Arizona silver belt., 1894-08-04

ee-s@sth NhoA k1A with violating the law is supposed to be granted trial before an impartial tri- bunal, jury trial if he SD desires it, Now, does any onesuppose thatan editor who editorislly criticises judge and is brought before that judge on a charge of contempt, IS tried before an impars tial tribunalg Human nature will hardly stand such test. The law which gives an ineensed judge absolute jurisdiction aud powef over his enemy Or his critic is uafair and un-American. It may be that the editoris is in contempt and deserving of fine, but the law should give a jury trial or trial before an impartial tribunal, and not before the incensed judge who has been right fully or wropgfully attacked. No pres fdent of the United States has had on editor punished for any editorial, no member of the supreme court of th United States has ever fined an editor for contelnptuous editorial, that the Courier has ever heard of It is ri~ht and proper, however, to preserve ae dignity of the courts, and the manner of doing it in Arisons may be accord ing to law and the only present way of getting at it, but the Couner believes the law defective and un-American, and that it should be changed. All ng-doing should be properly pun ished, but it should l,e so done that no suspicion can exist of any other motive fhan that of even unbiased justice. The Courier is jealous of the liberties of the people, and wants no straw in sbe wind looking to the curtailmsnt of those liberties. -Pre scott Courier.
 The foregoing ar ;icle reflects the opinion, and express s the same senti- mems as appeared in an editorial of the last edition of the BlLT.
 We do not know of any instance in which the Supreme Court of the Uni ted States has ever cited any editor or writer of newspaper article before them for contempt. There have been at various times, effc rts made to cur tail the liberty of tho press by legisla- tive snactments, As early as l79S, Congress enacted thn Alien and Sedi- ton Laws. The Se,lition Law was de- signed to curb the license of the press, but its effect was to excite great hos fihty. The legislatures of Virginia and Kentucky declared the Alien and Sedi- ton Laws unconstit Itional, but the ad- ministration proceeded to enforce them with the utmost vigJr.
 The first fruit of the Sediton Law WAS the prosecution sf Mathew Lyon, c member of Congress, for the publ- cation of strictures on John Adams President of the United States The letter was written in Philadelphia, July ', l798, one week before the Sedition Law was passed, but it was not pub hshed in Winsor, Vt, until July 23, F98f and accordingly came under the statute. For the publication of this letter, and of another, said to have besn written by diplomatic character in France, NIT. Lyon was indicted, October 5. 179S, arrss.ed on bench warrant, and tried October ' at Yer gennes, in the Circuit Court of the United States for the District of Yer mont. He plead the unconstitutional fly of the Sedition Law, but the plea was rejected by the Court The jury brought in Q verdict of guilty, and the prisoner was sentenced to four months imprisonment and to pay fine of 5000 and costs
 Mir. Lyon entered Congress 1797, and while confined in jail under the 3edition Law, was reelected. Mir. Lyon afterwards removed to Kentucky and represented district of that State for four terms. Eighteen years after his death, tardy justice was done him, whom Congress passed an act repay ing to his heirs, with interest, the fine he had paid in 179S. The Sedition Law expired by it's own limitation, March 8, 1901.
 Perhaps the most famous case in which the court and press were ever interested is the one in which the Couri came 10 the rescue of the press. In March 1915, rumers of the Treaty of Ghent reached New Orleans (while the city was still under martial law and were published by one of ths New Orleans editors. General Jackson, deerning such an announcement iniudi. cious, ordered the editor to retract. He refused, and was arrested. Judge Hall to vindicate the supremacy of the civil authority, issued writ of HABEAs CORPUS. The general arrested the jndge, and sent him out of his lines. Soon official intelligence of peace was Neived. The judge returned, and, by
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