Publisher's Synopsis
Excerpt from Liberty of Speech, and of the Press: A Charge to the Grand Juries of the County Courts of the Fifth Circuit of the State of Pennsylvania
We communicate our fentiments by words f poken, writ ten, or printed, or by pictures or other figns. The refiraints laid on the exercife of this right, fo as it may not infringe the right of reputation, differ, according to the way in which the right of communication is exercifed._ If the right of reputation of a private citizen be infringed by words fpoken, no indiétment will lie for this injury, which is only a gmund for a civil action to recover damages In fora confiientiae, fays a learned Author, before the tri hunal of confcience', it is no excufe, that the ?anderous words are true;'for ifa man have been guilty of any thing, which the law prohibits, he is'liable to anfwer for it, in a legal way; but it can anfwer no good purpofe for a private perfon to accufe him thereof; there is a degree of cruelt in (0 doing, and it mull create ill blood. Yet the law does, in compa?ion to man's infirmiti'es, allow It to be a jufiification in an action for words fpoken, that they are truejj. But when ?anderous words are fpoken of the confiitution, or adminifiration, or any of its acts or o?icers, they are ground for an indictment as a mifdemeanor, or breach of the duty of a citizen§. The reafon of this is evident;' for, as for an injury affecting an individual, the remedy is by aétion, (o for an injury afi'eé'ting the public, the remedy is by indictment.
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