During the present proceedings the accused tried to prove that his judgment on the administration of the censorship is founded on fact, and in this respect he has referred to a number of special cases in which articles of journalistic content have been refused the imprimatur . He has also referred to a correspondence which took place between Chief Government Privy Councillor Seyffert and the editor of the Leipziger Allgmeine Zeitung as proof that this newspaper was indeed under the influence of the Prussian Government. He does not judge in a manner of calm consideration, but condemns with expressions which, were they directed against persons, would indubitably have to be regarded as insults. The dishonest intention and the reprehensible tendency of his publication are, however, made particularly manifest in the examples which the accused submits as proof of the parallel he has drawn, since the regulations which he instances from the two municipal orders are herein reproduced in part incorrectly, in part incompletely and in distorted fashion. He who is only concerned to he useful to the Fatherland will not strive to prove that previously a line was followed which was more beneficial to the people and which is now increasingly being abandoned and replaced by a tendency harmful to the common good.
Practice confirms only too well what has been said above about the law.
The concept of disrespect, which belongs within the competence of the police, of censorship, here shows its detrimental effects. By transplanting it to the field of the law the latter is made dependent on censorship, which at the given time may be more severe or more lenient. If censorship happens to be oppressive, as in 1840, the slightest criticism is disrespectful. If it is lenient and a humane, as now, that which was formerly deemed insolent is today barely disrespectful. That is, indeed, the purpose of all opposition.