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THOMAS COOPER. 787

the other too little, influence on the measures of government.
‘The one is friendly, the other hostile, to a standing army and
a permanent navy. The one thinks them necessary to repel
invasions and aggressions from without, and eommotion with-
in; the other, that a well-organized militia is a sufficient safe-
guard for all that an army could protect, and that a navy is
more dangerous and expensive than any benefit derived from.
it can compensate ; the one thinks the liberties of our country
endangered by the licentiousness, the other, by the restric-
tions of the press. Such are some among the leading features
of these notorious divisions of political party. It is evident,
gentlemen of the jury, that each will view with a jealous eye
the positions of the other, and thet there cannot but be a bias
among the partisans of the one side, against the principles
and doctrines ineuleated by the other. In the present in-
stance, I fear it cannot but have its effects; for, without in-
peaching the integrity of any person directly concerned in
the progress of the present trial, I may fairly state that,
under the Sedition Law, a defendant, such as I stand before
you, ie placed in a situation unknown in any other case.
Directly or indirectly, the public, if not the private, char-
acter of the President of the United States is involved in the
present trial. Who nominates the judges who are to preside?
the juries who are to judge of the evidence? the marshal who
has the summoning of the jury? the President. Suppose a
ease of arbitration concerning the property of any one of you,
where the adverse party should claim the right of nominating
the persons whose legal opinions are to decide the law of the
question, and of the very man who shall have the appoint-
ment of the arbitrators—what would you say to such a trial?
and yet in fact such is mine, and such is the trial of every man
who has the misfortune to be indieted under this law. But
although I have a right to presume something of political
bias against my opinions, from the court who try me, to you
who sit there ag jurymen, I am still satisfled you will feel
that you have some character to support and some character
to lose; and whatever your opinions may be on the subjects

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