Incitement

“ There is only one way to put a stop to this agitation; there is only one way to break down this agitation. It is not by deporting us, it is not by locking us up in gaol; it is by doing us justice. And so I appeal to you gentlemen, in this case of mine, to give a verdict, not only on my case, but upon the whole of this agitation. I ask you to find me not guilty of malicious incitement to a breach of the law. ”

“ Would you like to know how dangerously and harmfully that incitement, unless it has been carefully eradicated, will shoot up for the destruction of its owner, and put forth all sorts of branches of different sins? ”

“ It is said that this manifesto was more than a theory, that it was an incitement. Every idea is an incitement. ”

“ Mandates so wantonly oppressive, which, without any rational object, were calculated to create crime by leading either to a violation of the consciences of the lieges or the laws of the land, seem to carry on their face an incitement to insurrection; and when the manner in which they were put in execution, among a sturdy peasantry, is remembered, it is truly astonishing that they did not excite a spirit of insubordination, general and deadly, and in truth produce those very outrages of which the calumniated Presbyterians were falsely accused. ”

“ All incitements to great crimes are thus wanting, and petty ones are repressed, partly by the influence of public opinion, but chiefly by that natural sense of justice and of his neighbour's right, which seems to be, in some degree, inherent in every race of man. ”

“ Assassination is the extreme form of censorship; and it seems hard to justify an incitement to it on anti-censorial principles. ”

“ Be it enacted, &c., That if any person or persons, residing in any State or Territory, shall unlawfully combine or conspire together, with intent to invade, assail, or molest the government, inhabitants, property, or institutions, of any other State or Territory, or if any person or persons, with intent as aforesaid, shall counsel, advise, or attempt to procure any riot, invasion, unlawful assembly, or combination, whether such conspiracy, threatening, counsel, advice, or attempt, shall have the proposed effect or not, he or they shall be deemed guilty of a high misdemeanor ”

“ A report has been spread abroad for this week past, that that part of the National Assembly which approves the concurrence of the royal will, in the exercise of the right of peace and war, has incurred the guilt of parricide against public liberty. Rumors of perfidy, of corruption, are disseminated; popular vengeance is invoked to aid the tyranny of opinion. One might assert that there can not, without a crime, exist two opinions upon one of the most delicate and most difficult questions of civil organization. ”

“ It is for the crime of treason, committed under these circumstances, that you are now called upon yourselves to answer; and by the penalty which you are about to suffer, you hold out a warning to all your fellow-subjects, that the law of your country is strong enough to repress and to punish all attempts to alter the established order of things, by insurrection and armed force, and that those who are found guilty of such treasonable attempts must expiate their crime by an ignominious death. ”

“ We fully believe in bringing these iniquities and enormities to light, and let the majesty of violated law, and the voice of injured innocence and contemned public opinion, speak in tones of thunder to these miscreants; but in behalf of hundreds and thousands of unoffending citizens, whose only fault is religious enthusiasm, and for the honor of our own names and reputation, let us not follow their desperado measures, and thereby dishonor ourselves in revenging our own wrongs. Let our motto be, "Last in attack, but first in defence;" ”

“ The question is whether a general amnesty to rebels is not far more urgently demanded by the public interest than a general pardon for thieves. Whatever may be said of the greatness and the heinous character of the crime of rebellion, a single glance at the history of the world and at the practice of other nations will convince you, that in all civilized countries the measure of punishment to be visited on those guilty of that crime is almost uniformly treated as a question of great policy and almost never as a question of strict justice. ”

“ I will pave the way with my colleagues of the Tribunal that must lead to clemency by exterminating conspirators and traitors. We will redouble our vigilance and our severity. No culprit shall escape us. And when the head of the last enemy of the Republic shall have fallen under the knife, then it will be given thee to be merciful without committing a crime, then thou canst inaugurate the reign of innocence and virtue in all the land, oh! ”

“ A dictatorial power, assumed by the commander of the American army—the military arrest of citizens, charged with a civil offence—the violation of the sanctuary of justice—an attempt to overawe, by denunciations, those who dared, professionally, to assert the authority of the laws—the unblushing avowal of the employment of military force, to punish a civil offence, and the hardy menace of persevering in the same course, were circumstances that must command attention, and excite the corresponding sentiments of grief, indignation, and contempt.' ”

“ And afterwards there had been the assize court, the judges, the gendarmes, the witnesses, the whole of France arrayed against one man and bent on making him pay for the universal crime. And finally, there had come the guillotine, the monstrous, the filthy beast consummating irreparable injustice in human justice’s name. ”

“ The Attorney-General opened the case to the jury in the following address: He said “Gentlemen, the prisoner stands charged with the crime of high{585} treason, the greatest crime known to the law, and he stands charged with that offence in its most aggravated form; he is charged with having made a direct attempt on the life of the sovereign. Gentlemen, that crime, according to the law of this country, and, indeed, of all countries in which monarchy is the form of government, must be considered as very heinous. ”

“ To allow a crime to be committed when you can prevent it, is next to committing the crime yourself. And yet, under the banner of non-resistance, the church has shed the blood of millions, and in the folds of her sacred vestments have gleamed the daggers of assassination. With her cunning hands she wove the purple for hypocrisy, and placed the crown upon the brow of crime. For a thousand years larceny held the scales of justice, while beggars scorned the princely sons of toil, and ignorant fear denounced the liberty of thought. ”

“ Certain officers talk to and convince the accused man by means of arguments until he himself acquiesces in the sentence of death passed upon him, or else he does not die. But if a crime has been committed against the liberty of the republic, or against God, or against the supreme magistrates, there is immediate censure without pity. ”

“ Section 55 denounces insurrection and defines it as 'any combined resistance to the lawful authority of the State, with intent to the denial thereof, when the same is manifested or intended to be manifested by acts of violence.' Section 56 denounces an attempt of incite insurrection and defines it as 'any attempt, by persuasion or otherwise, to induce others to join in any combined resistance to the lawful authority of the State.' Section 57 prescribes the punishment for each of these offenses. ”

“ It enacted that the advocacy of rebellion by writing or printing should be a penitentiary offense, and to express the opinion that masters had no rights to their slaves was made punishable by a fine of $500 and one year in jail. To advise conspiracy was treason and its punishment death. ”

“ There rests somewhere a fearful responsibility. This ill-timed attempt to punish with public hatred and infamy, or with fine and imprisonment, perhaps death, the innocent instead of the guilty, was the result either of a pitiable desire for unenviable notoriety, or of a culpable and unpardonable negligence on the part of those who were the sources of the movement. ”

“ Tyrannical governments had immemorially utilized dictatorial criminal procedure and punishment to make scape goats of the weak, or of helpless political, religious, or racial minorities and those who differed, who would not conform and who resisted tyranny. ”

“ They themselves being witnesses, the government which they assailed had done no act, and attempted no act, injurious to them, or in any sense violative of their rights as citizens and men; and yet for four years, without cause of complaint or colorable excuse, the inciters and instigators of the conspiracy charged upon your record have, by armed rebellion, resisted the lawful authority of the government, and attempted by force of arms to blot the republic from the map of nations. ”

“ Petitions from counties, cities, and boroughs, in all parts of the kingdom, were presented, crying for the justice due to an injured nation and the punishment of the villanous peculators. Those moderate men, who would not go to extreme lengths, even in the punishment of the guilty, were accused of being accomplices, were exposed to repeated insults and virulent invectives, and devoted, both in anonymous letters and public writings, to the speedy vengeance of an injured people. ”

“ But those who conspire against the constituted government connect in their sanguine hope the assurance of impunity with the execution of their crime, and would justly deride the mockery of an accusation which could only be preferred against them when their banners were unfurled, and their force arrayed. ”

“ It should seem, to my way of conceiving such matters, that there is a very wide difference in reason and policy between the mode of proceeding on the irregular conduct of scattered individuals, or even of bands of men, who disturb order within the state, and the civil dissensions which may, from time to time, on great questions, agitate the several communities which compose a great empire. It looks to me to be narrow and pedantic to apply the ordinary ideas of criminal justice so this great public contest. I do not know the method of drawing up an indictment against a whole people. ”

“ And when in this territory some years ago one wave of agitation followed another, of which your class, and some of you, were chief movers, until a reign of terror was produced, and a regime was established under which men guilty at most of a misdemeanor, could nevertheless be imprisoned for a term of years covering a lifetime, and fined to the exhaustion of all they possessed, under the beautiful scheme of segregating the offense into numerous counts in each indictment ”

“ The legislation also declares that insurrection or rebellion against the government, with intent to subvert the same, and murder, shall be punishable with death, but that no person shall be convicted thereof unless the consul and his associates in the trial all concur in the opinion, and the minister approves of the conviction. ”

“ But, if a simple citizen, for any ordinary crime, receives immediate punishment, if it is so difficult to reach a political crime, is it not necessary that extraordinary laws ... intimidate the rebels and reach the culpable? ”

“ The persecutions we have suffered were in violation of every good institution, of every wholesome law, of every institution and constitution which exist in the countries where they have been inflicted. ”

“ Article 3rd, 6th October, 1791.—Every one connected with a plot or conspiracy tending to disturb the tranquillity of the state, by civil war, by arming one class of citizens against the other, or against the exercise of legitimate authority, shall be punished with death. ”

“ These frightful punishments produced intense hatred of the government, and traitors continued to increase until they became powerful enough to decide what treason was and who the traitors were, and to inflict the same torments on others.
Think for a moment of what man has suffered in the cause of crime. Think of the millions that have been imprisoned, impoverished and degraded because they were thieves and forgers, swindlers and cheats. ”

“ But how can there be crimes, that is, public injuries, unless the publicity of this example, by a public trial, be at the same time [144] the interest of all men? I respect every government, and speak of none in particular. Circumstances are sometimes such that to remove an evil may seem utter ruin when it is inherent in a national system. But had I to dictate new laws in any forgotten corner of the universe, my hand would tremble and all posterity would rise before my eyes before I would authorise such a custom as that of secret accusations. ”

“ Ten persons were accused “of an attempt to upset the present constitution of the kingdom, to excite the citizens or inhabitants of the state to sedition, to arm themselves against the royal authority, and to bring about a civil war by arming the citizens or inhabitants of the state against one another, or by inciting them so to arm themselves.” ”

“ That such persecution should exist in a civilized community is a disgrace to its civilization, that public officers should, for one moment, be permitted to engage in such hideous traffic in the liberties of their fellows, is a scandal upon the administration of justice, and that executive officers of the law, sworn to its enforcement, should be ignorant of the infamy of such arrests, or knowingly permit them to be made, is malfeasance in office, and subversion of civil rights. ”

“ Gentlemen, will you judge of the criminal intentions of persons engaged in an insurrection by the probability of their success? If you do, you will judge of a mob by a rule that never was found correct yet. ”

“ The summary infliction of corporal and capital punishment—the destruction of property—the severity attached to charges of sedition, when secret enmity and vile espionage would bring ruin on the unoffending, and suspicion was held synonymous with guilt,—all these severities, equally illegal and injudicious, kindled a ferocity of feeling between parties which milder measures might have allayed, accustomed men to acts of violence from which otherwise they would have revolted, and reconciled them to the terrible barbarities attendant upon civil war. ”