The Judicial History of Individual Liberty.
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THE JUDICIAL HISTORY OF INDIVIDUAL LIBERTY. XL BY VAN VECHTEN VEEDER. Of the New York Bar. The reprehensible activities of Attorneythe country; but this is not to be expected General Gibbs, in the second decade of the except by the removal of his present century, in attempting to suppress public majesty." It is difficult to understand why criticism by means of criminal informations, upon such a theory, the defendants were not may now be illustrated by some important charged with treason. In view of the fact trials during the years 1810 and 1811. that his usual counsel, Jekyll, was solicitor One of the most celebrated of these cases general to the Prince of Wales, Perry de was that of Lambert and Perry, printer fended himself and his co-defendant. He and proprietor respectively of the Morning demonstrated with great ability the injustice Chronicle, for an alleged libel on the person of this attempt to distort fair comment and and government of the king (31 St. Tr. 335)criticism into a personal libel. Lord EllenIn the Morning Chronicle of October 2, 1809, borough's charge to the jury marks an at the end of a political article animadvert epoch in State prosecutions for libel. He ing upon the accession of the Grenville party admitted that it might fairly be claimed that to the cabinet, this paragraph appeared: the portions selected should be taken in con "What a crowd of blessings rush upon one's nection with the whole article, and left it to mind, that might be bestowed upon the the jury to say whether "upon the fair con country in the event of a total change of struction of these words the writer meant to system! Of all the monarchs, indeed, since calumniate the person and character of the the Revolution, the successor of George III. sovereign." "If," he added, "you don't see will have the finest opportunity of becoming that it means distinctly and fairly to impute nobly popular/' For this short passage, ex any maladministrations to his majesty, or to tracted from a long leader, Lambert and those acting under him, but is at all recon Perry were brought to trial before Lord Elcilable to imputing only an erroneous view lenborough on a charge of criminal libel. of public administration, I am not prepared The information charged that the passage to say that it is a libel." "The greatest of tended to alienate and destroy the affections monarchs who have sat on the thrones of of the people towards their sovereign, and Europe, and who have been the promoters to bring his person and government into of the greatest blessings to their country in discredit. The prosecution was really based some respects, and who have contemplated upon the second sentence of the passage, its welfare with the greatest solicitude, have which, Attorney-General Gibbs contended, had their errors; but can a statement of that "fixed the era for the enjoyment of these be considered disparaging them?" The effect blessings to be the death of his present of this charge was, therefore, that while majesty." "It stirs up and influences the moral blame must not be imputed to the minds of the people against the king's per king, it is not libellous to suggest that his son, and is, in other words (joining the two measures may be mistaken. That such a parts of the sentence together) neither more judge as Ellenborough should make this nor less than this, that a total change of sys concession is a striking illustration of the tem would bestow a crowd of blessings on advance that had been made in freedom of
