xt7rxw47qj1j https://exploreuk.uky.edu/dips/xt7rxw47qj1j/data/mets.xml Rodes, Robert. 19  books b98-60-43710974 English s.n., : [S.l. : Contact the Special Collections Research Center for information regarding rights and use of this collection. Civil rights Kentucky. Constitutional law Kentucky. Speech of Robert Rodes on the Bill of Rights in the Kentucky State Constitutional Convention of 1890 . text Speech of Robert Rodes on the Bill of Rights in the Kentucky State Constitutional Convention of 1890 . 19 2002 true xt7rxw47qj1j section xt7rxw47qj1j 



















SPEECH OF ROBERT RODES

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SPEECH



OF



ROBERT



RODES



ON THF



BILL



of RIGHTS



IN TH F



Kentucky State Constitutional
    Convention of 1890

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                   PREFACE.
   No attempt has been made to trace the whole
course of Robert Rodes in the Constitutional Conl-
vention of 1890. Nor has the regular course been
followed which was pursued by him in the delivery
of the opening and closing speeches in the debate
upon the Bill of Rights. To a certain extent, no
distinction has been made between the opening and
the closing speech, but rather excerpts from both
have been grouped under appropriate heads. The
headings and the italics are mine. Such portions
have been emphasized as, in my judgment, illustrate
the character of the speaker, particularly his rever-
ence for God and for right and for truth; also his
lifelong viewpoint that many things were sanctified
by time and hallowed by historical associations.
One could not have delivered two such speeches
unless he had been steeped in the lore of English
history and filled with the sense of the glory of the
long combat for English liberty.
   Most of the objections, which he endeavors to
answer, were made by Ex-Governor Proctor Knott,
one of the ablest and most eloquent Kentuckians
of his day. It might assist in one's appreciation
of these speeches to know that Governor Knott
objected to much of the phraseology of the Bill of
Rights, as reported by the committee of which
Robert Rodes was chairman, offering as a substitute
therefor a complete Bill of Rights drawn by himself,
couched in modern words and phrases. However,
the Bill of Rights finally adopted by the Convention
was practically that reported from the committee
having same in charge.
    My motive in this publication needs no explana-
 tion save to say that in some measure it gratifies
 a deep affection for the memory of a Father whose
 name will ever be held in reverence 1B" his son.

 




           SPEECH OF ROBERT RODES

                   PREAMBLE.
    We, the people of the Commonwealth of Kentucky, grateful
to Almighty God for the civil, political, and religious liberties we
enjoy, and invoking the continuance of these blessings, (lo ordain
anfd establish this Constitution."
    The first thing demanding the consideration of
this body is the preamble. In all preambles here-
tofore made in the Constitutions of this State and of
the United States anything like gratitude expressed
to a Supreme Being has been omitted. I suppose
it was owing to the reverential feelings of the com-
mittee that they thought something of that kind
might be gracefully interpolated in the preamble
we offer. Professor Bryce, who lately published a
work on America, in the second volume somewhere,
said about this: That standing in the midst of one
of our large cities, and seeing the immense throngs
and crowds passing along of various degrees of
wealth, poverty and nationalities, one-half of the
earth being represented, a ghastly and startling re-
flection took possession of his mind, and he said to
himself, "What if the foundations of this country
fall out In a short time there will be one hundred
million of people in this country, extending from the
Atlantic to the Pacific, and what if the foundations
were to go   And what ARE the foundations "
said he. " The foundations are a belief in a Supreme
Being, in the future before us, and in individual re-
sponssibility.  Now, take these away, or take the
belief in the Supreme Being away, and what have
you left " I could not but help thinking, when I
have heard these venerable gentlemen in this hall
uttering prayers and raising petitions in our behalf

                         S

 




          SPEECH OF ROBERT RODES

in opening our session, "What of all this; what are
we" I reflect that we are not merely one hundred
men, but we are the people of Kentucky; we are two
millions of people. We are the occupants and
owners of forty thousand geographical miles. We
are no insignificant quota of the earth's surface.
Representing that much, it cannot but be that the
Supreme Being looks upon us, and I take it for
granted it would be nothing but a grateful apprecia-
tion on our part of His kindly providence that we
should express some sense of our obligations to Him
for the care and protection He has exercised over us.
    MEANING OF OUR BILL OF RIGHTS.
    I see from the variety and number of amend-
ments offered to this report that some delegates are
mistaken as to what a Bill of Rights is, and what it
should contain, and I will recur for a moment or
two somewhat to the history thereof, and character
of the language that ought to go in its composition.
What do you call it the Bill of Rights for What
do you put in it; what are its characteristics; what
belongs to it It is set aside in an apartment by
itself and made sacred.
   Let us come now and look at the last section.
   "To guard against transgression of the high
powers which we have delegated, WE DECLARE
that everything in this article is excepted out of the
general powers of government, and shall forever
remain inviolate; and that all laws contrary thereto,
or contrary to this Constitution, shall be void."
That is to say, it is consecrated. This is no ordinary
                        9

 




          SPEECH OF ROBERT RODES

part of the Constitution, and if by any misfortune
or inadvertence any other part of it comes into
conflict with the Bill of Rights, I apprehend there
is not a court in the land that would not say that
the Bill of Rights is paramount. It is sacred; they
are set apart in a room or apartment by themselves,
and the mandate is, let no profane hand or foot
come near it. In early ages of the world, in the oldest
written Constitution known to us, the Jewish Con-
stitution, they had no conception of what we would
call the Bill of Rights. There were some scattered
propositions, disjecta membra, through the body of
the Mosaic laws that showed they had some ideas
of what right was; but as a technical collection of
laws, embodying their fundamental rights alone,
and having other laws corresponding to them and
obedient to them, they had no conception whatever;
and, indeed, they could not have borne it at that
time if they had. The laws of Solon and Lycurgus
knew no such thing. The Romans were somewhat
wiser, and after Rome was founded several hundred
years, it became necessary to protect the people
against the encroachments of the rich and powerful.
They did not know at first what to do, but in time
they found out a remedy. They put up a tribune,
and as long as the tribune existed, he was clothed with
a veto power adequate to meet all aggressions. He
was their Bill of Rights, and if I may be allowed to
say without violating taste, when a Governor vetoes
some fifty or sixty bills passed during one session
of the Legislature, and is supported by that body,
he is a shield and a tribune for the people. He
maintains their rights, and for the time being is
                       10

 




          SPEECH OF ROBERT RODES

pro-re-nata the Bill of Rights. That illustrates my
idea. Now, from what does your Bill of Rights
spring It is now-or was on the 15th of June,
1890-exactly six hundred and seventy-five years
old, the oldest written title to your freedom! The
oldest written record to your rights inviolable as
they are does not go beyond that. On the 15th day
of June, 1215, the barons and abbots of England
met in a little meadow above London, and there,
with swords at their sides, determined to recover
what had been attempted to be wrested from them.
They got what they demanded. King John gave it,
and the curious traveler may go now to one of the
museums in London, or in the Tower, and see that
old Bill of Rights, tattered and torn, rusty and
worn with years. If you ever go there, go and see
that title deed to your freedom. But looking at
that Magna Charta, there are but two sections in it
particularly interesting to one at this time-one is
the twenty-ninth section, and the other the twenty-
sixth. There is not a Committee in this body which
has read this provision in the twenty-ninth chapter,
or had occasion to look at that particular clause,
that has not felt that he heard the bass drum of
centuries sounding in his ears. How does the thir-
teenth section of our Bill read  The Common-
wealth of Kentucky says to all her citizens that the
doors of her courts are always open, and any person
who has received an injury in his lands, goods, es-
tate, person or reputation, let him enter and he shall
have a remedy by due course of law without denial,
sale, or delay. That is the language, and that is
the proposition, the only important part of Magna
                        11

 




SPEECH OF ROBERT RODES



Charta; the residue referring to details which have
long since passed out of use and are of no interest
to us. And so dear was that title and that charter
of freedom to the English people, that in the course
of two hundred and seven years, down to the time
when Henry the Fifth ascended the throne in 1422,
just two hundred and seven years, that charter had
been ratified by the kings of England thirty-eight
times. How often it has been ratified altogether, I
shall have to leave to the scholarly gentlemen I see
around me in this Convention, for I do not know,
but I think about fifty times.

   Well, from that time onward, from 1422 on down
to about 1621, the English people passed through
many vicissitudes and variety of fortunes contending
for that very Magna Charta. After the wars of the
Roses, in which the people of England, exhausted
and enfeebled, had sunk beneath the kingly power,
the great shadow of the Tudor family arose over
England, and during that supremacy, there almost
seemed a night dark as Egypt to come over her.
It may have been thought that Magna Charta was
forgotten, their rights gone and trampled under foot,
and their freedom extinguished. Naturalists tell us
that if you cut off the head of a turtle you will see
signs of life for forty-eight hours afterwards; and you
may take the heart out of an alligator and see
throbbings of life for a week.  Not so with Magna
Charta. It never died. With that little remnant
hanging on, it was and became the germ of freedom,
which, in time to come, was going to and destined to
multiply and reproduce itself, until we find it here
                       12

 




SPEECH OF ROBERT RODES



now in the twenty-eight sections of the Bill of Rights
in our Constitution-a lasting monument enduring
and to endure forever; and as long as they live, your
freedom lives. You may pull this Constitution
down, but the throbbings of life in this Bill of Rights
will not cease in forty-eight hours or a week. For
every one of them may be the parent of the whole,
like Cuvier, when he attempted to reproduce some
old dead monster which lived years and ages ago; a
bone enabled him to do it. Out of that and his
brain sprang the monster; and out of Magna Charta,
emerging from the time of the Tudors, have sprung
all our rights. Learning got abroad; the people
began to think; rights began to be asserted.
   The people found out that they were not slaves;
and then the contest came on in the days of James
the First. The people did not at once resort to the
sword; they bore their grievances patiently, and to
show just one instance of the grievances under which
they labored, in 1621 Parliament protested strongly
against the innovation of some of their rights by
King James. James sent for the Clerk of the House
of Commons and directed him to bring him the
Journal. The Clerk brought him his Journal, and
with his own hand he took the book and tore out
that leaf. Now just imagine the Governor of this
State so far forgetting himself as to send for the
Clerk of this body and tear out a leaf from your
Journal. What of it Why Etna and Stromboli
would hardly be a fair indication of the indignation
you would feel and express. It was that sort of a
contest going on for Magna Charta and rights se-
                       13

 



SPEECH OF ROBERT RODES



cured by them; but the people were patient. James
died. Charles ascended the throne in 1625. In
that Parliament which convened after Charles as-
cended the throne (after which there were none for
eleven years) he needed money. Parliament had
the power in their hands, and they framed,
under the auspices of Lord Coke and Sir John
Elliott, what was called the Petition of Right;
and singular as that may seem, that little
remnant of Magna Charta, one section and a
part of another, became enlarged to form others
additional. They claimed and asserted that there-
after no exaction of a loan of money by virtue of the
King's prerogative should be made without the
authority of Parliament; and any man arrested and
put in prison for refusal, if brought out on writ of
habeas corpus, should not be remanded to jail; no
soldier should be billeted or quartered upon the
people without their consent, and in time of peace,
no man should be tried by martial law-every one
of which you have in your Constitution at the present
time. Those men fought for it, and those men
won it. Charles signed it; it was called a Petition
of Right; but he signed it with a view to disregarding
it immediately, which he did; dissolved Parliament
and a short time afterwards Sir John Elliott, the
master mind who carried it through, was thrown
into prison. He stayed there three years and died-
the first martyr to Magna Charta, and your rights and
mine. If any man deserves a monument in the
minds of the English or American people, let Sir
John Elliott remain there forever.
                       14

 




          SPEECH OF ROBERT RODES

   And then followed the long interval of no Parlia-
ment for eleven years. I need not waste your time
by showing how Charles unfurled his banner on the
25th of August, 1642, at Nottingham; how the war
was fought; how Hampden died, and how Pym died,
with harness on; and. how Charles was brought to
the block; how Cromwell usurped the throne; how
Charles II reascended the throne in 1660; and then
without stopping, coming down later, in 1679, you
have another great achievement in the way of a
Bill of Rights. Habeas corpus was then perfected
and made mature substantially as we find it now.
The only difference was, it was sometimes attempted
to be evaded, and Parliament had to guard against
that as we have today; and after that time, passing
over intermediate events in 1685 James II ascended
the throne; on the fifth of November, 1688, William
of Orange landed at Tor-bay, and on the 11th of
February following there took place the most august
event in English history. In the great Hall of
Westminster on that day (the 18th, as some authors
have it), the large folding doors were thrown open
and William and Mary, hand in hand, marched in;
the estates of England on either side, rows of Nobles
and Lords, gentry and yeomen, with Halifax in the
Chair, similar to that occupied by you, sir. He
arose and read then what was called the Declaration
of Rights. That Declaration of Rights, most of
which is embodied in your Bill of Rights now, was
solemnly read, solemnly assented to, and in three
months after that time was transformed into what
they called the Bill of Rights, passed by Parliament
and enacted into law, and is now a portion of the in-
                       15

 




          SPEECH OF ROBERT RODES

heritance of the American people.  What is that
Bill of Rights Let me give you a few extracts. I
have taken the pains to enumerate what it contains:

   First. There shall be no dispensing with laws
or their execution.

   Second. There shall be no ecclesiastical courts
made by King's Commission and others of like
nature.
   Third. There shall be no levy of money by
King's prerogative without grant of Parliament.
   Fourth. The right of petition shall be held
sacred.
   Fifth. No standing army shall be kept without
consent of Parliament.
   Sixth. The right to bear arms in some cases
secured.
   Seventh. Elections made free.
   Eighth. Freedom of debate in Parliament not
questioned.
   Ninth. Excessive bail should not be required,
nor fines exacted, nor cruel and unusual punishments
inflicted.
   Tenth. Jurors ought to be empaneled and re-
turned according to law; in other words, the jury
system was to be maintained.
   Eleventh. All grants and promises of fines and
forfeitures before conviction were illegal.
                       16

 




          SPEECH OF ROBERT RODES

   Twelfth. Parliaments ought to be held fre-
quently.
   Now, you see here what the position of that cele-
brated Bill of Rights was. All important to you, all
important to us now; it is our inheritance. It
descended to us, and comes to us in no irregular
manner. We are in the regular line of succession,
and we hold it as a part of our inheritance. But
that Bill of Rights was as remarkable for what it
omitted as for what it stated. Like the Petition
of Rights, it did not state all which they claimed or
wanted. The Petition of Right was confined to
four propositions. Those four were not all. Neither
are these all. They had in their minds many more,
but rather than go to war, they patiently took what
they could get. That Declaration of Rights, as
Hallam says, "Carried the principle of resistance
as far as they could possibly go then."
   Now, what did they omit They said nothing
about religious toleration; nothing about the free'
dom of the press; nothing about natural rights of
men; nothing about all power being in the people;
nothing about freedom from illegal search and seiz-
ure; nothing about no man being twice put in jeo-
pardy of life and limb, though that may have been the
law at the time, but so important a statement as that
might well have been put in the Bill of Rights, as we
have it at the present day. Independence of the Judi-
ciary--nothing said about that, though I may say that
in seven or eight years thereafter, in the year 1700,
the independence of the Judiciary was declared and
ordained, because it was then ordered that the
                       17

 



          SPEECH OF ROBERT RODES

judges should hold their commission quam die se
bene gesserit, and not at the pleasure of the King.

   Now, we have gotten down to 1692. From that
time on nothing remarkable, for nearly a century,
occurred bearing on this subject. Doubtless around
the council fires and the hearthstones of the people
of England there were many long sighs and many
strong desires expressed by the people on all sides
that those rights that had been omitted from the
Bill of Rights, should be supplied. Scotland had
gone through a long and bloody war, and there are
manv Scotchmen here, perhaps lineal descendants
of the men who in that struggle contended for re-
ligious liberty, for that contest in Scotland down to
the death of Claverhouse, was furious, passionate,
and bloody. The Declaration of Independence in
1776 awoke the sleeping earth. People began to think.
They began to question themselves, and the powers
that be also. They knew what their rights were,
and resolved to maintain them. The Constitution
of Virginia was made in that year. In 1787 our Na-
tional Convention met and were in session some time.
In 1788 the Convention of the States met to pass
upon the Federal Constitution. I am not particular-
lv concerned with any of them but the Convention
of Virginia. In that Convention the Constitution
was resisted"-ably, courageously, vehemently, by
several great men, and Patrick Henry especially, who
never shone forth with more lustre or evinced more
talent or patriotism than when he opposed that
Constitution. Mr. Jefferson, then in France, was
writing back asking, "Why don't you make a Bill
                       18

 



           SPEECH OF ROBERT RODES

of Rights " And yet they did not do it. They had
some four or five propositions in the Constitution, in
the fifth section I believe it was, in which they stated
some things essential to a Bill of Rights; but they
failed to do what Mr. Jefferson directed, showing
how much farther that man saw in the future than
the rest of his countrymen. Patrick Henry de-
nounced the Constitution wanting in guarantees of
human rights and if any gentleman here has read
his speeches as I have done, he will be impressed with
the fact that no man in England or America ever
evinced more courage or far-sightedness than he did
in those speeches. And to show that my opinion is
correct, Mr. Madison, John Marshall, and other
leading members of that Convention, could hardly
get that Constitution through in the face of Henry's
opposition; and it was under their promise and re-
sulting from it, as I suppose, that the first Congress
after the Government was inaugurated, at the very
first session, passed eleven amendments to the Con-
stitution, some eight or nine of them embodying the
very essence of the opposition maintained by Henry
in the Virginia Convention. Congress carried them
out, and they are in that way not technically called
a Bill of Rights, but equivalent to it. Take it all
in all, the Bill of Rights, expressing some fifteen or
sixteen propositions, was made secure.
   As I said in the first speech I made, the Bill of
Rights was not made in a moment. It grew. It
was made from time to time-from age to age-and
the only value of Magna Charta is not on account of
the thirty-seven or thirty-eight chapters, for the
                       19

 




          SPEECH OF ROBERT RODES

only part useful to us now is the twenty-ninth chap-
ter and part of the twenty-sixth chapter; but they
give us some lessons in regard to our rights, and small
as the germ originally was, out of that germ has
grown the whole large-spreading umbrageous tree
as we have it now. We are not, as some gentlemen
suppose, trying Magna Charta, nor is that presented
for adoption at the present time. A good many
things in it we would not adopt or urge; we have no
use for them; they don't apply to our age. But
there are some principles to which I have alluded
that will ever be present to the mind of every man.
And so it was with regard to the Petition of Rights.
That was a growth from the old Magna Charta;
and I think the gentleman from Marion is perhaps
mistaken when he says the people did not know any-
thing about their rights. Undoubtedly they did not
put it in print or make public speeches about it. It
was dangerous to do so. But around their council
boards and their hearthstones, at their homes be-
tween man and man, I doubt not there were hundreds
and thousands of suggestions, not to say grumblings
and muttering threats, that the time would come
when the people would assert their rights. So,
however defective all these ancient charters may have
been, they indicate a very important lesson to us.
They have grown; they have become enlarged; they
are magnified; they now cover a large part of the
earth. Formerly it was a small fountain, now it is a
large stream; formerly it was a twig; now it is a tree;
and in attempting to gather up everything advan-
tageous or useful to us at the present time, it is rather
difficult, because the civilization has changed, and
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           SPEECH OF ROBERT RODES

 our rights have correspondingly changed. We do
 not understand them as they did then; but I do know
 that in 1658, which I believe was the time that John
 Milton wrote his second defense of the English
 people, and a few years afterwards when Locke,
 during the reign of Charles II, penned his work on
 the Theory of Government, and when he wrote the
 charter for the government of South Carolina, they
 understood the theory of government as well as we
 do now.

    Mr. Chairman, I could say more. I could take
up the details of this Bill of Rights, and could answer
the objections put by various gentlemen to specific
portions of it. I could show that we have retained
the old Bill of Rights in its main and essential
character and characteristics. There is no particu-
lar reason why it should not be held the same sacred
object still. We have not changed its name or
meaning, or vitiated its tone. We have constructed
a few sentences. We have turned a few phrases.
We have made them perhaps more acceptable to
the times. But so far as our rights and our title to
our indefeasible inheritance are concerned, they re-
main the same now that they have been for the last
two hundred years, stronger because we have added
beams and girders to the building. This Bill of
Rights has grown from the germ of fifteenth of June,
1215, now to a magnificent tree. Now it is a banyan
tree. It covers much space. There is no finality
in politics. We are always improving. Doubtless
in years to come we will have more to put there,
because when an enemy raises his head or makes his
                       21

 




          SPEECH OF ROBERT RODES

presence known, it is the duty of the people to array
themselves against it wherever it is seen. But at
present it seems to me we have all in the Bill we
ought to have.4 Some gentlemen seem to misunder-
stand the functions of a Bill of Rights. Every-
thing legislative does not belong to it. There are
many things appropriate under the Legislative head,
and under the General Provisions head, and under
the Municipality head that do not pertain to this
at all. Let them be apportioned to the particular
part in the Constitution where they belong. (Let
the Bill of Rights retain the same sacred, inviolate
position it has long assumed; not too numerous in
sections, quantity or character. But numerous
enough, admitting no guest in the sacred chamber,
unless armed with the proper credentials and proper
qualifications; and when they do come in that way,
let its high name, its high character and command-
ing voice be heard so long as this world shall stand.
        LOVE OF OLD EXPRESSIONS.
  'No person shall for the same offense be twice put in jeopardy
of his life or limb. "
   And, in regard to these words, "twice put in
jeopardy." It is due the gentleman from Boyd to
define what "twice in jeopardy" means. Our courts
have passed upon it, but no scientific definition has
ever been given; and if any man feels adequate to
the task, or if the definition of my friend is deemed
adequate by the Convention, I will accept it; but
what it exactly means I do not know. I am not pre-
pared to say. I can have an idea, but nothing more
than a supposition. Then, as to the word "limb."
                       22

 




SPEECH OF ROBERT RODES



I have heard some objection to that; I hold on to it
because it is old. I love old things, and believe in
old expressions. I wish we had more of them than
we have. There are some beautiful things in old
Magna Charta, which have passed out of use, which
I wish were used again. As long as we can hold that
old expression, I say retain it. In former times,
when they branded men and cut off their ears, they
understood it. Then it meant more than it does
now; but at the present time "limb" means liberty
for any part of your body. Therefore, I say keep it,
retain it, never let the word escape, because it is an
expression indicative of what our forefathers had to
pass through; such words and similar language are
the words and language they used in times and
ages long since gone by, when their souls were tried
by fire, and they had to rely sometimes upon their
swords.
          FREEDOM OF THE PRESS.
  "Printing presses shall be free.    Every person may
freely and fully publish, write, and print on any subject, being
responsible for the abuse of that liberty. In prosecutions for pub-
lishing    the truth thereof may be given in evidence."
(Note.-These are parts of Sections Eight and Nine of the present
Bill of Rights.)

   I now call your attention to the eighth section.
That involves the question of libel. You will ob-
serve, if you will turn to the Constitution of Vir-
ginia in 1776, that neither in its constituent parts,
nor in the Bill of Rights, does it say one word about
the admission of the truth of the matter in evidence.
It did not admit it.
                        23

 




           SPEECH OF ROBERT RODES

    Now, you may ask how it happened that that
 Bill of Rights omitted to say anything about the
 introduction of the truth in evidence in libel cases.
 Our Kentucky Constitution, made under the aus-
 pices of George Nicholas at Danville, has the clause
 inserted in it, that in all suits for libel, the truth of
 the matter should be admitted in evidence, and the
 law and the facts submitted to a jury as in other
 causes. How did it happen the Virginia Constitu-
 tion of 1776 left it out My answer is, that they
 hadn't got up to it. They couldn't accomplish it.
 The English people are a slow people. Rather than
 go to war, they resolved to be patient. They nursed
 their rights. They still claimed them, and having
 had a long contest about it, it was not deemed pru-
 dent by them to draw the sword in defense of that
 matter, or by way of claiming that right. The in-
 tervals were long, and the spoliation did not occur
 often enough to cause much complaint. In the very
 year that our first Constitution was adopted, in
 1792, Mr. Fox introduced his celebrated Bill in the
 House of Commons with regard to that matter.
 What did that Bill contain, and what was his object

   Now, you know very well that in the contest about
libels, the issue was whether public sentiment should
prevail or whether the judges and lawyers should rule;
the judges and lawyers generally maintained before
that time that the law was supremely for the court,
and the facts for the jury; in the estimation of the
judges, it was not the jury's province to find any fact
except the fact of publication .That was all. The lawyers
and judges maintained that was as far as the province
                       24

 




          SPEECH OF ROBERT RODES

of the jury went. In that state of case, the press
was not secure. If there be any portion of our liberty
that we would hold rather than any other, it would
be that palladium of our rights, the freedom of the
press. The press is in no danger in this country
from  a censorship. License and censorship are the
enemies of the press. When Mr. Fox, in his bill, at-
tempted to reach that, he did it, indirectly and al-
most clandestinely. Public sentiment was on his
side, but the judges were against him, and he thought
if he could get the matter before the jury, to let them
pass upon the question of guilty or not guilty, the
judges could not force them to their verdict, nor
control them in their deliverance. That is how the
provision that the jury shall be the judges of the law
and fact under the direction of the court as in other
cases came about. If there is one principle better
settled in this country and England than any other,
it is that the law is for the court, and the facts for
the jury. Why did he not say so He did all he
could. He did his best to reach that mark, but
public sentiment was not up to it. He had to yield,
make concessions, but he did secure his object
indirectly, and that is the inheritance he left us.
But that was not right. The way to state it is the
way we have stated it here in the eighth section,
because it is right. It is nothing else but right, and
if it was not right, I would not call it so. If it is
wrong, purge it; but as long as we have judges independ-
ent in one sense and dependent in another, elected by
the people, but their salaries secured, you can have a
safe exposition of the principles of law and the free-
dom of the people, and the press is amply secured.
                        25

 




           SPEECH OF ROBERT RODES

Let it always be maintained that the truth shall be
given in evidence, and if it appears that the truth
was spoken with good intent, let the man or men go
free. Is not that right Will it not pass muster
anywhere If it is right, stamp it with the seal of
your approval; if wrong, blot it out. How can it
be said that it is unfavorable to the press I do not
know that anyone says that, but some one suggested
it is l