Seditious libel

“ Prior efforts to expand the scope of criminal libel beyond its traditional boundaries have not usually met with widespread popular acclaim. 'Seditious libel' was such an expansion and it did have its day, particularly in the English Court of Star Chamber. But the First Amendment repudiated seditious libel for this country. And one need only glance through the parliamentary discussion of Fox's Libel Law passed in England in 1792, to sense the bad odor of criminal libel in that country even when confined to charges against individuals only. ”

“ If it is clear that a Secretary of State may commit for treason and other offences against the State, he certainly may commit for a seditious libel against the Government, for there can hardly be a greater offence against the State, except actual treason. A Secretary of State is within the Habeas Corpus Act, but a power to commit without a power to issue his warrant to seize the offender and the libel would be nothing ”

“ The case, then, gentlemen, is shortly and simply this: A man of the first family and fortune and character and property among you reads a proclamation stating the country to be in danger from abroad and at home, and thus alarmed—thus upon authority of the prosecutor alarmed—applies to that august body before whose awful presence sedition must vanish and insurrection disappear.
You must surrender, I hesitate not to say it, your oaths to unfounded assertion, if you can submit to say that such an act of such a man, so warranted, is a wicked and seditious libel. ”

“ But is this illustration on all fours with the question of illegally excluding La Questione Sociale? Mr. Bonaparte mentions the fact that while the article “constitutes a seditious libel and its publication, in my opinion, is undoubtedly a crime at common law,” it is not an “offense against the United States in the absence of some federal statute making it one.” ”

“ The Government argues that the clause was meant to prevent only prosecutions based upon the 'content' of speech, such as libel actions, but not those founded on 'the antecedent unlawful conduct of accepting or agreeing to accept a bribe.' Brief of the United States, at 11. Although historically seditious libel was the most frequent instrument for intimidating legislators, this has never been the sole form of legal proceedings so employed, [13] and the language of the Constitution is framed in the broadest terms. ”

“ That rule should not be applied except where a State's law of defamation has been unconstitutionally converted into a law of seditious libel. [3] The First and Fourteenth Amendments have not stripped private citizens of all means of redress for injuries inflicted upon them by careless liars. [4] The destruction that defamatory falsehood can bring is, to be sure, often beyond the capacity of the law to redeem. Yet, imperfect though it is, an action for damages is the only hope for vindication or redress the law gives to a man whose reputation has been falsely dishonored. ”

“ In March 1663 he was again arrested, but released on signing an engagement to print nothing seditious and to inform against any one who did (ib. 1663–4, pp. 82, 86, cf. 1665–6, p. 409) . Nevertheless he was again in trouble in 1670 for writing a seditious libel called ‘The Character of a true and a false Shepherd’ (ib. 1670, p. 332) . ”

“ Our law of libel is the most absurdly severe that ever existed, so absurdly severe that, if it were carried into full effect, it would be much more oppressive than a censorship. And yet, with this severe law of libel, we have a press which practically is as free as the air. In 1819 the Ministers complained of the alarming increase of seditious and blasphemous publications. They proposed a bill of great rigour to stop the growth of the evil ”

“ If the characters of private men are insulted, or injured, a double remedy is open to them, by action and by indictment."—"With regard to strictures upon the characters of men in office, and the measures of government, the case is a little different. A considerable latitude must be allowed in the discussion of public affairs, or the liberty of the press will be of no benefit to society." But he no where contends for the right to publish seditious libels; and, on the contrary, through his whole reasoning he admits the duty to punish those, which are really so. ”

“ But a recent writer, after an able consideration of the early declarations in the light of their history, comes to the103 conclusion that “they obliterated the English common-law test of supposed bad tendency to determine the seditious or blasphemous character of a publication, and hence obliterated the English common-law crimes of sedition and blasphemy; shifted the law of obscene and immoral publications from the region of libel to the region of public nuisance ”

“ They were at this time reminded of their dependance. However, it is but justice to say, that the judges remained unshaken, amid the raging tempests, which is to be attributed rather to their firmness than situation. But the spirit of the times was very apparent in the juries. The grand jurors were elective; and in such places where libels, riots, and insurrections were the most frequent, the high whigs took care to get themselves chosen. The judges pointed out to them the seditious libels on governors, magistrates, and the whole government to no effect. ”

“ The Sedition Laws were even more offensive, since under them citizens could be fined and imprisoned if they wrote what were called "libels" on men in power; and violent language against men in power was deemed a libel. ”

“ If 'obscenity' can be carved out of the First Amendment, what other like exceptions can be created? Is 'sacrilege' also beyond the pale? Are utterances or publications made with 'malice' unprotected? How about 'seditious' speech or articles? False, scandalous, and malicious writings or utterances against the Congress or the President 'with intent to defame' or to bring them 'into contempt or disrepute' or to 'excite' against them 'the hatred of the good people' or 'to stir up sedition,' or to 'excite' people to 'resist, oppose or defeat' any law were once made a crime. ”

“ Legal truth, by the sedition law policy, is moral falsehood; the alternative lies between betraying the principles of a good government, or submitting to be considered as libellous, seditious and traitorous. It proposes to us to wound our consciences, by becoming traitors to our constitutions ”

“ The mob, who at the same time appeared ready enough to murder some of the magistrates in the streets, had nothing in their mouths but the names and services of the Princes, who next day disowned their humble servants in the assemblies of the several courts. Though this conduct gave occasion to severe decrees, which the Parliament issued at every turn against the seditious, it did not hinder the same Parliament from believing that those who disowned the sedition were the authors of it, and consequently did not lessen the hatred which many private men conceived against them. ”

“ To all the laws which might be passed for the collection of the revenue, or for the prevention of sedition, the people would oppose the same kind of resistance by means of which they have succeeded in mitigating, I might say in abrogating, the law of libel. There would be so many offenders that the Government would scarcely know at whom to aim its blow. Every offender would have so many accomplices and protectors that the blow would almost always miss the aim. ”

“ I believe that the Court is mistaken if it thinks that requiring proof that statements were 'malicious' or 'defamatory' will really create any substantial hurdle to block public officials from punishing those who criticize the way they conduct their office. Indeed, 'malicious,' 'seditious,' and other such evil-sounding words often have been invoked to punish people for expressing their views on public affairs. Fining men or sending them to jail for criticizing public officials not only jeopardizes the free, open public discussion which our Constitution guarantees, but can wholly stifle it. ”

“ But this would be impracticable by any created being, if there could be no legal restraint of those scandalous misrepresentations of his measures and motives which directly tend to rob him of the public confidence; and equally impotent would be every other public officer, if thus left to the mercy of the seditious. ”

“ If opposition to the National Government should arise from the disorderly conduct of refractory or seditious individuals, it could be overcome by the same means which are daily employed against the same evil, under the State Governments. ”

“ But when a Mob of Chairmen or Servants, or a Gang of Thieves and Sharpers, are almost too big for the Civil Authority to suppress, what must be the Case in a seditious Tumult, or general Riot of the People? ”

“ When men were hanged for petty theft, when they were whipped at the cart's tail for seditious language, when they were disembowelled for treasonable practices; theft, sedition, and treason flourished as they have never flourished since. ”

“ To me, they have ever seemed more prone to vent their seditious discontent. But 'tis the nature of man to be niggardly of praise and lavish of censure. This decree of the tribunal must not be suffered to die, with the mere justice of the case. Our friends should dwell on it, openly, in the cafés, and at the Lido. They will have no cause to fear, should they give their tongues a little latitude. A just government hath no jealousy of comment."
"True, Signore." ”

“ It is perfectly true that some words which have been uttered here and in other places, and which, when taken together with the context and candidly construed, will appear to mean nothing but what was reasonable and constitutional and moderate, have been distorted and mutilated into something that has a seditious aspect. ”

“ It accordingly proscribed sedition against all government in the nation-national, state and local. Congress declared that these steps were taken 'to provide for the common defense, to preserve the sovereignty of the United States as an independent nation, and to guarantee to each State a republican form of government * * *.' [22] Congress having thus treated seditious conduct as a matter of vital national concern, it is in no sense a local enforcement problem. As was said in the court below:
'Sedition against the United States is not a local offense. It is a crime against the Nation. ”

“ The Government of this country, and those States which are parties concerned, cannot be too much alive to this fact. The public generally ought to understand it; and if the knowledge and conviction should generally obtain, that this Society is a seditious organization, and engaged in a work of sedition, which, by continuance, may grow into treason, it is believed, that no more acquisitions to its numbers and power could be made, and that it would gradually die away, and cease to agitate the public mind, without the intervention of the public authorities. ”

“ The suggestion on which the authority over the press is founded, is, that seditious writings have a tendency to produce opposition to Government. What has a greater tendency to fit men for insurrection and resistance to Government, than dissolute, immoral habits, at once destroying love of order, and dissipating the fortune which gives an interest in society? ”

“ It is not in this Hall of Independence that meetings of infuriated fanatics and unprincipled demagogues have been held to counsel a bloody resistance to the laws of the land. It is not in this city that conventions are held denouncing the Constitution, the141 Laws, and the Bible. It is not here that the pulpit has been desecrated by seditious exhortations, teaching that theft [a man stealing his own limbs and person from his 'lawful owner'] is meritorious, murder [in self-defence killing a man-stealer] excusable, and treason [opposition to the fugitive slave bill] a virtue! ”

“ If no wickedness, sir, is to be checked till it has attained the greatest height at which it can possibly arrive, our courts of criminal judicature may be shut up as useless; and if a few innocent paragraphs will palliate a libel, treason may be written and dispersed without danger or restraint; for what libel was ever so crowded with sedition, that a few periods might not have been selected, which, upon this principle, might have secured it from censure. ”

“ History is not without examples of the outlawry of certain political, religious and economic beliefs and the relentless prosecution of those who dare to entertain such beliefs. And history has a way of repeating itself. It therefore takes no stretch of the imagination to picture law enforcement officers arresting those accused of believing, writing or speaking that which is proscribed, accompanied by a thorough ransacking of their homes as an 'incident' to the arrest in an effort to uncover 'anything' of a seditious nature. ”

“ The state court further gave its interpretation of the third clause of the statute, that is, in relation to the display of a flag or banner 'as an aid to propaganda that is of a seditious character.' Both opinions dealt with the meaning of this clause. Thus in one opinion it is said: 'Appellants' counsel concedes that sedition laws which 'interdict against the use of force or violence' are consistently upheld by the courts, and all of the authorities cited by him support that proposition. ”

“ All history proves that public officers of any government when they are engaged in a severe struggle to retain their places, become bitter and ferocious, and hate those who oppose them, even in the most legitimate way, with a rancor which they never exhibit towards actual crime. This kind of malignity vents itself in prosecutions for political offences, sedition, conspiracy, libel, and treason, and the charges are generally founded upon the information of spies and delators, who make merchandise of their oaths, and trade in the blood of their fellow men. ”