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THE TRIAL OF JAMES THOMPSON CALLEN-
DER FOR SEDITIOUS LIBEL, RICH-
MOND, VIRGINIA, 1800.

THE NARRATIVE.

This was the last of the great trials under the Federal
Sedition Act,* and the most celebrated. The libel was di-
rected against the President of the United States, and the
tempest which the trial excited, says Dr. Wharton, can now
hardly be understood. Virginia had joined Kentucky in
declaring the law void within her borders, as a menace to
the freedom of the press, and a breach of the liberties guar-
anteed by the Constitution. There was no popular symps-
thy for Callender, who was 2 brilliant, dranken, unserupu-

“See Trial of Matthew Lyon, 6 Am, St, Tr. 687.
Trial of Anthony Haswell, 6 Am. St. Tr, 695.
Trial of Thomas Cooper, ante, p. 774.

b“Jaues THOMPSON CaLLENDER was 4 Scotchman of whom noth-
ing good is known. He had the pen of a ready writer and the
brazen forehead of a knave, In Scotland he wrote a pamphlet
which he called ‘Tha Political Progress of Great Britain, was
driven from the country, fled to the United States, where, like
Freneai, like Duane, like John Wood, like every man, who, for
few shillings, would laud France and slander the administration,
he was taken up and helped by Jefferson. He became, in short,
what might be called a Fetersonian hack, His business was to
gather all the political seandal, all the foul abuse, all the libele, all
the mean lies that cireulated through the press, to distort Con-
greasional speeches, to misinterpret good acts, to attribute false
motives, to digest the scurrility of the Aurpra, of the Argns, of the
Independent Chronicle, and once a year send out the whole mass
in the form of a book.” MeMaster, Vol. 2, p. 468. “Callender be-
longed to a class of men long common in England, but till he ar-
tived little known in the United States. He was a fine specimen of
a Grub-street hack. As destitute of principle ax of money, bis
talents, which were not despicable, were ever up for sale. The
question with him was never what be wrote, but what he was to be

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