Tlic Judicial History of Individual Liberty.
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THE JUDICIAL HISTORY OF INDIVIDUAL LIBERTY.
v. BY VAN VECHTEN VEEDER, Of the New York Bar. THE trial and conviction of Daniel Dammaree in 1700 (15 St. Tr. 522) is one of the conspicuous landmarks in the develop ment of the pernicious doctrine of construc tive treason. During SacheveKell'.s trial his motley following had become riotous in his support, and among other acts of violence, a mob had proceeded to pull down meeting houses of the Dissenters, crying, "Down with the Presbyterians." Dammaree, a waterman, had been one of the leaders of this mob, and he 'was forthwith tried and convicted of high treason in levying war against the queen. Lord Chief Justice Parker's views will appear from the follow ing passage in his summing-up: "There is a vast difference between a man's going to remove an annoyance to himself, and going to remove a public nui sance, as in the case of the bawdy-houses, and the general intention to pull them down all is treason; for if those that were con cerned for them would defend them, and the others would pull them down, there would be a war immediately. ... A bawdy-house is a nuisance, and may be punished as such; and if it be a particular prejudice to any one, if he himself should go in an unlawful manner to redress that prejudice, it might be only a riot; but if he will set up to pull them all down in general, he has taken the queen's right out of her hand; he has made it a general thing, and when they are once up they may call every man's house a bawdy-house; and this is a general thing; it affects the whole nation." Since, there fore, this mob proceeded with the avowed intention of demolishing all dissenting meet ing-houses, as far as they were able, those
who participated in its acts were guilty of treason. By such artificial reasoning, ignor ing all consideration of treasonable intent, was the life of the subject jeopardized in the first decade of the eighteenth century. This construction remained unquestioned until the trial of Lord Gordon in 1778. In 1719 Matthews was tried and convicted {or treason under the provision of the statute defining the offense of asserting the right of the Pretender (15 St. Tr. 323). Matthews was the printer of such a treasonable libel. It is believed that he was the last person executed for treason of this kind. The trials of the- leaders of the rebellion of 1715 (15 St. Tr.), and of Layer and his fellow Jacobite conspirators in 1722 (16 St. Tr. 94), present no unusual features. Nor was there anything remarkable, in a legal sense, in the trials of the leaders of the rebellion of 1745 (18 St. Tr. 530). From the noble and courtly Kilmarnock and Balmerino to the infamous Lovat they were un deniably guilty of treason, and, together with seventy-four companions in arms, they paid the penalty of death. The spectacle of the notorious Lord Lovat, after a long life of debauchery and crime, repeating with his dying lips the famous line of Horace, "Dulce et decorum est pro patria morí," was in keep ing with his truly remarkable career. During this period the practice of im peachment practically succumbed to its own excesses. It has ever been the weapon of party warfare, and no more disgraceful ex hibition of party spirit has ever been given than the attempt by a Tory House of Com mons, in 1701, to impeach the Whig peers, Somers, Portland and others, for high treas
