Legitimism

“ By the same principle that they have been put in possession of territory, have they sought to sustain themselves—the same violence, the same fraud, and the same oppression have been made use of to sustain their illegitimacy. ”

“ Liberty of speech, which is the very breath of a Republic,—the press, which is the terror of wrong-doers,—the bar, through which the oppressed beards the arrogance of law,—the jury, by which right is vindicated,—all these must be struck down, while officers are provided in all places, ready to be the tools of this Tyranny; and then, to obtain final assurance that their crime is secure, the whole Usurpation, stretching over the Territory, must be fastened and riveted by legislative bolt, spike, and screw, so as to defy all effort at change through ordinary forms of law. ”

“ The favourite Subject of its Clamours will be the Misconduct of Those who govern. And in a Country where Liberty is justly ranked among the greatest national Blessings, the most plausible Pretence of Faction will be, "to load the executive Power with the Charge of Despotism." ”

“ The tribunal of public opinion, open to all, scattered its decrees with a reckless cruelty—denying to-day what it had decreed but yesterday, and at last obliterating every trace of ‘right’ or ‘principle’ in a people who now only lived for the passing hour, and who had no faith in the future, even of this world. ”

“ If they should now absurdly magnify and exalt the Privileges of the lower House, beyond the Limits prescribed by a free Constitution:—If their Pretence should be the Vindication of the People's Rights; while their real Motive was "the Restoration of their own exorbitant Power, founded on an expected Majority of their own Dependents:"—
If this Conduct was pursued by any Set of Men, they would stand convicted of a clear Mark of Licentiousness and Faction. ”

“ If they do not own us as property, they are not our masters, and their will, as such, is of no authority over us.
But these men who claim and exercise this absolute and irresponsible dominion over us, dare not be consistent, and claim either to be our masters, or to own us as property. They say they are only our servants, agents, attorneys, and representatives. But this declaration involves an absurdity, a contradiction. No man can be my servant, agent, attorney, or representative, and be, at the same time, uncontrollable by me, and irresponsible to me for his acts. ”

“ Simply to the influence of one man, who through the press, by spoken discourses, and by legal measures, had taught the persons who were present at the sessions of the legislature that they were not the people, and that it was ruinous to the Republic for them to taint the atmosphere of absolute liberty, which the representative of the people should breathe, by expressing their own crude opinions in the sanctuary of the law. ”

“ Mayor, it would not lessen nor abrogate his old jurisdiction: That they are both civil officers; and that an offence in the lesser is more pardonable than an offence in the greater: That the doctrines of unbroken hereditary right, and of blind obedience, are the flights and forgeries of flatterers, who belie heaven, and abuse men, to make their own court to power, and that not one of them will stand the trial himself: In fine, the government, honest and legal government, is imperium legum non hominum, the authority of law, and not of lust. ”

“ Thus, hatched by Licentiousness, Faction would attain to its enormous Growth: The unprincipled among the Great would form the Head, the unprincipled among the Populace would form the Body, of this rapacious Monster. ”

“ If ever there had been a Time, when All who presumed to dissent in any Degree from those in Power, were indiscriminately and unjustly branded with the Name of Jacobite or Tory;—and if These very Men who had bestowed such Appellations should now deal them as freely round, on All who assent to Those in Power:—This were surely a clear Indication, that the Spirit of Faction were abroad. ”

“ Every candid and impartial observer will acknowledge that the public voice is not raised against government itself, nor against the many admirable institutions of this country; but against the perversions of government; against unconstitutional and wicked rulers; against abuses of trust, office, and authority; against impositions and corruptions pervading every department of the state, which have been reduced to system, and teem with every species of fraud, tyranny, and oppression ”

“ And therefore we are still at liberty, at all events, to entertain the belief that the sight of a single politician suffering a felon's doom by the impartial and righteous judgment of a court of law, for the corrupt betrayal of his public trust, would have a more salutary effect than the interested and reckless denunciations of all the party orators and journalists in the world. ”

“ Let us suppose, therefore, that the government is entirely at one with the people, and never thinks of exerting any power of coercion unless in agreement with what it conceives to be their voice. But I deny the right of the people to exercise such coercion, either by themselves or by their government. ”

“ A close corporation of magistrates without representative character, without legislative or political rights, without traditions to which to appeal, without force on which to rely, was ludicrously unfit to stand forth as the champion of national interests against a Crown, which at that very moment had assumed the headship of European politics. ”

“ Or, in the absence of a more regular law and police, they may maintain the empire of justice by stretching forth the arm of their own authority in substitution for that of the state, which lies paralysed and powerless, and turning to account even the superstitions and terrors of the popular imagination by making these, as excited by their dark organization and mysterious forms of procedure, the chain whereby to secure the popular obedience. ”

“ I cannot perceive that a negative, able to prevent such aggressions, which may alter the theory of our government, is less necessary for the preservation of liberty, if the integrity of the State rights is necessary for that purpose, than the tribunitial, regal, executive, senatorial, representative, and judicial negatives. ”

“ He who uses the influence of the executive to control the choice of the representatives of the people, violates the first principles of the constitution, is guilty of political sacrilege, and profanes the very sanctuary of the people’s rights and liberties; and if he should not be called a partisan, it is only because some harsher and more appropriate term ought to be applied to his delinquency.
I will recall to your minds an instance of violation of the constitution, which will illustrate the situation of my client, and the protection which, for your own sakes, you owe him. ”

“ Let me ask, Will the people intrust their dearest fights and liberties to the determination of one body of men, and those not chosen by them, and who are invested both with the sword and purse? They never will—they never can—to a conclave, transacting their business secret from the eye of the public. ”

“ By the argument for the plaintiff in error, a power equally despotic is vested in every member of the association, and the most obscure or unworthy individual it comprises may arbitrarily invade and derange its most deliberate and solemn ordinances. At assumptions anomalous as these, so fraught with mischief and ruin, the mind at once is revolted, and goes directly to the conclusions that to change or to abolish a fundamental principle of the society must be the act of the society itself — of the sovereignty, and that none other can admit to a participation of that high attribute. ”

“ To our continual representation against the liberties which the American newspapers take with our Government, with our Emperor, with our Imperial Family, and with our Imperial Ministers, the answer has always been, "Prosecute the libeller, and as soon as he is convicted he will be punished." ”

“ No political truth is certainly of greater intrinsic value or is stamped with the authority of more enlightened patrons of liberty than that on which this objection is founded. The accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive, and judiciary, in the same hands, whether of one, few, or many, and whether hereditary, self-appointed, or elective, may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny. ”

“ The Rulers who are guilty of such an encroachment exceed the commission from which they derive their authority, and are Tyrants. The People who submit to it are governed by laws made neither by themselves nor by an authority derived from them, and are slaves. ”

“ But should any one who is summoned before the tribunal of this Public Opinion dare to despise its authority, then total perplexity takes possession of the minds of its representatives, and to the end of their lives they gaze in profound astonishment at the man who has had courage sufficient to scorn their jurisdiction. ”

“ If these Outrages should be publicly committed by some; and winked at or countenanced, or patronized by others;—surely, all honest Men ought to joyn, in declaring their Abhorrence of such atrocious Acts of Licentiousness and Faction, perpetrated in Defiance of All Laws, both human and divine. ”

“ They may command what is right and prohibit what is wrong; but they cannot change innocence into guilt, or punish innocence as a crime, or violate the right of an antecedent lawful private contract, or the right of private property. To maintain that a Federal or State legislature possesses such powers if they had not been expressly restrained, would, in my opinion, be a political heresy altogether inadmissible in all free republican governments.' 3 Dall. ”

“ Secret societies organized for the accomplishment of a pretended public good, and then lending themselves to the commission of crime, cannot be too severely denounced by every lover of honest law and open liberty. ”

“ It has been a common method of eluding the efficacy of arguments, to charge the opponent with blind adherence to interest, or corrupt compliance with the directions of a court; nor has it been less frequent to prevent inquiries into publick measures, by representing them as the clamours of faction, the murmurs of disobedience, and the prelude to rebellion. ”

“ When they do any thing derogatory to the honor or interest of their country, they are to try themselves. Is it so in England? The history of that country shows that they have blocks and gibbets. The violators of the public interest have been tried justly and impartially, and perished by those necessary instruments of justice. Can there be any security where offenders mutually try one another? ”

“ I proceed in the operation with deliberation and inquiry, that it may injure the best men least, and effect the purposes of justice and public utility with the least private distress; that it may be thrown, as much as possible, on delinquency, on oppression, on intolerance, on ante-revolutionary adherence to our enemies. ”

“ And a liberated criminal can, in this circumstance as in others, deny, with right and reason, the impartiality of the institutions in the name of which he is condemned. Is it necessary to say what there is in this dangerous to society, to justify such attacks? ”

“ Some of these powers, dominions, governments, and rulers, have had in their possession the laws of God, and the admonitions of Jesus Christ; and what have they done to his servants in different ages of the world, when he has sent them unto them? This question I need not stop to answer, for you are already made too familiar with it. This, then, is the position of the world. Authority, dominion, rule, government has been obtained by fraud, and consequently is not legitimate. ”

“ Thirdly, I answer, that this doctrine of a power in the people of providing for their safety a-new, by a new legislative, when their legislators have acted contrary to their trust, by invading their property, is the best fence against rebellion, and the probablest means to hinder it: for rebellion being an opposition, not to persons, but authority, which is founded only in the constitutions and laws of the government ”

“ On the other hand, any people, that judge of, and determine authoritatively for the government, what are their own liberties against the government, of course retain all the liberties they wish to enjoy. ”

“ They cannot declare justice and judgment, and they shall not be found where dark parables are spoken.' Yet, Sir, these are the men who, in our disastrous times, have menaced and governed the popular branch of our legislature, till they have drawn away all but their own partizans, and denied their King the rights of conscience, while they claim for themselves unbounded licence. ”

“ If the writer's condemnation or acquital, is to depend on the political factions, and selected by an officer, under the absolute influence and control of his prosecutors and enemies; will it not put a total stop to all political writings, but those in favor of the measures of government: and how long will even the shadow of liberty remain, after the door of information, is by that means effectually barred against the body of the people? ”

“ Strictly speaking, then, the power partakes of a political character, as it respects injuries to the society in its political character; and, on this account, it requires to be guarded in its exercise against the spirit of faction, the intolerance of party, and the sudden movements of popular feeling. The prosecution will seldom fail to agitate the passions of the whole community, and to divide it into parties, more or less friendly, or hostile to the accused. ”