sion, and upon the credit of
such evidence you are to convict him, never did you, never can you, give
a sentence consigning any man to public punishment with less danger to
his person or to his fame; for where could the hireling be found to
fling contumely or ingratitude at his head whose private distress he had
not labored to alleviate, or whose public condition he had not labored
to improve?"

Speaking of the liberty of the press, he says--

"What, then, remains? The liberty of the press only; that sacred
Palladium, which no influence, no power, no government, which nothing
but the folly or the depravity, or the folly or the corruption, of a
jury ever can destroy. And what calamities are the people saved from by
having public communication kept open to them! I will tell you,
gentlemen, what they are saved from; I will tell you also to what both
are exposed by shutting up that communication. In one case, sedition
speaks aloud and walks abroad; the demagogue goes forth; the public eye
is upon him; he frets his busy hour upon the stage; but soon either
weariness, or bribe, or punishment, or disappointment, bears him down,
or drives him off, and he appears no more. In the other case, how does
the work of sedition go forward? Night after night the muffled rebel
steals forth in the dark, and casts another brand upon the pile, to
which, when the hour of fatal maturity shall arrive, he will apply the
flame. If you doubt of the horrid consequences of suppressing the
effusion of even individual discontent, look to those enslaved countries
where the protection of despotism is supposed to be secured by such
restraints. Even the person of the despot there is never in safety.
Neither the fears of the despot, nor the machinations of the slave, have
any slumber--the one anticipating the moment of peril, the other
watching the opportunity of aggression. The fatal crisis is equally a
surprise upon both; the decisive instant is precipitated without
warning, by folly on the one side, or by frenzy on the other; and there
is no notice of the treason till the traitor acts. In those unfortunate
countries--one cannot read it without horror--there are officers whose
province it is to have the water which is to be drank by their rulers,
sealed up in bottles, lest some wretched miscreant should throw poison
into the draught. But, gentlemen, if you wish for a nearer and a more
interesting example, you have it in the history of your own Revolutio