The Rutland daily globe. [volume] (Rutland, Vt.) 1873-1877, 1873-07-18
THE FETTERS NOT FORGED.

There was a time when the judiciary was
the main stay Of despotism, the tool of
tyranny and the oppressor of the people.
So outrageous was the abuse of their power,
that early in the thirteenth century, the
right of trial by jury was extorted from
John, of England, at the point of the bay
onet, and the further concession obtained
that courts Should be stationary and not
follow the kings person. This reform, or
correction of the gross abuse of the APP
pliances for obtaining justice, was but tenn
porary. The courts of England soon, there
after, became again not the ministers of JUS
tice, but the simple recorders of kingly
will and despotic power. We need not
trace the history of the British judiciary
down through the days of the Stuarts even
to the day of the American revolution to
show this, as the facts are familiar to all,
and will readily be recalled by the even a
most careless observer of English history.
We cannot forbear, however, to refer to
Jelfrey's conduct on the trial of the sanity
Baxter, where he browbeat the most emf
nent counsel of the realm, insulted the
prisoner and witnesses, and found in the
jury ready instruments to carry out his
masters will. Neither can we forget the
judicial murder of Algernon Sidney, or the
suppression of free speech and free press
by servile court in their construction of
the law of libel, so late, and even later, as
the reign of George the Third. We have
seen something of this same kind of ser
Witty and want of independence in our own
day and in our own country. We refer,
more particularly, to the time when the
Supreme Court of the United States was
controlled by the slave power, and their
every edict and mandate was bowed to by
portion of the court and the foundation
well laid, whereon to make liberty sectional
and slavery national.
An attempt has been made, still later, to
make the bench the servile tool of power
and n willing instrument in the abridge-
ment of the freedom of speech and the
liberty of the press. The New York Sun,
of which Charles A. Dana is the RESPONSE
BILE editor, published certain charges against
the board of public works of the District
of Columbia, the purport of which was,
that the public funds were misapplied and
missappropriatcd. 1t makes no difference,
for our present purpose, whether these
charges are true or false. 1t is enough to
say that they were made upon claim of
actual knowledge and based upon alleged
indisputable facts. If so, Mr.. Dana but
discharged duty to the taxpayers of
Washington, and the country at large, in
disclosing them If they were false in
fact, published without due inquiry or
from malicious motives, he was amenable
to the laws, but only in the manner pre-
scribed by the law, and in the tribunal
named by the law for that purpose. 1t may
be II is difficult to draw the line of de-
marcation between freedom of speech and
the liberty of the press on the one side,
and unbridled, dangerous license on the
other We have no fears, however, that
we shall ever suffer, to any great extent,
from licentious press, as, no matter how
ably conducted, il would soon cease TO
have any influence among reputable peo-
pie, if, indeed, 1t even gained any influence
at all. Such newspapers might, and pro-
badly would, gain a precarious and, per-