Daily Ohio statesman. [volume] (Columbus, Ohio) 1855-1870, 1865-05-03
| checks on wrong were altogether wanting

| ana tne consequences are q matter oil history.
The Judges held their offices ON conditions
which made them liable to instant dismissal
If they disregarded the 'Sovereigns pleas
ure." The jury panels were arranged on
system which enable secret agents of the
Crown, by corrupting sheriffs and return
ing officers, to make a verdict tolerably GER
tain. The Bar was, like the mass of the
nation, so impregnated with the serviIe
doctrines of passive obedience and heredi-
tary right, and so full of irrational loyalty,
that it hardly showed a sign of independ-
enee, and the power of the press did not
exist to direct and enlighten general opin-
| ion. -'.' F.'i-N"
In trials between the Crown and the sub
ject the results were calamitous aud fearful.
With the fear of removal ever before them
If they disobeyed the beliests of power, and
subject to no nter-balancing influence,
the judges, for the most part, preferred the
commission of crime to hazardiDg their
places, and performed unscrupulously any
bloody work which happened to be allotted
to them. In this they were conveniently
aided byjuries selected for the occasion by
men well trained to the vile Office, while the
| lawyers-the Finches, the Williamses and
the Pembertons--lookedo on cynically at the
tragic mockery, " ithouta feeling of pity for
the victims or of indignation at the prOsti-
tuition of justice, and no appeal from the
| sentence lay in the last resort to nation
kept in ignorance Of the execrable facts,
and with few means of expressing its opin-
ion. A.. 1lg nr'...l ..a'.. ..t -. ma
Two other circumstances may be noticed
as giving these trials their peculiar charac-
ter. The comparative freedom of our insti-
tutions compelled the latter Stuarts to re-
sort to these foul means to get rid of those
who became the mark oftheir hate and sus-
fnin IIoI rln nv.
the power of an absolute monarch Of France,
they would not bave needed the clumsy
method ofservile judges and selected juries
to destroy Russell, a Sidney, or Cornish;
lettre de c0tchet would have been enough,
and the Bastile would have retained its VIC
tins. Even had they dared toemploy the
tortures which had been in use during the
Tudor period, they might have quietly sac
riiiced their enemies without the peril of a
public trial, nor would the Tower have re-
vealed its secrets. But acts like these were
now impracticable; it was necessary to pro-
duce the offenders in court, and there to Sc
cure legal conviction and thus tyranny,
to compass its ends, was forced to influence
our tribunals, and to win them over to its
iniquitous purposes. -at ,l.... ..f.-,d.
The very liberties assured to Englishmen
contributed thus for a short time TO make.
the Stuart State trials what they We're, and
the Improvements effected in the eonstitu-
tion were transient cause of these fright
tul spectacles. Moreover, the character Of
the time was reflected faithfully in these
trials, and this was exactly of a kind to
give them dark and terrible~complexiOn.
So long as power remained in their hands
it was natural that the later Stuarts should
deal relentlessly with political offenders,
living, as they did, in the midst of memori-
| ais of the Great Rebellion, which destroyed
their throne, and when, Notwithstanding
occasional reaction, encroachments were
being made continually upon their old and
cherished prerogatives. rr-... Cd ..-ar
At a period, too, when our legislation
bore frequent marks of cruelty and vim
dictiveness, and when the passions of pub
lie men were reused to the highest pitch of
evaporation, it'was to be expected political
inquests would be wanting in humanity
and justice. The prescription of the Dis
senters by Clarendon gave the signal to
many judicial crimes; the wicked policy of
Shaftesbury and his party had its fruits in
the charges of Scroggs and North the fury
of the Court against Monmouth accounts
for the Bloody Assizes; and Westminster
Hall often merely followed atrocious pre-
cedents issuing from st. Stephens. r.l
| These, therefore, were the principal
causes of the contrast presented at this pc
riod by private and political trials, and of
the atrocious pcrversion of justice which
disgraced the course of State prosecutions.
-- f
The judicial history of this period con-
veys lesson of permanent value. In the
reigns of Charles and James Ii the nation,
had made considerable progress in the at
tainment of constitutional rights, and,
though immature and unsettled, our polity
had acquired its existing type, and con-
tanned noble principles of freedom. The
later Stuarts never thought of governing
the kingdom without the aid of ParliaH
ment; and though the claims of the, dis
pensing power to a certain extent confused
the boundaries between ancient prerogative
and law, the will of the Sovereign was
quite unable to Withstand permanently the
voice of the nation. e,uo. ..-.gy
At the same time the old machinery of
kingly domination had disappeared, the
Marshal's Courts, the Star-chamber, the
claims of Royal escheators and taX-gather-
ers were things that were heard of no more,
and, Notwithstanding agitation and faction,
the nation rapidly advanced in prosperity.
Yet, in a vital part of our constitutional
defenses, one spot lay open to insidious at
tack, and arbitrary power was enabled to-
triumph and commit eXcesses of the worst,
kind in the places dedicated to the admins
tration of justice! Through the operation
of variety of causes to which we have all %
ready referred, the State trials of this pc
riod were trightful spectacles Of cruelty and
wrong, and here the agents of tyrannical
governments achieved complete and bloody
successes in an age comparatively of free-d
dom and progress. These things should be
remembered by us, for though a recurrence
of the circumstances which made those ter,
rible scenes what they were seems hardly
probable in these times, no nation can af-
ford to forego ajealousy of strained con-
structions of law in cases between the igov-ls
ernment and the subject, or to forget what
In political trials may be the evil and sinis-.
ter con snn nencas of illdicial dennndanca and