Counterclaim

“ As we are apt to be mistaken in our judgment with regard to the general character of persons, so are we equally so with regard to their evil intentions. An offence is taken from something that has been said or done to us. Now what has been said or done, may not have been the result of either ill-will or malice. It may have been the result of a wrong judgment they had hastily formed, or from some excited state of mind they may have been led to say, or act as they did. ”

“ But if the accusation relates merely to our name—and it is undeniable, that up to the present time the stories told about us rest on nothing better than the common undiscriminating popular talk, nor has any Christian been convicted of crime—it will devolve on you, illustrious and benevolent and most learned sovereigns, to remove by law this despiteful treatment, so that, as throughout the world both individuals and cities partake of your beneficence, we also may feel grateful to you, exulting that we are no longer the victims of false accusation. ”

“ There is no difficulty in either of these courses; it is as easy to utter an opinion about a matter on which you are not deliberating as it is to make accusations which nobody is going to answer. But it is not just to ask you to give a verdict in accordance with justice when they observe no justice in making their accusations. And you are responsible for this abuse, for it is you who have given this licence to those who appear before you....’ [430]
The whole speech is pervaded by references to religion ”

“ In all cases the Christian must prefer to suffer wrong rather than to do it.
IX. Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour. This commandment, converted from the negative—the prohibition of wilful slander—to the positive, becomes an injunction to make the law of love the motive of all our speech, with as tender a regard to others’ reputation as to our own. We may have to speak painful truth against others, to rebuke, to accuse, to punish, etc., but the motive of all speech is to be a deliberate good will. ”

“ Finding that they could neither answer nor controvert my principles, nor put me down, they have been base enough to resort to slander, and to the most wanton and barefaced falsehoods, which they have trumped up to blacken me. ”

“ We venture, therefore, to lay a statement of our case before you—and you will learn from this discourse that we suffer unjustly, and contrary to all law and reason—and we beseech you to bestow some consideration upon us also, that we may cease at length to be slaughtered at the instigation of false accusers. ”

“ Their claims are so affecting, and so obvious, the remedy that would save them from all pain is so cheap and simple, that it is, we feel, only necessary to appeal to the public to obtain by acclamation a verdict in their favour. ”

“ Yet how utterly opposite is the bearing of many, who are ever ready to take offence if anything is omitted to which they have a claim—standing upon their rights, claiming precedence over this one and the other, maintaining that it would never do to allow themselves to be trampled on, thinking it spirited to contend for their honours! It is because this tendency is so deeply seated in human nature that you need to be so watchful against it. ”

“ If it be once made a controversy, whether perjury be a sin, or whether a vow materially lawful bind, or whether it be lawful to equivocate, or lie with a mental reservation for the truth, or to do the greatest evil, or speak the falsest thing with a true and good intent and meaning, almost all the hypocrites in the country will be for the sinful part, if their fleshly interest require it; and will think themselves wronged, if they are accounted hypocrites, liars, or perjured, as long as it is but a point of controversy among learned men. ”

“ The accusation goes everywhere, is copied into every printed rag; the contradiction dies with the daily death of a single newspaper. You may reply that a man of sense will be indifferent to false accusations. ”

“ In this refusal to do justice there is contradiction; and as error exists where contradiction lies, it is precisely in that contradiction that we must seek the means of refuting error and assert the power of truth. ”

“ If he act in direct opposition to his religious principles, you charge him with hypocrisy; if he act in conformity with them, he is subjected to the same imputation, with this essential difference in his favour—that the first accusation would be just, while the latter would be groundless."
Mrs. John Roscoe.—"I very much dislike indiscriminate and wholesale accusations. We ought not to censure one person on account of the imperfections of another; nor insinuate a charge against any one, unless we have strong evidence to sustain it." ”

“ If, on the contrary, the man without should reproach us, either for actions which we never performed, or for motives which had no influence upon those which we may have performed, the man within may immediately correct this false judgment, and assure us, that we are by no means the proper objects of that censure which has so unjustly been bestowed upon us. ”

“ You have no alternative. If you convict my client, you condemn, upon your oaths, your own political creed; and declare it to be a libel to charge any man with energy in your cause.
If you are not disposed to go this length of political inconsistency, and if you have determined to avoid the religious inconsistency of perjuring yourselves for the good and glory of the Protestant religion, do, I pray you, examine the rest of this paragraph, and see whether you can, by any ingenuity, detect that nondescript, a libel, in it. ”

“ It is, however, obvious that law and authority have no business with restraining either, while opinion ought, in every instance, to determine its verdict by the circumstances of the individual case; condemning every one, on whichever side of the argument he places himself, in whose mode of advocacy either want of candour, or malignity, bigotry, or intolerance of feeling manifest themselves ”

“ They testify against us, for our conviction, which tends to our present shame and confusion, and our future condemnation. They disprove and overthrow all our pleas for ourselves; and so not only accuse us, but answer against us. If we boast of our own excellencies, and trust to our own righteousness, our iniquities testify against us, and prove us perverse. ”

“ And in much the same way we may very profitably recognize contradiction or controversy, whether personal or social, as a necessary condition of all valid experience, but not on that account are we to cultivate what is contradictory, to be always blindly spoiling for a contradiction. Like crime or death, if directly courted, contradiction would lose its peculiar effectiveness. The both-sidedness or the all-sidedness, which at once develops and conserves human life, is only [p.152] that which is maintained with a tenacious, even with a would-be consistent loyalty to each and every side. ”

“ Hence, a contest in a court of justice, a controversy in a scientific journal, a public debate on some important matter, and a theological disputation are according to their nature lawful, and may be necessary. Even to argue against the truth, for the sake of practice in discussion or to bring out the truth more clearly and forcibly, is, apart from danger, scandal, or prohibition, not unuseful. ”

“ To censure guilt, my lords, is undoubtedly necessary, and to inquire into the conduct of men in power, incontestably just; but by the laws both of heaven and earth, the means as well as the end are prescribed, rectum recte, legitimum legitime faciendum; we must not only propose a good end in our conduct, but must attain it by that method which equity directs, and the law prescribes. ”

“ If you have done that and someone has had a wrong judgment given against him because of your falsehood, you would be obliged to repair all the harm that has been done and to compensate the person concerned, whether in his pocket or in his reputation, and to the fullest extent that you possibly can ”

“ For shortly to say the truth, these folk falsely accuse and slander all our doings; yea the same things which they themselves cannot deny but to be rightly and orderly done; and for malice do so misconstrue and deprave all our sayings and doings, as though it were impossible that anything could be rightly spoken or done by us. They should more plainly and sincerely have gone to work if they would have dealt truly. ”

“ If an action for libel or slander cannot be maintained, how can such an action as I have mentioned be maintained, it being in truth an action for defamation in an altered form? Every objection and every reason, which can be urged against an action for libel or slander, will equally apply against the suggested form of action. ”

“ Do you use this phrase to deceive those whom you look upon as being so ignorant, so destitute of reason, as to be deceived by idle, unmeaning words? If you do not, you are plainly bound to let us all know what you do mean, by doing "equal and exact justice to all men." ”

“ The offence of believing another's word, even rashly, is not so heinous that for the sake of discouraging it, the spectacle should be brought home to every door, of triumphant rascality, with the law on its side, mocking the victims it has made. ”

“ If one, then, violate his engagements, and go aside from the confession which he makes before us, are we not to stick to the truth because he has belied his profession? But as the good man must not prove false or fail to ratify what he has promised, although others violate their engagements ”

“ And you who should instruct people in the ways of truth and peace, do not you by your wisdom teach them lies and strife? Do not you advise your plaintiffs, as you call them, to declare in bills, things that are not true, and make small offences seem very great by false glosses? ”

“ May he so manipulate the facts in his plea as to convince a jury of what he is himself not convinced? May he by use of the argumentum ad populum, by his eloquence and skill, win a case which he does not believe in at heart? In some ancient codes lawyers had to swear not to defend causes which they believed unjust. ”

“ Candor will oblige us to admit that even such men may be actuated by upright intentions; and it cannot be doubted that much of the opposition which has made its appearance, or may hereafter make its appearance, will spring from sources, blameless at least, if not respectable—the honest errors of minds led astray by preconceived jealousies and fears. So numerous indeed and so powerful are the causes which serve to give a false bias to the judgment, that we, upon many occasions, see wise and good men on the wrong as well as on the right side of questions of the first magnitude to society. ”

“ But that will be a common topic for the advocate of the defence to use, by which he will express indignation that the accuser not only alters facts in order to bring him into danger, but that he attempts also to alter words. For those common topics which are assumed either for the purpose of demonstrating the falsehood of the accusations of the prosecutor, or for exciting pity, or for expressing indignation at an action, or for the purpose of deterring people from showing pity, are derived from the magnitude of the danger, not from the nature of the cause. ”

“ Fourthly, We should think our selves oblig'd to set our Names to our Writings in Controversy, especially where it is such a warm one as is ours at present. The [Pg 10] Observation of this Rule would not only prevent much of the Violation of the two former; but would hinder abundance of the Dirt of Scandal, Lies and Defamations, that we too often throw at each other. ”

“ But the speaker for the defence must pass over or discredit all the arguments employed to raise suspicion, and will limit himself to a narration of the actual facts and events which have taken place. But in the corroboration of our own arguments, and in the invalidation of those of our adversaries, it will be often the object of the accuser to rouse the feelings of the minds of his hearers, and of the advocate for the defence to pacify them. ”

“ My last and firm determination is, that I refuse to confess as erroneous the articles which have been truly extracted from my works, and that I refuse to abjure those which have been attributed to me by false witnesses; for to abjure implies that one has held erroneous opinions—it is, in fact, to reject them, and adopt others of a contrary tendency. ”

“ And yet less, my lords, can I suspect, that those by whom he is accused, act from any motive that may influence them to desire a sentence not supported by evidence, or conformable to truth; or that they can wish the ruin of any man whose crimes are not notorious and flagrant, that they persecute from private malice, or endeavour to exalt themselves by the fall of another. ”

“ I am speaking here about those offences regarding which laws are established, and judgments are rendered according to the laws.
"As for talk that some one has abused you or spoken in an unfitting way about you, do not listen to any one who brings such an accusation nor investigate it. It is disgraceful to believe that any one has wantonly insulted you who are doing no wrong and benefiting all. ”

“ Negative precepts of the natural law may not be contravened in order to avoid the scandal of the weak; for such contravention is necessarily sinful. Hence, one may not lie or commit perjury to prevent scandal. ”

“ The fourth is the false pleaders, that receive and sustain wittingly false causes, and plead them for hire and for gifts, which they take on the right hand and on the left, and often lose good suits by their sin, or because of ignorance or through sloth turn aside the rights and do all the wrongs on account of their covetousness, as those that are masters of guile and of dispute and of false accusation. ”