"social habitudes.

struction are sown in civil intercourse, and in The blood of wholesome kin"dred is infected. Their tables and beds are sur"rounded with snares. All the means given by Provi

dence to make life safe and comfortable are per"verted into instruments of terror and torment. "This species of universal subserviency, that makes "the very servant who waits behind your chair, the "arbiter of your life and fortune, has such a tendency to degrade and abase mankind, and to de

prive them of that assured and liberal state of "mind which alone can make us what we ought to "be, that I vow to God, I would sooner bring my"self to put a man to immediate death for opinions "I disliked, and so to get rid of the man and his

opinions at once, than to fret him with a feverish "being, tainted with the jail distemper of a conta

gious servitude, to keep him above ground, an "animated mass of putrefaction, corrupted him"self, and corrupting all about him."

If these sentiments apply so justly to the reprobation of persecution for opinions-even for opinion's which the laws, however absurdly, inhibit,for opi nions though certainly and maturely entertained,— though publicly professed, and though followed up by corresponding conduct; how irresistibly do they devote to contempt and execration all evesdropping attacks upon loose conversations, casual or convivial, more especially when proceeding from persons conforming to all the religious and civil institutions of

the state, unsupported by general and avowed profession, and not merely unconnected with conduct, but scarcely attended with recollection or consciousness! Such a vexatious system of inquisition, the disturber of household peace, began and ended with the Star-chamber ;-the venerable law of England never knew it ;-her noble, dignified, and humane policy soars above the little irregularities of our lives, and disdains to enter our closets without a warrant founded upon complaint. Constructed by man to regulate human infirmities, and not by God to guard the purity of angels, it leaves to us our thoughts, our opinions, and our conversations, and punishes only overt acts of contempt and disobedience to her authority.

Gentlemen, this is not the specious phrase of an advocate for his Client;-it is not even my exposition of the spirit of our constitution;-but it is the phrase and letter of the law itself. In the most critical conjunctures of our history, when governinent was legislating for its own existence and continuance, it never overstepped this wise moderation.-To give stability to establishments, it occasionally bridled opinions concerning them, but its punishments, though sanguinary, laid no snares for thoughtless life, and took no man by surprise.

Of this the act of Queen Anne, which made it high treason to deny the right of Parliament to alter the succession, is a striking example. The hereditary descent of the Crown had been recently broken at the Revolution by a minority of the nation, with

the aid of a foreign force, and a new inheritance had been created by the authority of the new establishment, which had but just established itself. Queen Anne's title and the peaceable settlement of the kingdom under it, depended wholly upon the con, stitutional power of Parliament to make this change; -the superstitions of the world, and reverence for antiquity, which deserves a better name, were against this power and the use which had been made of it; -the dethroned King of England was living in hos tile state at our very doors, supported by a powerful monarch at the head of a rival nation, and our own kingdom itself full of factious plots and conspiracies, which soon after showed themselves in open rebellion, If ever, therefore, there was a season when narrow jealousy could have been excusable in a government:-if ever there was a time when the sacrifice of some private liberty to common security would have been prudent in a people, it was at such a conjuncture; yet mark the reserve of the Crown and the prudence of our ancestors in the wording of the statute. Although the denial of the right of Parliament to alter the succession was tantamount to the denial of all legitimate authority in the kingdom, and might be considered as a sort of abjuration of the laws, yet the statute looked at the nature of man and to the private security of individuals in society, while it sought to support the public society itself;-it did not therefore dodge men into taverns and coffee-houses, nor lurk for them at corners, nor watch for them in their domestie enjoyments. The

act provides, "That every person who should mali. **ciously, advisedly, and directly, by writing or printing, affirm, that the Queen was not the rightful Queen of these realins, or that the Pre"tender had any right or title to the Crown, or that any other person had any right or title, other

wise than according to the acts passed since the "Revolution for settling the succession, or that the

legislature hath not sufficient authority to make "laws for limiting the succession, should be guilty of high treason, and suffer as a traitor;" and then enacts, "That if any person shall maliciously, and "directly, by preaching, teaching, or advised speaking, declare and maintain the same, he shall incur the penalties of a præmunire."

I will make a short observation or two," says Forster, "on the act. First, the positions con"demned by them had as direct a tendency to in"volve these nations in the miseries of an intestine

war, to incite Her Majesty's subjects to withdraw

their allegiance from her, and to deprive her of her crown and royal dignity, as any general doctrine, any declaration not relative to actions or designs, could possibly have; and yet in the case of bare words, positions of this dangerous tendency, though maintained maliciously, advisedly, and directly, and even in the solemnities of preaching and teaching, are not considered as overt acts of treason.

Secondly. In no case can a man be argued into

the penalties of the act by inferences and conclu"sions drawn from what he hath affirmed; the cri"minal position must be directly maintained, to "bring him within the compass of the act.

"Thirdly, Nor will every rash, hasty, or un"guarded expression, owing perhaps to natural warmth, or thrown out in the heat of disputation, "render any person criminal within the act; the “ criminal doctrine must be maintained maliciously "" and advisedly."

He afterwards adds, "Seditious writings are per"manent things, and if published, they scatter the "poison far and wide. They are acts of delibera"tion, capable of satisfactory proof, and not ordi "narily liable to misconstruction; at least they are "submitted to the judgment of the Court, naked "and undisguised, as they came out of the author's "hands. Words are transient and fleeting as the "wind; the poison they scatter is, at the worst, con"fined to the narrow circle of a few hearers; they

are frequently the effect of a sudden transport, “easily misunderstood, and often mis-reported."

Gentlemen, these distinctions, like all the dictates of sound policy, are as obvious to reason, as they are salutary in practice. What a man writes that is criminal and pernicious, and disseminates when written, is conclusive of his purpose; he manifestly must have deliberated on what he wrote, and the distribution is also an act of deliberation;-intention in such cases is not therefore matter of legal proof