providing the truth could free of the acts by the excesses of the French Revolution, which prompted the government during a long period of time to subject the press to a series of political prosecutions that did not entirely cease until the passing of the Reform Bill in 1832.1 Not, however, until 1843 was the legislative work, begun by Mr. Fox, completed by the passage of Lord Campbell's Libel Act 2 of that Lord Campbell's year, which abolished (1) the old rule that the truth was no Libel Act defence to a criminal prosecution for libel, by providing that of 1843, defendants in such cases could plead the truth of the matters that charged, and that "it was for the public benefit that the said could be pleaded; matters charged should be published;" (2) the hard rule laid and that down in Almond's case, as to the criminal liability of pub- publishers lishers for the acts of their servants, by allowing them to themselves prove that the publication in question was made without their of their knowledge, consent, or authority, and without the lack of due servants; care or caution upon their part. The English law of libel, as thus finally settled, has been summed up by two competent authorities as follows: "Our present law permits any one to the law of say, write, and publish what he pleases; but if he make a bad now exists; use of this liberty, he must be punished. If he unjustly attack an individual, the person defamed may sue for damages; if, on the other hand, the words be written or printed, or if treason or immorality be thereby inculcated, the offender can be tried for the misdemeanor either by information or indictment." 3 "Freedom of discussion is, then, in England little else than "the right the right to write or say anything which a jury, consisting of to write or twelve shopkeepers, think it expedient should be said or writ- thing which From a constitutional point of view the all-important consisting fact to be borne in mind is that the right to consider and pass shopupon the character of any writing charged to be a criminal keepers, libel belongs neither to the crown nor to the legislature. The expedient right to pass upon such questions pertains exclusively to the said or courts of law; and there the right of judgment is vested not in the judges, but in juries alone. 1 Not until then was fully recognized the truth of Lord Bacon's maxim, that "the punishing of wits enhances their authority; and a forbidden writing is thought to be a certain spark of truth, that flies up in the faces of them that seek to tread it out." 2 6 & 7 Vict. c. 96; Hans. Deb., 3d ser. vol. lvi. p. 395, et seq. As to the legal difficulties that grew out of the 8 Odgers, Libel and Slander, Introd. Dicey, The Law of the Const., p. 234, citing Rex v. Cutbill, State Trials, vol. xxxii. pp. 642, 675. libel as it say anya jury, of twelve think it should be written." Freedom of the press as the reign of Anne, The only restraints upon the freedom of the press that have restrained not so far been noticed are those that arose out of the imposiby taxation; tion of stamp, advertisement, and paper duties, the first two of stamp duty, which originated in the reign of Anne, rather as a means of imposed in restraining the circulation of the press than as a fiscal expedient. The stamp duty thus imposed was finally raised to four pence, and by one of the Six Acts 2 it was extended to tracts and other unstamped periodicals filled with political news and discussions that had freely circulated among the poor upon the ground that they were not newspapers. Cheap publications were thus forced into an attempt to evade the law, and the contraband traffic then carried on by unstamped newspapers continued in full force until the stamp was reduced in 1836 to one penny, and then abolished altogether in 1855. Two years before, the advertisement duty, that had been reduced in 1833, was swept away as one of the results of a movement directed by Mr. Gibson, whose watchword was the repeal of all "taxes on knowledge." As a fitting consummation of that movement the duty on paper, for a long time a stumbling-block in the path of popular education, fell after a memorable parliamentary contest recorded in the debates of 1861.3 first reduced and then abolished in 1855; advertise ment and paper duties also removed. Right of public meeting; not the creation of positive law; 3. Wilkes, who by his publication of the famous No. 45 of "The North Briton" began the contest that ended at last in the freedom of the press, organized and developed during his electoral struggle with the house of commons a still more imperious influence, through which parliament and the crown could be forced to bow to the mandates of public opinion. The right of Englishmen to assemble in public meetings is not the creation of positive law; it is the result of the immemorial natural right of each individual to meet with his fellows in the open air for a lawful purpose. It is one of the forms 1 10 Anne, c. 19, §§ 101, 118; Parl. Hist., vol. vi. p. 1141. As such legislation limited the circulation of cheap papers, it was extended in the two following reigns. 11 Geo. I. c. 8; 30 Geo. II. c. 19. 2 60 Geo. III. and I Geo. IV. cc. I, 2, 4, 6, 8, 9, -a group of repressive measures passed by the government in 1819, on account of the disturbed state of the country. The sixth extended the newspaper stamp duty to cheap political literature. 3 For all details, see May, Const. Hist., vol. ii. pp. 108, 245, 327, 380383. "The right of assembling is nothing more than a result of the view taken by the courts as to individual liberty of person and individual liberty of speech."- Dicey, The Law of the Const., p. 258. law made it unlawful Edward VI. such assemblies; opponents 1733; in which may be exercised the right of freedom of discussion without previous license, but subject to the consequences of law. The common law, while recognizing the right of any common number of persons to hold a lawful assembly, made it a crime a crime to to hold an unlawful one;1 and the penalty was extended to hold an those who, lawfully assembled, so conducted themselves there- assembly; after with a common purpose as to render their meeting unlawful.2 By an act passed in the reign of Edward VI.3 against act of unlawful assemblies, it was declared to be treason for twelve against or more persons to meet together on any matter of state, and felony if the purpose of the meeting was to destroy inclosures. Despite, however, such limitations imposed by the common and statute law upon political "agitation," the government of Sir Robert Walpole, when, in 1733, it proposed an obnoxious meetings of Excise Bill, was forced by popular demonstrations and riots to of Excise abandon it. More violent and more extensive still was the Bill in demonstration made by the Spitalfields silk-weavers, who in of Spital1765 ventured to parade in front of St. James Palace, to sur- weavers in round the houses at Westminster, and to question the peers 1765; as they came forth as to the votes by which a bill for the protection of their trade had been rejected by the upper house. Although this riotous attempt to overawe the deliberations of parliament had to be dispersed by the military, it was nevertheless successful, inasmuch as a bill was passed in the following year conceding what the rioters had demanded. But it is from the persistent and organized agitation of the Middlesex agitation of electors in 1769 that can be dated distinctly the beginnings electors in of such public meetings as have since been recognized as a 1769; legitimate means of constitutional influence in the institutions of the country. The attempt then made by the lower house to take away by means of its disqualifying resolution the right of the populous county of Middlesex, itself a great organ of public opinion, to choose representatives struck at the very root of the representative system; and the result was such an 1 For the earliest definition of an unlawful assembly, see Year-Book, 21 Hen. VII. 29. 2 Sir J. F. Stephen, Hist. of the Crim. Law, vol. ii. p. 386. 5 Grenville Papers, vol. iii. pp. 168– 172; Walpole's Memoirs, vol. ii. p. 155, et seq.; Lord Mahon's Hist., vol. v. p. 152. A bill restraining the importation 8 3 & 4 Edw. VI. c. 10. See above, of foreign silks. 6 Geo. III. c. 28. p. 125. 4 See above, p. 460. 7 See above, p. 483. fields silk Middlesex seventeen counties; "Society for support outburst as had never been seen before of popular resentment extended to expressed through public meetings held in no less than seventeen counties,1 in support of what was regarded as the cause of all. The new-born power of public opinion embodied in this movement was followed by the creation of a "Society for ing the Bill supporting the Bill of Rights;" and that was the prelude of of Rights;" the more definite and extensive form of political association, organized political developed ten years later, through which large and organized association. bodies of men were able to bring their special views more urgently to bear upon the conduct of government, by combining public discussion with imposing and menacing displays of physical force. Right of to redress of private and local grievances; in a wider tion of 1640; 4. Closely allied with the right of public meeting is the petitioning; right of petitioning, which, originating in earlier times as a first applied means of redress for private and local grievances,2 finally grew into one of the favorite forms in which political associations submitted their demands to the crown and to parliament as to matters of national concern. The practice of petitioning in employed its later and wider form was first employed during the Revoluform during tion of 1640 by large bodies of people, who thus undertook to the Revolu- present their grievances to Charles I. and to the Long Parliament, an intolerant body that did not hesitate to punish their political opponents as delinquents whenever they attempted to address them in that manner. The memory of the tumults and intimidations that thus arose during the revolutionary epoch prompted, no doubt, the enactment shortly after the restraining Restoration of the statute of Charles II., which provided that no petition to the king or to either house of parliament for the alteration of matters established by law in church or state should be signed by more than twenty or presented by more than ten persons without the previous authorization of certain designated local magistrates. Despite, however, that restraining statute, Shaftesbury, when in 16795 he resolved to force the king to call the houses together, organized a formida statute of Charles II.; Shaftes bury's use of petitions in 1679; 1 Ann. Reg., 1770, p. 58. 2 "Such as courts of equity and private acts of parliament have since been accustomed to provide."- May, Const. Hist., vol. ii. p. 61. 8 Clarendon, Hist., vol. i. p. 357; vol. ii. pp. 166, 206, 222; vol. v. p. 460; Commons' Journals, vol. v. pp. 354, 367. 4 13 5 In December of that year, petitions to the king for the calling of parliament were discontinued by proclamation. recognized ble agitation throughout the kingdom by means of petitions signed in every district demanding that parliament should be permitted to sit for the suppression of popery and despotism. Then it was, as heretofore explained, that the country party, who were the "petitioners," came to be known as Whigs, and the cavalier or court party, who were the "abhorrers," as Tories.1 Although the Bill of Rights expressly recognized right the right of every subject to petition the king, and denounced by Bill of as illegal all prosecutions for such petitioning," after the Revo- Rights; lution as before, parliament manifested no disposition to listen patiently to popular appeals in that form. In 1701 the commons imprisoned five of the Kentish petitioners until the end five Kentish of the season, for praying the house to listen to the people imprisoned petitioners and to turn their loyal addresses into bills of supply; and in 1701; from that time onward through the reigns of Anne and the first two Georges petitions seemed to have been directed rather to the old subjects of private and local relief than to matters of general concern. Not in fact until the first nineteen turbulent years of the reign of George III. had passed by was the right of petitioning added to the other means of popular agitations employed during that time. Petitioning in its modern petitioning form is now generally dated from 1779, when the freeholders ern form of Yorkshire, supported by many other important counties, dates from and by the principal cities and towns, headed a movement which attempted to promote by that means economic and parliamentary reform. The plan then devised contemplated the plan then signing of petitions in every part of the country through the agency of corresponding committees, the result of whose com- the basis of bined action was to be submitted to parliament as the basis of existing motions in favor of the common object. Thus was formally correspondintroduced into the English political system that method of association. 1 See above, pp. 384, 385. 2 "That it is the right of the subject to petition the king, and all commitments and prosecutions for such petitioning are illegall." That clause, however, did not conflict with 13 Car. II. c. 5, as to tumultuous petitioning. Rex v. Lord George Gordon, State Trials, vol. xxi. p. 650. 8 Parl. Hist., vol. v. p. 1255; Somers' Tracts, vol. xi. p. 242. That is the date as fixed by May, Const. Hist., vol. ii. p. 63. Hallam says, however, that "the great multi- 5 Their petition was signed by up- in its mod devised system of ence and |