those persons to be infallible, and hold that they can do no wrong. But, gentlemen, the constitution does not say that the servants of the Crown can do no wrong. Aecording to the constitution the sovereign can do no wrong, but her servants may. In this case they have done wrong.

By indicting me for the expression of that opinion the public prosecutors virtually indict some millions of the Queen's peaceable Irish subjects. It is only the convenience of this court-which could not hold the millions in one batch of traversers, and which would require daily sittings for several successive years to go through the proper formalities for duly trying all those millions; it is only the convenience of this court that can be pretended to relieve the Crown prosecutors from the duty of trying and convicting all those millions, if it is their duty to try and conviet me. . . .

And to select one man, or six men for trial, condemnation, and punishment, out of, say, four millions who have really participated in the same alleged wicked, malicious, seditious, evil-disposed, and unlawful proceedings, is unfair to the six men, and unfair to the other 3,999,994 men, is a dereliction of duty on the part of the officers of the law, and is calculated to bring the administration of justice into disrepute.

Equal justice is what the constitution demands. Under military authority an army may be decimated, and a few offenders may properly be punished, while the rest are left unpunished. But under a free eonstitution it is not so. Whoever breaks the law must be made amenable to punishment, or equal justice is not rendered to the subjects of the Queen. It is not pertinent, therefore, gentlemen, for me to say to you, this is an unwise proceeding which my prosecutors bid you to sanction by a verdict. I have heard it asked by a lawyer addressing the court, as a question that must be

answered in the negative - Can you indict a whole nation?

If such a proceeding as this prosecution against the peaceable procession of the 8th of December receives the sanction of your verdict, that question must be answered in the affirmative. It will need only a Crown prosecutor, an attorney-general, and a solicitor-general, two judges, and twelve jurors, all of the one mind, while all the other subjects of the Queen in Ireland are of a different mind, and the five millions and a half of the Queen's subjects of Ireland outside that circle of seventeen of her Majesty's subjects may be indicted, convicted, and consigned to penal imprisonment in due form of law—as law is understood in political trials in Ireland. . . .

The learned judge in his charge told the grand jury that under this act all processions are illegal which carry weapons of offence, or which carry symbols calculated to promote the animosity of some other class of her Majesty's subjects. Applying the law to this case, his lordship remarked that the procession of the 8th of December had something of military array—that is, they went in regular order, with a regular step. But, gentleman, there were no arms in that procession, there were no symbols in that procession intended or calculated to provoke animosity in any other class of the Queen's subjects, or in any human creature. There was neither symbol, deed, or word intended to provoke animosity. And as to the military array-is it not absurd to attribute warlike character to an unarmed and perfectly peaceful assemblage in which there were some thousands of women and children? No offence was given or offered any human being.

The speech delivered on that occasion is an important element in forming a judgment upon the character and object

of the procession. The speech declared the procession to be a peaceable expression of the opinion of those who composed it upon an important public transaction, an expression of sorrow and indignation at an act of the ministers of the government.

It was a protest against that act-a protest which those who disapproved of it were entitled by the constitution to make, and which they made, peaceably and legitimately. Has not every individual of the millions of the Queen's subjects the right to say openly whether he approves or disapproves of any public act of the Queen's ministers? Have not all the Queen's subjects the right to say so together, if they can without disturbance of the Queen's peace? The procession enabled many thousands to do that without the least inconvenience or danger to themselves, and with no injury or offense to their neighbors. To prohibit or punish peaceful, inoffensive, orderly, and perfectly innocent processions upon pretence that they are constructively unlawful, is unconstitutional tyranny.

...

I would not have held the procession had I not understood that it was permitted. But understanding that it was permitted, and so believing that it might serve the people for a safe and useful expression of their sentiments, I held the procession. I did not hold the procession because I believed it to be illegal, but because I believed it to be legal, and understood it to be permitted.

Gentlemen of the jury, I have said enough to convince any twelve reasonable men that there was nothing in my conduct in the matter of that procession which you can declare on your oaths to be "malicious, seditious, ill-disposed, and intended to disturb the peace and tranquillity of the realm."

I shall trouble you no further except by asking you to listen to the summing up of the indictment, and, while you listen, to judge between me and the attorney-general. I shall read you my words and his comment. Judge, Irish jurors, which of us two is guilty: "Let us, therefore, conclude this proceeding by joining heartily, with hats off, in the prayer of those three men-God save Ireland."""Thereby," says the attorney-general in his indictment, "meaning, and intending to excite hatred, dislike, and animosity against her Majesty and the government, and bring into contempt the administration of justice and the laws of this realm, and cause strife and hatred between her Majesty's subjects in Ireland and in England, and to excite discontent and disaffection against her Majesty's government." Gentlemen, I have now 'done.

BEECHER

HENRY

ENRY WARD BEECHER was born at Litchfield, Connecticut, in 1818, and graduated from Amherst College in 1834. After studying theology at Lane's Seminary he settled in 1837 as a Presbyterian minister in Lawrenceberg, Indiana, whence he shortly removed to Indianapolis, and preached there until 1847, when he received a call to Plymouth Church, Brooklyn. Here he acquired and maintained throughout his life a reputation as a pulpit orator of the first rank. He became deeply interested in politics, discussed frequently from the platform the great political questions of the day, and in 1856 and 1860 took an active part in the campaigns. The oration here reproduced was one of a series of addresses delivered by Mr. Beecher in England during the autumn of 1863. By supporting Mr. Cleveland for the Presidency in 1884, Beecher alienated many of his former political admirers. He died in Brooklyn on March 8, 1887.

F

ADDRESS AT LIVERPOOL, OCTOBER 16, 1863

OR more than twenty-five years I have been made perfectly familiar with popular assemblies in all parts of

my country except the extreme South. There has not for the whole of that time been a single day of my life when it would have been safe for me to go south of Mason and Dixon's line in my own country, and all for one reason: my solemn, earnest, persistent testimony against that which I consider to be the most atrocious thing under the sunthe system of American slavery in a great free republic. (Cheers.) I have passed through that early period when right of free speech was denied to me. Again and again I have attempted to address audiences that, for no other crime than that of free speech, visited me with all manner (7254)