“Among the points which characterize,” says Lieber,[71] “a fair, just, and sound penal trial, according to our advancement in political civilisation, we would designate the following:—No intimidation before the trial, or attempts by artifice to induce the prisoner to confess—a contrivance which protects the citizen even against being placed so easily in a state of accusation;[72] the fullest possible realization of that principle, that every man is held innocent until proved to be otherwise; bail; a total discarding of the principle, that the more heinous the imputed crime is, the less ought to be the protection of the prisoner, but, on the contrary, the adoption of the reverse; a distinct indictment, and the acquaintance of the prisoner with it sufficiently long before the trial to give him time for preparing the defence; the accusatorial process, with jury and publicity, therefore an oral trial, and not a process in writing; counsel or defensors for the prisoner; a distinct theory of evidence, and no hearsay testimony; a verdict upon evidence alone, in pronouncing guilty or not guilty; a punishment in proportion to the offence, and in accordance with common sense and justice; especially, no punitory imprisonment, which must necessarily make the prisoner worse than he was when he fell into the hands of Government,[73] nor cautionary imprisonment before trial, which by contamination must advance the prisoner in his criminality;[74] that the punishment adapt itself as much as possible to the crime and criminality of the offender; that nothing but what the law demands or allows be inflicted, and that all the law demands be inflicted—no arbitrary injudicious pardoning,[75] which is a direct interference with the government by law.” CHAPTER VI. Having now pointed out the principal illegalities and oppressions which are the necessary results of a principle so evil as that which is embodied in the Acts to which we object, I shall point out two great evils, which are not yet fully appreciated, even by the most earnest opponents of the Acts. It may be stated generally, that the very existence of these laws in any portion of the country gradually educates the nation to political incapacity and to moral obliquity, evils so vast and so insidious, as, by spreading like a plague-spot through the whole nation, to involve it eventually in national downfall. I. It is already plainly perceived by many that the educational influence of these Acts is subversive of individual purity and private morality. It has not been so plainly perceived, however, that that influence is equally subversive of the balance of the social system, of the power of self-government, and of the due relations to each other of the different parts of the body politic, which hitherto have so largely contributed to the manliness of our national character.