come before us, with minds heated with prejudice and filled with
passions, with vain popular opinions and humours, and when we propose to
examine into the justice of others, to be unjust ourselves.

An inquiry is wished, as the most effectual way of putting an end to the
clamours and libels, which are the disorder and disgrace of the times.
For people remain quiet, they sleep secure, when they imagine that the
vigilant eye of a censorial magistrate watches over all the proceedings
of judicature, and that the sacred fire of an eternal constitutional
jealousy, which is the guardian of liberty, law, and justice, is alive
night and day, and burning in this house. But when the magistrate gives
up his office and his duty, the people assume it, and they inquire too
much, and too irreverently, because they think their representatives do
not inquire at all.

We have in a libel, 1st. The writing. 2nd. The communication, called
by the lawyers the publication. 3rd. The application to persons and
facts. 4th. The intent and tendency. 5th. The matter--diminution of
fame. The law presumptions on all these are in the communication. No
intent can, make a defamatory publication good, nothing can make it have
a good tendency; truth is not pleadable. Taken juridically, the
foundation of these law presumptions is not unjust; taken
constitutionally, they are ruinous, and tend to the total suppression of
all publication. If juries are confined to the fact, no writing which
censures, however justly, or however temperately, the conduct of
administration, can be unpunished. Therefore, if the intent and tendency
be left to the judge, as legal conclusions growing from the fact, you may
depend upon it you can have no public discussion of a public measure,
which is a point which even those who are most offended with the
licentiousness of the press (and it is very exorbitant, very provoking)
will hardly contend for.

So far as to the first opinion, that the doctrine is right and needs no
alteration. 2nd. The next is, that it is wrong, but that we are not in a
condition to help it. I admit, it is true, that there are cases of a
nature so delicate and complicated, that an Act of Parliament on the
subject may become a matter of great difficulty. It sometimes cannot
define with exactness, because the subject-matter will not bear an exact
definition. It may seem to take away everything which it does not
positively establish, and this