on the model of those at Stockport and Manchester;
where children and adults are instructed, and information disseminated on the subject of Parliamentary Reform. And if this is all that is meant, there is an end of this part of the indictment; for it cannot be libelous to recommend in a writing the people to do that, which it is perfectly legal to do.
With regard to reform itself, I cannot know, whether any of you are advocates for it or opposed to it, nor is it requisite that I should; I do not ask you to think or say with me, and others, that reform in Parliament is necessary, and that nothing but reform can save the country from ruin; all that I ask of you is to allow me and others credit for the conscientiousness of our opinions, and charitably admit, if yours are opposite, that though we may be mistaken in our judgments, we must not of necessity be criminal in our intentions. I leave you and every man to the free exercise of your thoughts, and the free enjoyment of the conclusions to which they lead you. Let this liberality be reciprocal, and concede the same freedom to others which you demand for yourselves. I have always thought that a difference in religious and political matters need not and ought not to create hostility of feeling, and sever those, who would otherwise be friends. I myself enjoy the friendship of several, who entertain very different opinions from mine upon those subjects; and yet that difference has not, and never shall, on my part, at least, disturb our friendship. In all questions in which you cannot have mathematical demonstration, there may be fair, honest, conscientious difference of opinion; and you cannot have geometrical proof in questions of religion, politics, and morals. The very nature of the subjects altogether excludes it. To expect it, as Bishop Sanderson says, would be as absurd as to expect to see with the ear
and to hear with the eye. So various are our opinions upon these subjects, that we not only differ from one another upon them, but at different times we find we differ from ourselves; and, as another learned churchman, in more recent times, has said, what could be more unjust than to quarrel with other men for differing in opinion from him, when no two men ever differed more from one another than he at different times differed on the very same subject from himself. Under this state of uncertainty in human judgment, I call upon you, and I am sure I shall not call in vain, to be slow to condemn the opinions of others, because they are different from your own; and, therefore, if any of you should think reform in Parliament needless, or even dangerous, I still call upon you (though the writer of this paper should be a reformer, and even though he is called in reproach a radical reformer) not to condemn the defendant in this case through prejudice against the author’s opinions; but solely to enquire (be those opinions ever so just or ever so absurd) whether he is sincere in entertaining them; for, if he be (as I shall show you presently from the highest authority) the law does not consider him criminal. Try him by this test, and this test, and this alone; and then, whatever may be your verdict, you will be free from reproach, and secure to yourselves quiet by day, and sound slumbers by night; for you will have discharged your duty to yourselves, to the defendant, and to the country.
With regard, gentlemen, to the other part of the alleged libel, I must bespeak your patience; for I am afraid that I shall be drawn by my comments upon it into considerable length. (I am afraid, gentlemen, I weary you, and I am sorry for it. If I had had leisure, I would have condensed my observations; but, under the circumstances I have
disclosed to you, I hope you will forgive me for occupying more of your attention than I would otherwise have done. I really have not had time to be short.) To return to the passage in the paper, which is first charged as a libel: it denies the existence of any constitution in Great Britain. Now whether there be anything malicious and criminal in this, depends entirely upon the meaning which the author attaches to the word constitution. I confess it is a word that gives me a very indistinct and uncertain idea; and I believe that if any of you were now suddenly to ask yourselves what you understood by it, you would find you were not very ready to give yourselves an answer; and if you could even satisfactorily answer yourselves, you would find if you were to go further and question your neighbour, that he would give you a very different definition from your own. In itself it means nothing more than simply a standing or placing together; and it really seems to me rather hard and venturous to indict a man for denying the existence of something (whatever it may be) expressed by the most indefinite term in our whole language. But, if we were agreed upon the ideas which should be attached to the word, let us examine whether, allowing for a certain freedom of expression and the earnest eagerness with which a man who is sincere in his doctrines enforces them in his composition, a writer may not, without being exposed to a charge of criminal intention, assert that there is no constitution in this country. And let us take with us to this examination, that a man is not to be too strictly tied to words, when under the impulse of warm and keen feelings, and when the thoughts flow, as it were, at once from the heart into the pen, he sits down to excite his countrymen to their good, or warn them of their danger. You must not think to bind him down with the shackles
of verbal criticism, when he is too intent upon his theme exactly to measure his expressions. Now, that the writer of this paper is sincere in his opinions, whatever the quality of those opinions is, it is difficult not to believe. He published his opinions, though he exposed himself to punishment for them, and he perseveres in them while he is suffering a heavy punishment. You can have no more convincing proof of sincerity than this. But, what if a political writer has, in the warmth of composition, asserted that in England we have no constitution, who can misunderstand him? We cannot suppose he meant that there was a dissolution of all law and government; because we know and feel the contrary. Few would have occasion to ask him what he meant. If, however, he were asked, he should explain by telling you, that the constitution in theory is very much corrupted from the practice; and I and you, and every person must admit, that the practice has strayed wide from the theory; and, forced to admit this, I assert with a writer, who (whatever was thought of him once, and whilst those who were the objects of his reproach still lived) is now the pride and boast of the country, both for the supreme elegance and the principles of his political writings, that “wherever the practice deviates from the theory so far the practice is vicious and corrupt.” Now, saying no more than this, and when it would have been the merest stupidity to understand him literally, how can the writer be convicted of a design to bring the Government into hatred and contempt, because he has expressed his meaning by saying figuratively “there is no Constitution.” But he has previously said, that to talk about the British Constitution is, in his opinion, dishonesty. I know he has. I did not mean to pass it, I will not, gentlemen, shrink from any part of