A firm and explicit language as to the preceding steps, a careful attention to avoid unnecessary irritation and violence, and a temperate display of strength in case of extremity, might be expected always to extricate the government in safety in these delicate exigencies. It must be a very uncommon occasion in which the mass of the sober and effective part of the community will not be found inimical to disorderly and tumultuous proceedings. The second idea, that of bringing the individual to account for a proceeding of this sort, is of a more doubtful nature. A libel the avowed intention of which is to lead to immediate violence is altogether different from a publication in which the general merits of any institution are treated with the utmost freedom, and may well be supposed to fall under different rules. The difficulty here arises from the consideration of the general nature of punishment, which is abhorrent to the true principles of mind, and ought to be restrained within as narrow limits as possible, if not immediately abolished. A distinction to which observation and experience, in cases of judicial proceeding, have uniformity led is that between crimes that exist only in intention, and over acts. So far as prevention only is concerned, the former would seem, in many cases, not less entitled to the animadversion of society than the latter; but the evidence of intention usually rests upon circumstances equivocal and minute, and the friend of justice will tremble to erect any grave proceedings upon so uncertain a basis. These reasonings on exhortations to tumult will also be found applicable, with slight variation, to incendiary letters addressed to private persons.
But the law of libel, as we have already said, distributes itself into two heads, libels against public establishments and measures, and libels against private character. Those who have been willing to admit that the first ought to pass unpunished have generally asserted the propriety of counteracting the latter by censures and penalties. It shall be the business of the remainder of this chapter to show that they were erroneous in their decision.
The arguments upon which their decision is built must be allowed to be both popular and impressive. 'There is no external possession more solid, or more valuable than an honest fame. My property, in goods or estate, is appropriated only by convention. Its value is, for the most part, the creature of a debauched imagination; and, if I were sufficiently wise and philosophical, he that deprived me of it would do me very little injury.
He that inflicts a stab upon my character is a much more formidable enemy.
It is a very serious inconvenience that my countrymen should regard me as destitute of principle and honesty. If the mischief were entirely to myself, it is not possible to be regarded with levity. I must be void of all sense of justice, if I am callous to the contempt and detestation of the world. I must cease to be a man, if I am unaffected by the calumny that deprives me of the friend I love, and leaves me perhaps without one bosom in which to repose my sympathies. But this is not all. The same stroke that annihilates my character extremely abridges, if it do not annihilate, my usefulness. It is in vain that I would exert my good intentions and my talents for the assistance of others, if my motives be perpetually misinterpreted.
Men will not listen to the arguments of him they despise; he will be spurned during life, and execrated as long as his memory endures. What then are we to conclude but that to an injury greater than robbery, greater perhaps than murder, we ought to award an exemplary punishment?'
The answer to this statement may be given in the form of an illustration of two propositions: first, that it is necessary the truth should be told;Chapter econdly, that it is necessary men should be taught to be sincere.
First, it is necessary the truth should be told. How can this ever be done if I be forbidden to speak upon more than one side of a question?
The case is here exactly similar to the case of religion and political establishment. If we must always hear the praise of things as they are, and allow no man to urge an objection, we may be lulled into torpid tranquillity, but we can never be wise.
If a veil of partial favour is to be drawn over the indiscretions and faults of mankind, it is easy to perceive whether virtue or vice will be the gainer. There is no terror that comes home to the heart of vice like the terror of being exhibited to the public eye. On the contrary, there is no reward worthy to be bestowed upon eminent virtue but this one, the plain, unvarnished proclamation of its excellence in the face of the world.
If the unrestrained discussion of abstract enquiry be of the highest importance to mankind, the unrestrained investigation of character is scarcely less to be cultivated. If truth were universally told of men's dispositions and actions, gibbets and wheels might be dismissed from the face of the earth. The knave unmasked would be obliged to turn honest in his own defence.
Nay, no man would have time to grow a knave. Truth would follow him in his first irresolute essays, and public disapprobation arrest him in the commencement of his career.