What! are the people of
this free and independent country to be told that they have no
constitution? It is an assertion, the malignity of which is only
equalled by its falsehood. We have a free and glorious constitution. It
has descended to us from our brave and free ancestors, and I trust that
we, too, shall have virtue and magnanimity enough to transmit it
unimpaired to our posterity. We have laws, too, equal in their
administration. We have a constitution where no lowness of birth--no
meanness of origin--operate as an obstacle to preferment; in which the
chief situations are open to competition, and for which the only
qualifications are integrity and information. Our laws are here
stigmatized as partial and corrupt. If they were not impartial, this man
would never have dared to vilify them. The very accusation proves that
the charge is false; for if it were true, this libeler must have suddenly
suffered for this assertion. It is because that they are administered in
a spirit of mercy unknown to the laws of any other country--it is because
they are administered in tenderness, that this man has had the power to
promulgate his vile and odious falsehood. He thought it meet and right,
and most becoming too, to tell the world that this was not the precise
time for insurrection. He plainly indicates, that he has no objection to
it; but he would not say a word about it at present, the time was not
come; but he tells his fellow reformers to be "ready and steady to meet
any concurrent circumstances." Gentlemen, it would be an idle and
impertinent waste of time to make any further observations upon the
pernicious tendency of this libel. But what is the defence which is to
be set up by my learned friend? Are we to be told that the prosecution
of this libel is an invasion of the liberty of the press? I will not
yield to my learned friend, nor to any man in existence, in a just regard
for the freedom of the press. But who, I would ask, is invading its
liberty? He who brings to justice the offenders, or he who under the
sacred form of liberty promulgates such language as I have just read to
you? I do not think that on this subject you can entertain a doubt. I
feel the most perfect confidence in committing this case to your good
sense. If you believe that the defendant is guilty of publishing this
libel with the intention charged, you will pronounce your verdict of
guilty. If, on the other hand, you think that the