The Trial of Theodore Parker: For the "Misdemeanor" of a Speech in Faneuil Hall against Kidnapping, before the Circuit Court of the United States, at Boston, April 3, 1855, with the DefenceParker, Theodore
Religion
The Trial of Theodore Parker: For the "Misdemeanor" of a Speech in Faneuil Hall against Kidnapping, before the Circuit Court of the United States, at Boston, April 3, 1855, with the Defence
Parker, Theodore
Antislavery movements -- Massachusetts -- Boston; United States -- Fugitive slave law (1850)
actually intended by the speaker to incite those addressed
to commit it, and adapted thus to incite them, is such a
counselling or advising to the crime as the law
contemplates, and the person so inciting others is liable to
be indicted as a principal.
"In the case of the _Commonwealth_ v. _Bowen_ (13 Mass. R.
359), which was an indictment for counselling another to
commit suicide, tried in 1816, Chief Justice Parker
instructing the jury, and speaking for the Supreme Court of
Massachusetts, said:--
"'The government is not bound to prove that Jewett would not
have hung himself, had Bowen's counsel never reached his
ear. The very act of advising to the commission of a crime
is of itself unlawful. The presumption of law is that advice
has the influence and effect intended by the adviser, unless
it is shown to have been otherwise; as that the counsel was
received with scoff, or was manifestly rejected and
ridiculed at the time it was given. It was said in the
argument that Jewett's abandoned and depraved character
furnishes ground to believe that he would have committed the
act without such advice from Bowen. Without doubt he was a
hardened and depraved wretch; but it is in man's nature to
revolt at self-destruction. When a person is predetermined
upon the commission of this crime, the seasonable
admonitions of a discreet and respected friend would
probably tend to overthrow his determination. On the other
hand, the counsel of an unprincipled wretch, stating the
heroism and courage the self-murderer displays, might
induce, encourage, and fix the intention, and ultimately
procure the perpetration of the dreadful deed; and if other
men would be influenced by such advice, the presumption is
that Jewett was so influenced. He might have been influenced
by many powerful motives to destroy himself. Still the
inducements might have been insufficient to procure the
actual commission of the act, and one word of additional
advice might have turned the scale.'
"When applied--as this ruling seems to have been here
applied--to a case in which the advice was nearly connected,
in point of time, with the criminal act, it is, in my
opinion, correct. If the advice was intended by the giver to
stir or incite to a crime--if it was of such a nature as to
be adapted to have this effect, and the persons incited
immediately afterwards committed that crime--it is a just
presumption that they were influenced by the advice or
incitement to commit it. The circumstances, or direct proof,
may or may not be sufficient to control this presumption;
and whether they are so, can duly be determined in each
case, upon all its evidence.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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