816 Slide – American State Trials 1918 Volume X Leo Frank Document

184 X, AMERICAN STATE TRIALS.

intent to excite the hatred and contempt of the people of this
country against the man of their choice.

It was much to be lamented that every person who had &
tolerable facility at writing should think he had a right to
attack and overset those authorities and officera whom the

+ people of this country had thought fit to appoint. Nor was
it to be endured that foul and infamous falsehoods should be
uttered and published with impunity against the President
of the United States, whom the people themselves had placed
in that high office, and in which he has acted with so much
eredit to himself and benefit to them. Thomas Cooper stands
charged in the indictment as follows-—(here Mr. R. read the
indietment:)—It was a sense of public duty that called for
this prosecution. It was necessary that an example should
be made to deter others from misleading the people by such
false and defamatory publications. There was a peculiarity
in the manner alao of this publication: we generally observe
that persons who take these Hberties endeavor to avoid pun-
ishment by sheltering themselves under fictitious signatures,
or by concealing their names; but the defendant acted very
differently. Being of the profession of the law, a man of
education and literature, he availed himself of those advan-
tages for the purpose of disseminating his dangerous pro-
duetions in a remote part of the country where he had gained
influence. Such conduct must have arisen from the besest
motives. It would be proved to the jury that, at the time of
this publication, the defendant went to a magistrate and
acknowledged it to be his production, in the same formal
manner as if it had been a deed,

A conduct so grossly improper had oceurred in no instance
within his recollection, and the manner constituted no slight
aggravation of the offense. Indeed, it was high time for the
law to interfere and restrain the libellous spirit which had
been so long permitted to extend iteelf against the highest
and most deserving characters,

To abuse the men with whom the public has entrusted the
management of their national concerns, to withdraw from