Read Ebook: Hawkins Electrical Guide v. 06 (of 10) Questions Answers & Illustrations A progressive course of study for engineers electricians students and those desiring to acquire a working knowledge of electricity and its applications by Hawkins N Nehemiah

Font size: 10 px 15 px 20 px 25 px 30 px 35 px

Background color: BlackWhiteGrayLight GrayDark GrayDim Gray

Text color: BlackWhiteGrayLight GrayDark GrayDim Gray

Apply/Save settings

Ebook has 67 lines and 6741 words, and 2 pages

TRIAL OF C. B. REYNOLDS FOR BLASPHEMY,

AT Morristown, N. J., May 1887.

DEFENCE BY Robert G. Ingersoll.

PUBLISHER'S PREFACE.

MR. C. B. REYNOLDS, the accused, is an accredited missionary of freethought and speech who, under the guarantees of the Constitution, went from town to town in New Jersey, lecturing and preaching to those--had invited him and to all who chose to come. His methods of invitation were the ordinary ones of circulars, newspaper notices, bill posters, and personal address. His meetings were attended by the best people of the place, and were orderly and quiet except as disturbed by Christian mobs, unrestrained by local officials.

At one of these meetings, in Boonton, he was attacked with missiles of every kind, while speaking--his tent destroyed, and he compelled to seek safety in flight. An action for damages against the town resulted in a counter action for disturbing the peace. Through the cowardice and inaction of the authorities the issue was never joined.

Not daunted by persecution he continued his labors, making Morristown his next field of operations. Here he circulated a pamphlet giving his views of theology, and appended a satirical cartoon of his Boonton experience. This cartoon was the gravamen of his offence. For this he was indicted on a charge of "Blasphemy," and brought before a Morristown jury. The religious farce ended in a fine of .00.

C. P. Farrell.

MR. INGERSOLL'S ARGUMENT

Gentlemen of the Jury: I regard this as one of the most important cases that can be submitted to a jury. It is not a case that involves a little property, neither is it one that involves simply the liberty of one man. It involves the freedom of speech, the intellectual liberty of every citizen of New Jersey.

The question to be tried by you is whether a man has the right to express his honest thought; and for that reason there can be no case of greater importance submitted to a jury. And it may be well enough for me, at the outset, to admit that there could be no case in which I could take a greater--a deeper interest For my part, I would not wish to live in a world where I could not express my honest opinions. Men who deny to others the right of speech are not fit to live with honest men.

I deny the right of any man, of any number of men, of any church, of any State, to put a padlock on the lips--to make the tongue a convict. I passionately deny the right of the Herod of authority to kill the children of the brain.

A man has a right to work with his hands, to plow the earth, to sow the seed, and that man has a right to reap the harvest. If we have not that right, then all are slaves except those who take these rights from their fellow-men. If you have the right to work with your hands and to gather the harvest for yourself and your children, have you not a right to cultivate your brain? Have you not the right to read, to observe, to investigate--and when you have so read and so investigated, have you not the right to reap that field? And what is it to reap that field? It is simply to express what you have ascertained--simply to give your thoughts to your fellow-men.

If there is one subject in this world worthy of being discussed, worthy of being understood, it is the question of intellectual liberty. Without that, we are simply painted clay; without that, we are poor miserable serfs and slaves. If you have not the right to express your opinions, if the defendant has not this right, then no man ever walked beneath the blue of heaven that had the right to express his thought. If others claim the right, where did they get it? How did they happen to have it, and how did you happen to be deprived of it? Where did a church or a nation get that right?

Are we not all children of the same Mother? Are we not all compelled to think, whether we wish to or not? Can you help thinking as you do? When you look out upon the woods, the fields,--when you look at the solemn splendors of the night--these things produce certain thoughts in your mind, and they produce them necessarily. No man can think as he desires No man controls the action of his brain, any more than he controls the action of his heart. The blood pursues its old accustomed ways in spite of you. The eyes see, if you open them, in spite of you. The ears hear, if they are unstopped, without asking your permission. And the brain thinks, in spite of you. Should you express that thought? Certainly you should, if others express theirs. You have exactly the same right. He who takes it from you is a robber. For thousands of years people have been trying to force other people to think their way. Did they succeed? No. Will they succeed? No. Why? Because brute force is not an argument. You can stand with the lash over a man, or you can stand by the prison door, or beneath the gallows, or by the stake, and say to this man: "Recant, or the lash descends, the prison door is locked upon you, the rope is put about your neck, or the torch is given to the fagot." And so the man recants. Is he convinced? Not at all. Have you produced a new argument? Not the slightest. And yet the ignorant bigots of this world have been trying for thousands of years to rule the minds of men by brute force. They have endeavored to improve the mind by torturing the flesh--to spread religion with the sword and torch. They have tried to convince their brothers by putting their feet in iron boots, by putting fathers, mothers, patriots, philosophers and philanthropists in dungeons. And what has been the result? Are we any nearer thinking alike to-day than we were then?

No orthodox church ever had power that it did not endeavor to make people think its way by force and flame. And yet every church that ever was established commenced in the minority, and while it was in the minority advocated free speech--every one. John Calvin, the founder of the Presbyterian Church, while he lived in France, wrote a book on religious toleration in order to show that all men had an equal right to think; and yet that man afterwards, clothed in a little authority, forgot all his sentiments about religious liberty, and had poor Servetus burned at the stake, for differing with him on a question that neither of them knew anything about. In the minority, Calvin advocated toleration--in the majority, he practised murder.

I want you to understand what has been done in the world to force men to think alike. It seems to me that if there is some infinite being who wants us to think alike, he would have made us alike. Why did he not do so? Why did he make your brain so that you could not by any possibility be a Methodist? Why did he make yours so that you could not be a Catholic? And why did he make the brain of another so that he is an unbeliever--why the brain of another so that he became a Mohammedan--if he wanted us all to believe alike?

After all, may be Nature is good enough, and grand enough, and broad enough to give us the diversity born of liberty. May be, after all, it would not be best for us all to be just the same. What a stupid world, if everybody said yes to everything that everybody else might say.

The most important thing in this world is liberty. More important than food or clothes--more important than gold or houses or lands--more important than art or science--more important than all religions, is the liberty of man.

If civilization tends to do away with liberty, then I agree with Mr. Buckle that civilization is a curse. Gladly would I give up the splendors of the nineteenth century--gladly would I forget every invention that has leaped from the brain of man--gladly would I see all books ashes, all works of art destroyed, all statues broken, and all the triumphs of the world lost--gladly, joyously would I go back to the abodes and dens of savagery, if that is necessary to preserve the inestimable gem of human liberty. So would every man who has a heart and brain.

If I understand myself, I advocate only the doctrines that in my judgment will make this world happier and better. If I know myself, I advocate only those things that will make a man a better citizen, a better father, a kinder husband--that will make a woman a better wife, a better mother--doctrines that will fill every home with sunshine and with joy. And if I believed that anything I should say to-day would have any other possible tendency, I would stop. I am a believer in liberty. That is my religion--to give to every other human being every right that I claim for myself, and I grant to every other human being, not the right--because it is his right--but instead of granting I declare that it is his right, to attack every doctrine that I maintain, to answer every argument that I may urge--in other words, he must have absolute freedom of speech.

I am a believer in what I call "intellectual hospitality." A man comes to your door. If you are a gentleman and he appears to be a good man, you receive him with a smile. You ask after his health. You say: "Take a chair; are you thirsty, are you hungry, will you not break bread with me?" That is what a hospitable, good man does--he does not set the dog on him. Now how should we treat a new thought? I say that the brain should be hospitable and say to the new thought: "Come in; sit down; I want to cross-examine you; I want to find whether you are good or bad; if good, stay; if bad, I don't want to hurt you--probably you think you are all right,--but your room is better than your company, and I will take another idea in your place." Why not? Can any man have the egotism to say that he has found it all out? No. Every man who has thought, knows not only how little he knows, but how little every other human being knows, and how ignorant after all the world must be.

There was a time in Europe when the Catholic church had power. And I want it distinctly understood with this jury, that while I am opposed to Catholicism I am not opposed to Catholics--while I am opposed to Presbyterianism I am not opposed to Presbyterians. I do not fight people,--I fight ideas, I fight principles, and I never go into personalities. As I said, I do not hate Presbyterians, but Presbyterianism--that is I am opposed to their doctrine. I do not hate a man that has the rheumatism--I hate the rheumatism when it has a man. So I attack certain principles because I think they are wrong, but I always want it understood that I have nothing against persons--nothing against victims.

There was a time when the Catholic church was in power in the Old World. All at once there arose a man called Martin Luther, and what did the dear old Catholics think? "Oh," they said, "that man and all his followers are going to Hell." But they did not go. They were very good people. They may have been mistaken--I do not know. I think they were right in their opposition to Catholicism--but I have just as much objection to the religion they founded as I have to the Church they left. But they thought they were right, and they made very good citizens, and it turned out that their differing from the Mother Church did not hurt them. And then after awhile they began to divide, and there arose Baptists, and the other gentlemen, who believed in this law that is now in New Jersey, began cutting off their ears so that they could hear better; they began putting them in prison so that they would have a chance to think. But the Baptists turned out to be good folks--first rate--good husbands, good fathers, good citizens. And in a little while, in England, the people turned to be Episcopalians, on account of a little war that Henry the Eighth had with the Pope,--and I always sided with the Pope in that war--but it made no difference; and in a little while the Episcopalians turned out to be just about like other folks--no worse--not as I know of, any better.

After awhile arose the Puritan, and the Episcopalian said, "We don't want anything of him--he is a bad man;" and they finally drove some of them away and they settled in New England, and there were among them Quakers, than whom there never were better people on the earth--industrious, frugal, gentle, kind and loving--and yet these Puritans began hanging them. They said: "They are corrupting our children; if this thing goes on, everybody will believe in being kind and gentle and good, and what will become of us?" They were honest about it. So they went to cutting off ears. But the Quakers were good people and none of the prophecies were fulfilled.

In a little while there came some Unitarians and they said, "The world is going to ruin, sure;"--but the world went on as usual, and the Unitarians produced men like Channing--one of the tenderest spirits that ever lived--they produced men like Theodore Parker--one of the greatest brained and greatest hearted men produced upon this continent--a good man--and yet they thought he was a blasphemer--they even prayed for his death--on their bended knees they asked their God to take time to kill him. Well, they were mistaken. Honest, probably.

After awhile came the Universalists, who said: "God is good. He will not damn anybody always, just for a little mistake he made here. This is a very short life; the path we travel is very dim, and a great many shadows fall in the way, and if a man happens to stub his toe, God will not burn him forever." And then all the rest of the sects cried out, "Why, if you do away with hell, everybody will murder just for pastime--everybody will go to stealing just to enjoy themselves." But they did not. The Universalists were good people--just as good as any others. Most of them much better. None of the prophecies were fulfilled, and yet the differences existed.

And so we go on until we find people who do not believe the bible at all, and when they say they do not, they come within this statute.

Now gentlemen, I am going to try to show you, first, that this statute under which Mr. Reynolds is being tried is unconstitutional--that it is not in harmony with the Constitution of New Jersey; and I am going to try to show you in addition to that, that it was passed hundreds of years ago, by men who believed it was right to burn heretics and tie Quakers at the end of a cart, men and even modest women--stripped naked--and lash them from town to town. They were the men who originally passed that statute, and I want to show you that it has slept all this time, and I am informed--I do not know how it is--that there never has been a prosecution in this state for blasphemy.

Now gentlemen, what is blasphemy? Of course nobody knows what it is, unless he takes into consideration where he is. What is blasphemy in one country would be a religious exhortation in another. It is owing to where you are and who is in authority. And let me call your attention to the impudence and bigotry of the American christians. We send missionaries to other countries. What for? To tell them that their religion is false, that their Gods are myths and monsters, that their Saviours and apostles were imposters, and that our religion is true. You send a man from Morris-town--a Presbyterian, over to Turkey. He goes there, and he tells the Mohammedans--and he has it in a pamphlet and he distributes it--that the Koran is a lie, that Mohammet was not a prophet of God, that the angel Gabriel is not so large that it is four hundred leagues between his eyes--that it is all a mistake--that there never was an angel as large as that. Then what would the Turks do? Suppose the Turks had a law like this statute in New Jersey. They would put the Morristown missionary in jail, and he would send home word, and then what would the people of Morris-town say? Honestly--what do you think they would say? They would say, "Why look at those poor, heathen wretches. We sent a man over there armed with the truth, and yet they were so blinded by their idolatrous religion, so steeped in superstition, that they actually put that man in prison." Gentlemen, does not that show the need of more missionaries? I would say, yes.

Now let us turn the tables. A gentleman comes from Turkey to Morristown. He has got a pamphlet. He says, "The Koran is the inspired book, Mohammed is the real prophet, your bible is false and your Saviour simply a myth." Thereupon the Morristown people put him in jail. Then what would the Turks say? They would say, "Morristown needs more missionaries," and I would agree with them.

In other words, what we want is intellectual hospitality. Let the world talk. And see how foolish this trial is: I have no doubt but the prosecuting attorney agrees with me to-day, that whether this law is good or bad, this trial should not have taken place. And let me tell you why. Here comes a man into your town and circulates a pamphlet. Now if they had just kept still, very few would ever have heard of it. That would have been the end. The diameter of the echo would have been a few thousand feet. But in order to stop the discussion of that question, they indicted this man, and that question has been more discussed in this country since this indictment than all the discussions put together since New Jersey was first granted to Charles the Second's dearest brother James, the Duke of York. And what else? A trial here that is to be reported and published all over the United States, a trial that will give Mr. Reynolds a congregation of fifty millions of people. And yet this was done for the purpose of stopping a discussion of this subject. I want to show you that the thing is in itself almost idiotic--that it defeats itself, and that you cannot crush out these things by force. Not only so, but Mr. Reynolds has the right to be defended, and his counsel has the right to give his opinions on this subject.

Suppose that we put Mr. Reynolds in jail. The argument has not been sent to jail. That is still going the rounds, free as the winds. Suppose you keep him at hard labor a year--all the time he is there hundreds and thousands of people will be reading some account, or some fragment, of this trial. There is the trouble. If you could only imprison a thought, then intellectual tyranny might succeed. If you could only take an argument and put a striped suit of clothes on it--if you could only take a good, splendid, shining fact and lock it up in some dungeon of ignorance, so that its light would never again enter the mind of man, then you might succeed in stopping human progress. Otherwise, no.

Let us see about this particular statute. In the first place, the State has a Constitution. That Constitution is a rule, a limitation to the power of the legislature, and a certain breast-work for the protection of private rights, and the Constitution says to this sea of passions and prejudices: "Thus far and no farther." The Constitution says to each individual: "This shall panoply you; this is your complete coat of mail; this shall defend your rights." And it is usual in this country to make as a part of each Constitution several general declarations--called the Bill of Rights. So I find that in the old Constitution of New Jersey, which was adopted in the year of grace 1776, although the people at that time were not educated as they are now--the spirit of the Revolution at that time not having permeated all classes of society--a declaration in favor of religious freedom. The people were on the eve of a Revolution. This Constitution was adopted on the third day of July, 1776, one day before the immortal Declaration of Independence. Now what do we find in this--and we have got to go by this light, by this torch, when we examine the statute.

I find in that Constitution, in its Eighteenth Section, this: "No person shall ever in this State be deprived of the inestimable privilege of worshipping God in a manner agreeable to the dictates of his own conscience; nor under any pretence whatever be compelled to attend any place of worship contrary to his own faith and judgment; nor shall he be obliged to pay tithes, taxes, or any other rates for the purpose of building or repairing any church or churches, contrary to what he believes to be true." That was a very great and splendid step. It was the divorce of Church and State. It no longer allowed the State to levy taxes for the support of a particular religion, and it said to every citizen of New Jersey: All that you give for that purpose must be voluntarily given, and the State will not compel you to pay for the maintenance of a Church in which you do not believe. So far so good.

The next paragraph was not so good. "There shall be no establishment of any one religious sect in this State in preference to another, and no Protestant inhabitants of this State shall be denied the enjoyment of any civil right merely on account of his religious principles; but all persons professing a belief in the faith of any Protestant sect, who shall demean themselves peaceably, shall be capable of being elected to any office of profit or trust, and shall fully and freely enjoy every privilege and immunity enjoyed by other citizens."

What became of the Catholics under that clause, I do not know--whether they had any right to be elected to office or not under this Act. But in 1844, the State having grown civilized in the meantime, another Constitution was adopted. The word Protestant was then left out. There was to be no establishment of one religion over another. But Protestantism did not render a man capable of being elected to office any more than Catholicism, and nothing is said about any religious belief whatever. So far, so good.

"No religious test shall be required as a qualification for any office of public trust. No person shall be denied the enjoyment of any civil right on account of his religious principles."

That is a very broad and splendid provision. "No person shall be denied any civil right on account of his religious principles." That was copied from the Virginia Constitution, and that clause in the Virginia Constitution was written by Thomas Jefferson, and under that clause men were entitled to give their testimony in the courts of Virginia whether they believed in any religion or not, in any bible or not, or in any God or not.

That same clause was afterwards adopted by the State of Illinois, also by many other States, and wherever that clause is, no citizen can be denied any civil right on account of his religious principles. It is a broad and generous clause. This statute under which this indictment is drawn, is not in accordance with the spirit of that splendid sentiment. Under that clause, no man can be deprived of any civil right on account of his religious principles, or on account of his belief. And yet, on account of this miserable, this antiquated, this barbarous and savage statute, the same man who cannot be denied any political or civil right, can be sent to the penitentiary as a common felon for simply expressing his honest thought. And before I get through I hope to convince you that this statute is unconstitutional.

But we will go another step: "Every person may freely speak, write, or publish his sentiments on all subjects, being responsible for the abuse of that right."

That is in the Constitution of nearly every State in the Union, and the intention of that is to cover slanderous words--to cover a case where a man under pretence of enjoying the freedom of speech falsely assails or accuses his neighbor. Of course he should be held responsible for that abuse.

Then follows the great clause in the Constitution of 1844--more important than any other clause in that instrument--a clause that shines in that Constitution like a star at night.--

"No law shall be passed to restrain or abridge the liberty of speech or of the press."

Can anything be plainer--anything more forcibly stated?

"No law shall be passed to abridge the liberty of speech."

Now while you are considering this statute, I want you to keep in mind this other statement:

"No law shall be passed to restrain or abridge the liberty of speech or of the press."

And right here there is another thing I want to call your attention to. There is a Constitution higher than any statute. There is a law higher than any Constitution. It is the law of the human conscience, and no man who is a man will defile and pollute his conscience at the bidding of any legislature. Above all things one should maintain his self-respect, and there is but one way to do that, and that is to live in accordance with your highest ideal.

There is a law higher than men can make. The facts as they exist in this poor world--the absolute consequences of certain acts--they are above all. And this higher law is the breath of progress, the very outstretched wings of civilization, under which we enjoy the freedom we have. Keep that in your minds. There never was a legislature great enough--there never was a Constitution sacred enough, to compel a civilized man to stand between a black man and his liberty. There never was a Constitution great enough to make me stand between any human being and his right to express his honest thoughts. Such a Constitution is an insult to the human soul, and I would care no more for it than I would for the growl of a wild beast. But we are not driven to that necessity here. This Constitution is in accord with the highest and noblest aspirations of the heart--"No law shall be passed to restrain or abridge the liberty of speech."

Now let us come to this old law--this law that was asleep for a hundred years before this Constitution was adopted--this law coiled like a snake beneath the foundations of the government--this law, cowardly, dastardly--this law passed by wretches who were afraid to discuss--this law passed by men who could not, and who knew they could not, defend their creed--and so they said: "Give us the sword of the State and we will cleave the heretic down." And this law was made to control the minority. When the Catholics were in power they visited that law upon their opponents. When the Episcopalians were in power, they tortured and burned the poor Catholic who had scoffed and who had denied the truth of their religion. Whoever was in power used that, and whoever was out of power cursed that--and yet, the moment he got in power he used it. The people became civilized--but that law was on the statute book. It simply remained. There it was, sound asleep--its lips drawn over its long and cruel teeth. Nobody savage enough to waken it. And it slept on, and New Jersey has flourished. Men have done well. You have had average health in this country. Nobody roused the statute until the defendant in this case went to Boonton, and there made a speech in which he gave his honest thought, and the people not having an argument handy, threw stones. Thereupon Mr. Reynolds, the defendant, published a pamphlet on Blasphemy and in it gave a photograph of the Boonton christians. That is his offence. Now let us read this infamous statute:

Share on: WhatsApp @Hash Facebook Tweet