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NATIONAL SECUI^ socnnv
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/
DEFENCE OF
FREETHOUGHT
BY
COLONEL ROBERT G. INGERSOLL
BEING HIS
FIVE HOURS’ SPEECH TO THE JURY
AT THE
TRIAL FOR BLASPHEMY of C. B. REYNOLDS
AT
Morristown, New Jersey, May 19 and 20, 1887.
[Reprinted frowfthe Author's Edition.]
PRICE
FOURPENCE.
London:
FREETHOUGHT PUBLISHING COMPANY,
2 Newcastle-street, Farringdon-street, E.C.
-
1902.
�PRINTED AND PUBLISHED BY THE FREETHOUGHT
PUBLISHING COMPANY,
2, NEWCASTLE-STREET, FARRINGDON-STREET, EC.
�E 2,6 49
nW
PREFACE.
In introducing to English readers Colonel Ingersoll’s magni
ficent oration in defence of the rights of free thought, free
speech, and free publication, against the charge of blasphemy,
it is fitting to briefly mention the circumstances of its
delivery.
The ex-Rev. C. B. Reynolds has for some years past been
an accredited Freethought missionary in the United States.
After the manner of some itinerant evangelists he travelled
from place to place with a tent in which he preached the
Freethought gospel. At a town called Boonton, in the
State of New Jersey, he was assailed by a party of bigots,
during the summer of 1886. They raised the cry of
blasphemy. Missiles of every kind were thrown at him by
an organised party, his tent was wantonly destroyed, and he
was compelled to seek safety in flight. An action for
damages against the town resulted in a counter action for
disturbing the peace and a threatened indictment for blas
phemy, which fell through owing to the cowardice of the
authorities.
Undaunted by his troubles, Mr. Reynolds revisited Boonton
and the other towns of New Jersey, including Morristown,
not only lecturing but widely distributing a pamphlet he had
prepared, entitled Blasphemy and the Bible.
For this pamphlet he was indicted on a charge of Blas
phemy, and after some delay brought before a Morristown
jury.
It is a curious circumstance that one of the principal pas
sages cited in the indictment had been taken bodily from an
article by G. W. Foote, entitled “ God in a Cradle,” which
appeared in the Christmas number of the Freethinker, 1884,
�IV.
PREFACE.
the year of his liberation from Holloway Gaol, after an
imprisonment of twelve months for the offence of blasphemy.
It is notable that the Colonel does not hesitate to endorse
what are really Mr. Foote’s descriptions of the baby god.
With characteristic generosity, Colonel Ingersoll undertook
the defence of Mr. Reynolds, when suffering from a throat
affection, although he had to give up an important case in
order to be present at Morristown. The proceedings com
menced on Thursday, May 19, 1887, and concluded on the
following day. Three judges sat on the bench ; Mr. Francis
Childs presiding, with two lay judges, Messrs. Quimby and
Munson. Colonel Ingersoll’s speech occupied the whole of
the afternoon and an hour of the next morning. It was
delivered in a crowded court, and made a great sensation.
Judge Childs appears to have played, in addition to his own
part, the role of counsel for the prosecution. His summing
up was directed against the accused, and he ended by saying
“ Do not acquit him by violating the law yourself.” The
jury, after taking an hour to consider the matter, found Mr.
Reynolds Guilty, and the religious farce ended by his being
condemned to pay a fine of twenty-five dollars and costs.
Colonel Ingersoll at once handed over a cheque for the
amount. The contrast of the sentence in this case with that
inflicted in the last trial for blasphemy in England (to which
Colonel Ingersoll seems to have thought it best not to allude)
is a marked one. To kill or imprison a man for insulting
God is one thing, to fine him five pounds is another. If the
Lord’s dignity is valued at that sum in America, he has fallen
miserably from his ancient estate. It looks as if Colonel
Ingersoll’s hope would be fulfilled, and this prove the last
defence found necessary in a trial for blasphemy in America.
�COLONEL INGERSOLL’S ADDRESS.
------- ♦-------
Gentlemen of the Jury: I regard this as one of the most
important cases that can be submitted to a jury. It is
not a case that involves a little property, neither is it
one that involves simply the liberty of one man. It
involves the freedom of speech, the intellectual liberty,
of every citizen of New Jersey.
The question to be tried by you is whether a man has
the right to express his honest thought; and for that
reason there can be no case of greater importance sub
mitted to a jury. And it may be well enough for me, at
the outset, to admit that there could be no case in which
I could take a greater, a deeper interest. For my part,
I would not wish to live in a world where I could not
express my honest opinions. Men who deny to others
the right of speech are not fit to live with honest men.
I deny the right of any man, of any number of men,
of any Church, of any State, to put a padlock on the
lips—to make the tongue a convict. I passionately deny
the right of the Herod of authority to kill the children
of the brain.
A man has a right to work with his hands, to plough
the earth, to sow the seed, and that man has a right to
reap the harvest. If we have not that right, then all are
slaves except those who take these rights from their
fellow-men. If you have the right to work with your
hands and to gather the harvest for yourself and your
children, have you not a right to cultivate your brain ?
Have you not the right to read, to observe, to investi
gate, and when you have so read and so investigated,
have you not the right to reap that field ? And what is
�6
DEFENCE OF FREETHOUGHT.
it to reap that field ? It is simply to express what you
have ascertained—simply to give your thoughts to your
fellow-men.
If there is one subject in this world worthy of being
discussed, worthy of being understood, it is the question
of intellectual liberty. Without that we are simply
painted clay ; without that we are poor miserable serfs
and slaves. If you have not the right to express your
opinions, if the defendant has not this right, then no man
ever walked beneath the blue of heaven that had the
right to express his thought. If others claim the right,
where did they get it ? How did they happen to have
it, and how did you happen to be deprived of it ? Where
did a church or a nation get that right ?
Are we not all children of the same mother ? Are we
not all compelled to think, whether we wish to or not ?
Can you help thinking as you do ? When you look out
upon the woods, the fields—when you look at the solemn
splendors of the night—these things produce certain
thoughts in your mind, and they produce them neces
sarily. No man can think as he desires. No man
controls the action of his brain, any more than he con
trols the action of his heart. The blood pursues its old
accustomed ways in spite of you. The eyes see, if you
open them, in spite of you. The ears hear, if they are
unstopped, without asking your permission. And the
brain thinks in spite of you. Should you express that
thought ? Certainly you should, if others express theirs.
You have exactly the same right. He who takes it from
you is a robber.
For thousands of years people have been trying to
force other people to think their way. Did they suc
ceed ? No. Will they succeed ? No. Why? Because
brute force is not an argument. You can stand with the
lash over a man, or you can stand by the prison door,
or beneath the gallows, or by the stake, and say to this
man : “ Recant, or the lash descends, the prison door is
locked upon you, the rope is put about your neck, or the
torch is given to the fagot.” And so the man recants.
Is he convinced ? Not at all. Have you produced a
new argument ?
Not the slightest. And yet the
�DEFENCE OF FREETHOUGHT.
7
ignorant bigots of this world have been trying for
thousands of years to rule the minds of men by brute
force. They have endeavored to improve the mind by
torturing the flesh, to spread religion with the sword and
torch. They have tried to convince their brothers by
putting their feet in iron boots; by putting fathers,
mothers, patriots, philosophers, and philanthropists in
dungeons. And what has been the result ? Are we any
nearer thinking alike to-day than we were then ?
No orthodox Church ever had power that it did not
endeavor to make people think its way by force and
flame. And yet every Church that ever was estab
lished commenced in the minority, and while it was
in the minority advocated free speech—every one.
John Calvin, the founder of the Presbyterian Church,
while he lived in France, wrote a book on religious
toleration in order to show that all men had an equal
right to think; and yet that man afterwards, clothed in
a little authority, forgot all his sentiments about religious
liberty, and had poor Servetus burned at the stake for
differing with him on a question that neither of them
knew anything about. In the minority Calvin advocated
toleration ; in the majority he practised murder.
I want you to understand what has been done in the
world to force men to think alike. It seems to me that,
if there is some Infinite Being who wants us to think
alike, he would have made us alike. Why did he not
do so ? Why did he make your brain so that you could
not b y any possibility be a Methodist ? Why did he
make yours so that you could not be a Catholic ? And
why did he make the brain of another so that he is an
unbeliever, why the brain of another so that he became
a Mohammedan, if he wanted us all to believe alike ?
After all, maybe Nature is good enough and grand
enough and broad enough to give us the diversity born
of liberty. Maybe, after all, it would not be best for us
all to be just the same. What a stupid world, if every
body said “ Yes ” to everything that everybody else
might say.
The most important thing in this world is liberty.
More important than food or clothes, more important
�DEFENCE OF FREETHOUGHT.
than gold or houses or lands, more important than art or
science, more important than all religions, is the liberty
of man.
If civilisation tends to do away with liberty, then I
agree with Mr. Buckle that civilisation is a curse.
Gladly would I give up the splendors of the nineteenth
century; gladly would I forget every invention that has
leaped from the brain of man ; gladly would I see all
books ashes, all works of art destroyed, all statues
broken, and all the triumphs of the world lost; gladly,
joyously, would I go back to the abodes and dens of
savagery, if that is necessary, to preserve the inestimable
gem of human liberty. So would every man who has a
heart and brain.
How has the Church in every age, when in authority,
defended itself ? Always by a statute against blasphemy,
against argument, against free speech. And there never
was such a statute that did not stain the book that it
was in, and that did not certify to the savagery of the
men who passed it. Never. By making a statute, and
by defining blasphemy, the Church sought to prevent
discussion, sought to prevent argument, sought to pre
vent a man giving his honest opinion. Certainly a tenet,
a dogma, a doctrine, is safe when hedged about by a
statute that prevents your speaking against it. In the
silence of slavery it exists. It lives because lips are
locked. It lives because men are slaves.
If I understand myself, I advocate only the doctrines
that in my judgment will make this world happier and
better. If I know myself, I advocate only those things
that will make a man a better citizen, a better father, a
kinder husband; that will make a woman a better wife,
a better mother—doctrines that will fill every home with
sunshine and with joy. And if I believed that anything
I should say to-day would have any other possible ten
dency I would stop. I am a believer in liberty. That
is my religion—to give to every other human being every
right that I claim for myself; and I grant to every other
human being, not the right—because it is his right; but,
instead of granting, I declare that it is his right—to
attack every doctrine that I maintain, to answer every
�DEFENCE OF FREETHOUGHT.
9
argument that I may urge; in other words, he must
have absolute freedom of speech.
I am a believer in what I call “ intellectual hospi
tality.” A man comes to your door. If you are a
gentleman and he appears to be a good man, you
receive him with a smile. You ask after his health.
You say: “ Take a chair; are you thirsty, are you
hungry, will you not break bread with me ?” That is
what a hospitable, good man does; he does not set the
dog on him. Now, how should we treat a new thought ?
I say that the brain should be hospitable, and say to
the new thought: “ Come in; sit down; I want to
cross-examine you; I want to find whether you are
good or bad. If good, stay; if bad, I don’t want to
hurt you ; probably you think you are all right; but
your room is better than your company, and I will
take another idea in your place.” Why not ? Can
any man have the egotism to say that he has found it
all out ? No. Every man who has thought, knows not
only how little he knows, but how little every other
human being knows, and how ignorant, after all, the
world must be.
There was a time in Europe when the Catholic
Church had power. And I want it distinctly under
stood with this jury that while I am opposed to
Catholicism I am not opposed to Catholics ; while I
am opposed to Presbyterianism I am not opposed to
Presbyterians. I do not fight people ; I fight ideas, I
fight principles, and I never go into personalities. As
I said, I do not hate Presbyterians, but Presbyterianism
—that is, I am opposed to their doctrine. I do not hate
a man that has the rheumatism ; I hate the rheumatism
when it has a man. So I attack certain principles
because I think they are wrong, but I always want it
understood that I have nothing against persons ;
nothing against victims.
There was a time when the Catholic Church was in
power in the Old World. All at once there arose a
man called Martin Luther, and what did the dear old
Catholics think ? “ Oh,” they said, “ that man and all
his followers are going to hell.” But they did not go.
�IO
DEFENCE OF FREETHOUGHT.
They were very good people. They may have been
mistaken; I do not know. I think they were right in
their opposition to Catholicism, but I have just as
much objection to the religion they founded as I have
to the Church they left. But they thought they were
right, and they made very good citizens, and it turned
out that their differing from the Mother Church did
not hurt them. And then after awhile they began to
divide, and there arose Baptists and the other gentle
men, who believed in this law that is now in New
Jersey, and began cutting off their ears so that they could
hear better; they began putting them in prison, so
that they would have a chance to think. But the
Baptists turned out to be good folks—first rate ; good
husbands, good fathers, good citizens. And in a little
while, in England, the people turned to be Episco
palians, on account of a little war that Henry the Eighth
had with the Pope ; and I always sided with the Pope
in that war; but it made no difference; and in a
little while the Episcopalians turned out to be just
about like other folks—no worse—nor, as I know of,
any better.
After a while arose the Puritan, and the Episcopalian
said: “ We don’t want anything of him ; he is a bad
man and they finally drove some of them away and
they settled in New England, and there were among
them Quakers, than whom there never were better
people on the earth—industrious, frugal, gentle, kind
and loving; and yet these Puritans began hanging
them. They said : “ They are corrupting our children ;
if this thing goes on, everybody will believe in being
kind and gentle and good, and what will become of
us ?” They were honest about it. So they went to
cutting off ears. But the Quakers were good people
and none of the prophecies were fulfilled.
In a little while there came some Unitarians, and
they said : “ The world is going to ruin, sure ” ; but the
world went on as usual, and the Unitarians produced
men like Channing—one of the tenderest spirits that
ever lived; they produced men like Theodore Parker—one of the greatest brained and greatest hearted men
�DEFENCE OF FREETHOUGHT.
II
produced upon this continent; a good man, and yet
they thought he was a blasphemer—they even prayed
for his death—on their bended knees they asked their
God to find time to kill him. Well, they were mistaken.
Honest, probably.
After awhile came the Universalists, who said : “ God
is good. He will not damn anybody always, just for a
little mistake he made here. This is a very short life ;
the path we travel is very dim, and a great many
shadows fall in the way, and if a man happens to stub
his toe, God will not burn him for ever.” And then all
the rest of the sects cried out, “ Why, if you do away
with hell, everybody will murder just for pastime, every
body will go to stealing just to enjoy themselves.” But
they did not. The Universalists were good people, just
as good as any others. Most of them much better.
None of the prophecies were fulfilled, and yet the differ
ences existed.
And so we go on until we find people who do not
believe the Bible at all, and when they say they do not,
they come within this statute.
Now, gentlemen, I am going to try to show you, first,
that this statute under which Mr. Reynolds is being
tried is unconstitutional, that it is not in harmony with
the Constitution of New Jersey; and I am going to try
to show you in addition to that, that it was passed
hundreds of years ago, by men who believed it was right
to burn heretics and tie Quakers at the end of a cart,
men and even modest women, stripped naked, and lash
them from town to town. They were the men who
originally passed that statute, and I want to show you
that it has slept all this time, and I am informed—I do
not know how it is—that there never has been a prose
cution in this State for blasphemy.
Now, gentlemen, what is blasphemy ? Of course,
nobody knows what it is, unless he takes into considera
tion where he is. What is blasphemy in one country
would be a religious exhortation in another. It is owing
to where you are and who is in authority. And let me
call your attention to the impudence and bigotry of the
American Christians. We send missionaries to other
�12
DEFENCE OF FREETHOUGHT.
countries. What for ? To tell them that their religion
is false, that their Gods are myths and monsters, that
their Saviors and apostles are imposters, and that our
religion is true. You send a man from Morristown, a
Presbyterian, over to Turkey. He goes there, and he
tells the Mohammedans—and he has it in a pamphlet
and he distributes it—that the Koran is a lie, that
Mohammed was not a prophet of God, that the angel
Gabriel is not so large that it is four hundred leagues
between his eyes—that it is all a mistake—that there
never was an angel as large as that. Then what would
the Turks do ? Suppose the Turks had a law like this
statute in New Jersey. They would put the Morristown
missionary in gaol, and he would send home word, and
then what would the people of Morristown say ?
Honestly, what do you think they would say ? They
would say, “ Why look at those poor, heathen wretches.
We sent a man over there armed with the truth, and yet
they were so blinded by their idolatrous religion, so
steeped in superstition, that they actually put that man
in prison.” Gentlemen, does not that show the need of
more missionaries ? I would say, yes.
Now let us turn the tables. A gentleman comes
from Turkey to Morristown. He has got a pamphlet.
He says: “ The Koran is the inspired book, Mohammed
is the real prophet, your Bible is false and your Savior
simply a myth.” Thereupon the Morristown people
put him in gaol. Then what would the Turks say?
They would say: “ Morristown needs more mission
aries,” and I should agree with them.
In other words, what we want is intellectual hospi
tality. Let the world talk. And see how foolish this
trial is: I have no doubt but the prosecuting attorney
agrees with me to-day, that whether the law is good or
bad, this trial should not have taken place. And let
me tell you why. Here comes a man into your town
and circulates a pamphlet. Now if they had just kept
still, very few would ever have heard of it. That
would have been the end. The diameter of the echo
would have been a few thousand feet. But in order to
stop the discussion of that question, they indicted this
�DEFENCE OF FREETHOUGHT.
13
man, and that question has been more discussed in this
country since this indictment than all the discussions
put together since New Jersey was first granted to
Charles the Second’s dearest brother James, the Duke
of York. And what else ? A trial here that is to be
reported and published all over the United States; a
trial that will give Mr. Reynolds a congregation of fifty
millions of people. And this was done for the purpose
of stopping a discussion of this subject. I want to show
you that the thing is in itself almost idiotic—that it
defeats itself, and that you cannot crush out these things
by force. Not only so, but Mr. Reynolds has the right
to be defended, and his counsel has the right to give his
opinions on this subject.
Suppose that we put Mr. Reynolds in gaol. The
argument has not been sent to gaol. That is still going
the rounds, free as the winds. Suppose you keep him
at hard labor a year; all the time he is there hundreds
and thousands of people will be reading some account,
or some fragment, of this trial. There is the trouble.
If you could only imprison a thought, then intellectual
tyranny might succeed. If you could only take an
argument, and put a striped suit of clothes on it; if you
could only take a good, splendid, shining fact, and lock
it up in some dungeon of ignorance, so that its light
would never again enter the mind of man, then you
might succeed in stopping human progress. Otherwise,
no.
Let us see about this particular statute. In the first
place, the State has a Constitution. That Constitution
is a rule, a limitation to the power of the Legislature,
and a certain breastwork for the protection of private
rights ; and the Constitution says to this sea of passions
and prejudices : “ Thus far and no farther.” The Con
stitution says to each individual: “ This shall panoply
you ; this is your complete coat of mail; this shall defend
your rights.” And it is usual in this country to make
as a part of each Constitution several general declara
tions, called the Bill of Rights. So I find that in the
old Constitution of New Jersey, which was adopted in
the year of grace 1776, although the people at that time
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were not educated as they are now—the spirit of the
Revolution at that time not having permeated all classes
of society—a declaration in favor of religious freedom.
The people were on the eve of a Revolution. This Con
stitution was adopted on the third day of July, 1776, one
day before the immortal Declaration of Independence.
Now, what do we find in this ?•—and we have got to go
by this light, by this torch, when we examine the
statute.
I find in that Constitution, in its eighteenth section,
this : “No person shall ever in this State be deprived of
the inestimable privilege of worshipping God in a manner
agreeable to the dictates of his own conscience ; nor
under any pretence whatever be compelled to attend any
place of worship contrary to his own faith and judgment;
nor shall he be obliged to pay tithes, taxes, or any other
rates for the purpose of building or repairing any church
or churches contrary to what he believes to be true.”
That was a very great and splendid step. It was the
divorce of the Church and State. It no longer allowed
the State to levy taxes for the support of a particular
religion, and it said to every citizen of New Jersey : All
that you give for that purpose must be voluntarily given,
and the State will not compel you to pay for the main
tenance of a Church in which you do not believe. So
far, so good.
The next paragraph was not so good. “ There shall
be no establishment of any one religious sect in this
State in preference to another, and no Protestant inhabi
tants of this State shall be denied the enjoyment of any
civil right merely on account of his religious principles;
but all persons professing a belief in the faith of any
Protestant sect, who shall demean themselves peaceably,
shall be capable of being elected to any office of profit
or trust, and shall fully and freely enjoy every privilege
and immunity enjoyed by other citizens.”
What became of the Catholics under that clause I do
not know—whether they had any right to be elected to
office or not under this Act. But in 1844, the State
having grown civilised in the meantime, another Con
stitution was adopted. The word “ Protestant ” was
�DEFENCE OF FREETHOUGHT.
15
then left out. There was to be no establishment of one
religion over another. But Protestantism did not render
a man capable of being elected to office any more than
Catholicism, and nothing is said about any religious
belief whatever. So far, so good.
“No religious test shall be required as a qualification
for any office of public trust. No person shall be denied
the enjoyment of any civil right on account of his
religious principles.”
That is a very broad and splendid provision. “No
person shall be denied any civil right on account of his
religious principles.” That was copied from the Virginia
Constitution, and that clause in the Virginia Constitu
tion was written by Thomas Jefferson, and under that
clause men were entitled to give their testimony in the
courts of Virginia whether they believed in any religion
or not, in any Bible or not, or in any God or not.
That same clause was afterwards adopted by the State
of Illinois, also by many other States ; and wherever that
clause is no citizen can be denied any civil right on
account of his religious principles. It is a broad and
generous clause. This statute under which this indict
ment is drawn is not in accordance with the spirit of
splendid sentiment. Under that clause no man can be
deprived of any civil right on account of his religious
principles, or on account of his belief. And yet, on
account of this miserable, this antiquated, this barbarous
and savage statute, the same man who cannot be denied
any political or civil right can be sent to the peniten
tiary as a common felon for simply expressing his honest
thought. And before I get through I hope to convince
you that this statute is unconstitutional.
But we will go another step: “ Every person may
freely speak, write, or publish his sentiments on all sub
jects, being responsible for the abuse of that right.”
That is in the Constitution of nearly every State in
the Union, and the intention of that is to cover slan
derous words—to cover a case where a man, under
pretence of enjoying the freedom of speech, falsely assails
or accuses his neighbor. Of course, he should be held
responsible for that abuse.
�i6
DEFENCE OF FREETHOUGHT.
Then follows the great clause in the Constitution of
1844, more important than any other clause in that
instrument; a clause that shines in that Constitution
like a star at night:—
“No law shall be passed to restrain or abridge the
liberty of speech or of the press.”
Can anything be plainer—anything more forcibly
stated ?
“No law shall be passed to abridge the liberty of
speech.”
Now, while we are considering this statute, I want
you to keep in mind this other statement:—
“No law shall be passed to restrain or abridge the
liberty of speech or of the press.”
And right here there is another thing that I want to
call your attention to. There is a Constitution higher
than any statute. There is a law higher than any Con
stitution. It is the law of the human conscience, and
no man who is a man will defile and pollute his con
science at the bidding of any legislature. Above all
things, one should maintain his self-respect; and there
is but one way to do that, and that is to live in accord
ance with your highest ideal.
There is a law higher than men can make. The facts
as they exist in this poor world—the absolute conse
quences of certain acts—they are above all. And this
higher law is the breath of progress, the very out
stretched wings of civilisation, under which we enjoy
the freedom we have. Keep that in your minds. There
never was a legislature great enough, there never was a
Constitution sacred enough, to compel a civilised man to
stand between a black man and his liberty. There never
was a Constitution great enough to make me stand
between any human being and his right to express his
honest thoughts. Such a Constitution is an insult to
the human soul, and I would care no more for it than I
would for the growl of a wild beast. But we are not
driven to that necessity here. This Constitution is in
accord with the highest and noblest aspirations of the
heart—“ No law shall be passed to restrain or abridge
the liberty of speech.”
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17
Now letus come to this old law ; this law that was
asleep for a hundred years before this Constitution
was adopted; this law coiled like a snake beneath the
foundations of the government; this law, cowardly,
dastardly ; this law passed by wretches who were afraid
to discuss; this law passed by men who could not, and
who knew they could not, defend their creed; and so
they said: “ Give us the sword of the State and we will
cleave the heretic down.” And this law was made to
control the minority. When the Catholics were in
power they visited that law upon their opponents.
When the Episcopalians were in power, they tortured
and burned the poor Catholic who had scoffed and who
had denied the truth of their religion. Whoever was
in power used that, and whoever was out of power
cursed that, and yet the moment he got in power he
used it. The people became civilised ; but that law was
on the statute book. It simply remained. There it
was, sound asleep; its lips drawn over its long and
cruel teeth. Nobody savage enough to waken it. And
it slept on, and New Jersey has flourished. Men have
done well. You have had average health in this
country. Nobody roused the statute until the defendant
in this case went to Boonton, and there made a speech
in which he gave his honest thought, and the people not
having an argument handy, threw stones. Thereupon
Mr. Reynolds, the defendant, published a pamphlet on
Blasphemy, and in it gave a photograph of the Boonton
Christians. That is his offence. Now let us read this
infamous statute:
“ If any person shall wilfully blaspheme the holy name
of God by denying, cursing, or contumeliously reproach
ing his being ”-----I want to say right here, many a man has cursed the
God of another man. The Catholics have cursed the
God of the Protestants. The Presbyterians have cursed
the God of the Catholics ; charged them with idolatry;
cursed their images, laughed at their ceremonies'. And
these compliments have been interchanged between all
the religions of the world. But I say here to-day that
no man, unless a raving maniac, ever cursed the God in
�DEFENCE OF FREETHOUGHT.
whom he believed. No man, no human being, has ever
lived who cursed his own idea of God. He always
curses the idea that somebody else entertains. No
human being ever yet cursed what he believed to be
infinite wisdom and infinite goodness ; and you know it.
Every man on this jury knows that. He feels that that
must be an absolute certainty. Then what have they
cursed ? Some God they did not believe in ; that is all.
And has a man that right ? I say yes. He has a right
to give his opinion of Jupiter, and there is nobody in
Morristown who will deny him that right. But several
thousand years ago it would have been very dangerous
for him to have cursed Jupiter, and yet Jupiter is just
as powerful now as he was then, but the Roman people
are not powerful, and that is all there was to Jupiter ;
the Roman people.
So there was a time when you could have cursed
Zeus, the god of the Greeks, and like Socrates, they
would have compelled you to drink hemlock. Yet now
everybody can curse this God. Why ? Is the God
dead ? No. He is just as alive as ever he was. Then
what has happened ? The Greeks have passed away.
That is all. So in all of our Churches here. Whenever
a Church is in the minority it clamors for free speech.
When it gets in the majority, No. I do not believe the
history of the world will show that any orthodox Church
when in the majority ever had the courage to face the
free lips of the world. It sends for a constable. And is
it not wonderful that they should do this when they
preach the gospel of universal forgiveness; when they
say, “ If a man strike you on one cheek turn to him the
other also ” ; but if he laughs at your religion, put him
in the penetentiary ? Is that doctrine ? Is that the
law ?
Now read this law. Do you know as I read this law
I can almost hear John Calvin laugh in his grave.
That would have been a delight to him. It is written
exactly as he would have written it. There never was
an inquisitor who would not have read that law with a
malicious smile. The Christians who brought the fagots
and ran with all their might to be at the burning, would
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19
have enjoyed that law. You know that when they used
to burn people for having said something against
religion, they used to cut their tongues out before they
burned them. Why ? For fear that if they did not, the
poor burning victims might say something that would
scandalise the Christian gentlemen who were building
the fire. All these persons would have been delighted
with this law.
Let us read a little further
“—-Or by cursing or contumeliously reproaching Jesus
Christ.”
Why, whoever did, since the poor man, or the poor
God, was crucified ? How did they come to crucify
him ? Because they did not believe in free speech in
Jerusalem. How else ? Because there was a law
against blasphemy in Jerusalem : a law exactly like
•this. Just think of it. Oh, I tell you we have passed
too many milestones on the shining road of human
progress to turn back and wallow in that blood, in that
mire.
No. Some men have said that he was simply a man.
Some believed that he was actually a God. Others
believed that he was not only a man, but that he stood
as the representative of infinite love and wisdom. No
man ever said one word against that being for saying
“ Do unto others as ye would that others should do
unto you.” No man ever raised his voice against him
because he said “ Blessed are the merciful, for they
shall obtain mercy.” And are they the “ merciful ”
who, when some man endeavors to answer their argu
ment, put him in the penitentiary? No. The trouble
is, the priests; the trouble is, the ministers ; the trouble
is, the people whose business it was to tell the meaning
of these things, quarrelled with each other and they put
meanings upon human expressions by malice, meanings
that the words will not bear. And let me be just to
them. I believe that nearly all that has been done in
this world has been honestly done. I believe that the
poor savage who kneels down and prays to a stuffed
snake, prays that his little children may recover from
the fever, is honest; and it seems to me that a good
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DEFENCE OF FREETHOUGHT.
God would answer his prayer if he could, if it was in
accordance with wisdom, because the poor savage was
doing the best he could, and no one can do any better
than that.
So I believe that the Presbyterians who used to think
that nearly everybody was going to hell, said exactly
what they believed. They were honest about it, and I
would not send one of them to gaol—would never think
of such a thing—even if he called the unbelievers of
the world “wretches,” “dogs,” and “devils.” What
would I do ? I would simply answer him, that is all;
answer him kindly. I might laugh at him a little, but
I would answer him in kindness.
So these divisions of the human mind are natural.
They are a necessity.
Do you know that all the
mechanics that ever lived—take the best ones—cannot
make two clocks that will run exactly alike one hour,
one minute ? They cannot make two pendulums that
will beat in exactly the same time, one beat. If you
cannot do that, how are you going to make hundreds,
thousands, billions of people, each with a different
quality and quantity of brain, each clad in a robe of
living, quivering flesh, and each driven by passion’s
storm over the wild sea of life, how are you going to
make them all think alike ? This is the impossible
thing that Christian ignorance and bigotry and malice
have been trying to do. This was the object of the
Inquisition and of the foolish legislature that passed this
■statute.
Let me read you another line from this ignorant
statute:—
“ Or the Christian religion.”
Well, what is the Christian religion ? “If you scoff
at the Christian religion, if you curse the Christian
religion.” Well, what is it ? Gentlemen, you hear
Presbyterians every day attack the Catholic Church.
Is that the Christian religion ? The Catholic believes it
is the Christian religion, and you have to admit that it
is the oldest one, and then the Catholics turn round
and scoff at the Protestants. Is that the Christian
religion ?
If so, every Christian religion has been
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21
cursed by every other Christian religion. Is not that an
absurd and foolish statute ?
I say that the Catholic has the right to attack the
Presbyterian and tell him, “ Your doctrine is all wrong.”
I think he has the right to say to him, “You are leading
thousands to hell.” If he believes it, he not only has
the right to say it, but it is his duty to say it; and if the
Presbyterian really believes the Catholics are all going
to the devil, it is his duty to say so. Why not ? I will
never have any religion that I cannot defend, that is,
that I do not believe I can defend. I may be mistaken,
because no man is absolutely certain that he knows.
We all understand that. Everyone is liable to be mis
taken. The horizon of each individual is very narrow,
and in his poor sky the stars are few and very small.
“ Or the word of God—”
What is that ?
“ The canonical Scriptures contained in the boohs of the Old
and New Testaments.”
Now, what has a man the right to say about that ?
Has he the right to show that the book of Revelation
got into the canon by one vote, and one only ? Has he
the right to show that they passed in convention upon
what books they would put in and what they would not ?
Has he the right to show that there were twenty-eight
books called “ The Books of the Hebrews ? ” Has he
the right to show that ? Has he the right to show that
Martin Luther said he did not believe there was one
solitary word of gospel in the Epistle to the Romans' ?
Has he the right to show that some of these books were
not written till nearly two hundred years afterwards ?
Has he the right to say it, if he believes it ? I do not
say whether this is true or not, but has a man the right
to say it if he believes it ?
Now, suppose I should read the Bible all through
right here in Morristown, and after I got through I
should make up my mind that it is not a true book,,
what ought I to say ? Ought I to clap my hand over
my mouth and start for another State, and the minute
I got over the line say, “ It is not true, it is not true ? ”
Or ought I to have the right and privilege of saying
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DEFENCE OF FREETHOUGHT.
right here in New Jersey, “ My fellow citizens, I have
read the book—I do not believe that it is the word of
God ? ” Suppose I read it and think it is true, then I
am bound to say so. If I should go to Turkey and read
the Koran and make up my mind that it is false, you
would all say that I was a miserable poltroon if I did not
say so.
By force you can make hypocrites, men who will agree
with you from the teeth out, and in their hearts hate
you. We want no more hypocrites. We have enough
in every community. And how are you going to keep
from having more ? By having the air free, by wiping
from your statute books such miserable and infamous
laws as this.
“ The Holy Scriptures.”
Are they holy ? Must a man be honest ? Has he the
right to be sincere ? There are thousands of things in
the Scriptures that everybody believes. Everybody
believes the Scriptures are right when they say, “ Thou
shalt not steal —everybody. And when they say “ Give
good measure, heaped up and running over,” everybody
says, “ Good ! ” So when they say “ Love your neigh
bor,” everybody applauds that. Suppose a man believes
that, and practises it, does it make any difference
whether he believes in the Flood or not ? Is that of any
importance ? Whether a man built an ark or not—
does that make the slightest difference ? A man might
deny it and yet be a very good man. Another might
believe it and be a very mean man. Could it now, by
any possibility, make a man a good father, a good
husband, a good citizen ? Does it make any difference
whether you believe it or not ? Does it make any
difference whether or not you believe that a man was
going through town and his hair was a little short, like
mine, and some little children laughed at him, and there
upon two bears from the woods came down and tore to
pieces about forty of these children ? Is it necessary to
believe that ? Suppose a man should say, “ I guess
that is a mistake. They did not copy that right. I
guess the man that reported that was a little dull of
hearing and did not'get the story exactly right.” Any
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23
harm in saying that ? Is the man to be sent to the
penitentiary for that ? Can you imagine an infinitely
good God sending a man to hell because he did not
believe the bear story ?
So I say if you believe the Bible say so; if you do
not believe it say so. And here is the vital mistake,
I might almost say, in Protestantism itself. The Pro
testants, when they fought the Catholics, said: “ Read
the Bible for yourselves ; stop taking it from your priests ;
read the sacred volume with your own eyes. It is a
revelation from God to his children; and you are the
children.” And then they said: “ If, after you read it,
you do not believe it, and say anything against it, we
will put you in gaol and God will put you in hell.”
That is a fine position to get a man in. It is like a man
who invited his neighbor to come and look at his
pictures, saying : “ They are the finest in the place, and
I want your candid opinion. A man who looked at
them the other day said they were daubs, and I kicked
him downstairs. Now, I want your candid judgment.”
So the Protestant Church says to a man : “ This Bible
is a message from your Father—your Father in heaven.
Read it. Judge for yourself. But if, after you have
read it, you say it is not true I will put you in the penetentiary for one year.” The Catholic Church has a little
more sense about that—at least, more logic. It says:
“ This Bible is not given to everybody. It is given to
the world, to be sure; but it must be interpreted by the
Church. God would not give a Bible to the world
unless he also appointed someone, some organisation, to
tell the world what it means.” They said : “ We do not
want the world filled with interpretations, and all the
interpreters fighting each other.” And the Protestant
has gone to the infinite absurdity of saying : “ Judge for
yourself; but if you judge wrong you will go to the
penetentiary here and to hell hereafter.”
Now let us see further:—
“ Or by profane scoffing expose them to ridicule."
Think of such a law as that, passed under a Constitu
tion that says: “No law shall abridge the liberty of
speech.” But you must not ridicule the Scriptures.
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DEFENCE OF FREETHOUGHT.
Did anybody ever dream of passing a law to protect
Shakespeare from being laughed at ? Did anybody ever
think of such a thing ? Did anybody ever want any
legislative enactment to keep people from holding
Robert Burns in contempt ? The songs of Burns will
be sung as long as there is love in the human heart.
Do we need to protect him from ridicule by statute ?
Does he need assistance from New Jersey? Is any
statute needed to keep Euclid from being laughed at
in this neighborhood ? And is it possible that a work
written by an Infinite Being has to be protected by a
legislature ? Is it possible that a book cannot be written
by a God so that it will not excite the laughter of the
human race ?
.Why, gentlemen, humor is one of the most valuable
things in the human brain. It is the torch of the mind ;
it sheds light. Humor is the readiest test of truth—of
the natural, of the sensible; and when you take from a
man all sense of humor there will only be enough left to
make a bigot. Teach this man who has no humor—no
sense of the absurd-—the Presbyterian creed, fill his
darkened brain with superstition and his heart with
hatred, then frighten him with the threat of hell, and he will
be ready to vote for that statute. Such men made that law.
Let us read another clause :—
“ And every person so offending shall, on conviction, be fined
not exceeding two hundred dollars, or imprisoned at hard labor
not exceeding twelve months, or both.”
I want you to remember that this statute was passed
in England hundreds of years ago—Justin that language.
The punishment, however, has been somewhat changed.
In the good old days when the king sat on the throne—
in the good old days when the altar was the right-bower
of the throne—then, instead of saying : “ Fined two
hundred dollars and imprisoned one year,” it was: “ All
his goods shall be confiscated; his tongue shall be bored
with a hot iron, and upon his forehead he shall be
branded with the letter B ; and for the second offence he
shall suffer death by burning.” Those were the good
old days when people maintained the orthodox religion
in all its purity and in all its ferocity.
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25
The first question for you, gentlemen, to decide in this
case is : Is this statute constitutional ? Is this statute
in harmony with that part of the Constitution of 1844
which says: “ The liberty of speech shall not be
abridged ” ? That is for you to say. Is this law con
stitutional, or is it simply an old statute that fell asleep,
that was forgotten, that people simply failed to repeal ?
I believe I can convince you, if you will think a moment,
that our fathers never intended to establish a government
like that. When they fought for what they believed to
be religious liberty, when they fought for what they
believed to be liberty of speech, they believed that all
such statutes would be wiped from the statute books of
all the States.
Let me tell you another reason why I believe this.
We have in this country naturalisation laws. Persons
may come here irrespective of their religion. They
must simply swear allegiance to this country ; they must
forswear allegiance to every other potentate, prince, and
power; but they do not have to change their religion.
A Hindoo may become a citizen of the United States ;
and the Constitution of the United States, like the Con
stitution of New Jersey, guarantees religious liberty.
That Hindoo believes in a God—in a God that no
Christian does believe in. He believes in a sacred book
that every Christian looks upon as a collection of false
hoods. He believes, too, in a Savior—in Buddha.
Now, I ask you: When that man comes here and
becomes a citizen—when the Constitution is about him,
above him—has he the right to give his ideas about his
religion ? Has he the right to say in New Jersey :
“ There is no God except the Supreme Brahm ; there is
no Savior except Buddha the Illuminated, Buddha the
Blest ” ? I say that he has that right; and you have no
right, because in addition to that he says, “You are
mistaken; your God is not God ; your Bible is not true,
and your religion is a mistake,” to abridge his liberty of
speech. He has the right to say it; and, if he has the
right to say it, I insist before this Court and before this jury
that he has the right to give his reasons for saying it;
and, in giving those reasons, in maintaining his side, he
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DEFENCE OF FREETHOUGHT.
has the right, not simply to appeal to history, not simply
to the masonry of logic, but he has the right to shoot
the arrows of wit and to use the smile of ridicule.
Anything that can be laughed out of this world ought
not to stay in it.
So the Persian—the believer in Zoroaster, in the
spirits of Good and Evil, and that the spirit of Evil will
finally triumph for ever—if that is his religion, he has the
right to state it, and the right to give his reasons for his
belief. How infinitely preposterous for you, one of the
States of this Union, to invite a Persian or a Hindoo to
come to your shores. You do not ask him to renounce
his God; you ask him to renounce the Shah. Then,
when he becomes a citizen, having the rights of every
other citizen, he has the right to defend his religion and
to denounce yours.
There is another thing. What was the spirit of our
Government at that time ? You must look at the leading
men. Who were they ? What were their opinions ?
Were most of them as guilty of blasphemy as is the
defendant in this case ? Thomas Jefferson—and there
is in my judgment only one name on the page of
American history greater than his; only one name for
which I have a greater and tenderer reverence, and that
is Abraham Lincoln, because of all men who ever lived
and had power, he was the most merciful. And that is
the way to test a man. How does he use power ? Does
he want to crush his fellow-citizens ? Does he like to
lock somebody up in the penetentiary because he has
the power of the moment ? Does he wish to use it as a
despot or as a philanthropist, like a devil or like a man ?
Thomas Jefferson entertained about the same views
entertained by the defendant in this case, and he was
made President of the United States. He was the
author of the Declaration of Independence, founder of
the University of Virginia, writer of that clause in the
Constitution of that State that made all the citizens
equal before the law. And when I come to the very
sentences here charged as blasphemy I will show you
that these were the common sentiments of thousands of
very great, of very intellectual and admirable men.
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27
I have no time, and it may be this is not the place
and the occasion, to call your attention to the infinite
harm that has been done in almost every religious
nation by statutes such as this. Where that statute is,
liberty cannot be ; and if this statute is enforced by this
jury and by this Court, and if it is afterwards carried
out, and if it could be carried out in the States of this
Union, there would be an end of all intellectual progress.
We should go back to the dark ages. Every man’s
mind, upon these subjects at least, would became a
stagnant pool, covered with the scum of prejudice and
meanness.
And wherever such laws have been enforced, have the
people been friends ? Here we are to-day in this
blessed air—here amid these happy fields. Can we
imagine, with these surroundings, that a man for having
been found with a crucifix in his poor little home had
been taken from his wife and children and burned—
burned by Protestants ? You cannot conceive of such
a thing now. Neither can you conceive that there was
a time when Catholics found some poor Protestant con
tradicting one of the dogmas of the Church, and took
that poor honest wretch—while his wife wept, while his
children clung to his hands—to the public square,
drove a stake in the ground, put a chain or two about
him, lighted the fagots, and let the wife whom he loved
and his little children see the flames climb around his
limbs—you cannot imagine that any such infamy was
ever practised.
And yet, I tell you, that the same
spirit made this detestable, infamous, devilish statute.
You can hardly imagine that there was a time when
the same kind of men that made this law said to
another man : “You say this world is round ? ” “Yes,
sir; I think it is, because I have seen its shadow on the
moon.” “ You have ? ” Now can you imagine a society
outside of hyenas and boa constrictors that would take
that man, put him in the penitentiary, in a dungeon,
turn the key upon him, and let his name be blotted
from the book of human life ? Years afterwards some
explorer amid ruins finds a few bones. The same spirit
that did that, made this statute—the same spirit that
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DEFENCE OF FREETHOUGHT.
did that, went before the grand jury in this case—
exactly. Give the men that had this man indicted the
power, and I would not want to live in that particular
part of the country. I would not willingly live with
such men. I would go somewhere else, where the air
is free, where I could speak my sentiments to my wife,
to my children, and to my neighbors.
Now this persecution differs only in degree from the
infamies of the olden time. What does it mean ? It
means that the State of New Jersey has all the light
it wants. And what does that mean ? It means that
the State of New Jersey is absolutely infallible—that it
has got its growth, and does not propose to grow any
more. New Jersey knows enough, and it will send
teachers to the penitentiary.
It is hardly possible that this State has accomplished
all that it is ever going to accomplish. Religions are
for a day. They are the clouds. Humanity is the
eternal blue. Religions are the waves of the sea. These
waves depend upon the force and direction of the wind,
that is to say, of passion; but Humanity is the great
sea. And so our religions change from day to day,
and it is a blessed thing they do. Why ? Because we
grow, and we are getting a litte more civilised every day;
and any man that is not willing to let another man
express his opinion, is not a civilised man, and you know
it. Any man that does not give to everybody else the
rights he claims for himself, is not an honest man.
Here is a man who says, “ I am going to join the
Methodist Church.” What right has he ? Just the
same right to join it that I have not to join it—no more,
no less. But if you are a Methodist and I am not, it
simply proves that you do not agree with me, and that I
do not agree with you, that is all. Another man is a
Catholic. He was born a Catholic, or is convinced that
Catholicism is right. That is his business, and any man
that would persecute him on that account, is a poor
barbarian, a savage ; any man that would abuse him on
that account is a barbarian, a savage.
Then I take the next step. A man does not wish to
belong to any Church. How are you going to judge
�DEFENCE OF FREETHOUGHT.
29
him ? Judge him by the way he treats his wife, his
children, his neighbors. Does he pay his debts ? Does
he tell the truth ? Does he help the poor ? Has he got
a heart that melts when he hears grief s story ? That
is the way to judge him. I do not care what he thinks
about the bears, or the flood; about bibles or gods.
When some poor mother is found wandering in the
street with a babe at her breast, does he quote Scripture,
or hunt for his pocket-book. That is the way to judge.
And suppose he does not believe in any Bible whatever ?
If Christianity is true, that is his misfortune, and
everybody should pity the poor wretch that is going
down the hill. Why kick him ? You will get your
revenge on him through all eternity; is not that
enough ?
So I say, let us judge each other by our actions, not
by theories, not by what we happen to believe, because
that depends very much on where we were born.
If you had been born in Turkey, you probably would
have been a Mohammedan. If I had been born among
the Hindoos, I might have been a Buddhist; I can’t
tell. If I had been raised in Scotland, on oatmeal, I
might have been a Covenanter; nobody knows. If I
had lived in Ireland, and seen my poor wife and children
driven into the street, I think I might have been a
Home Ruler; no doubt of it. You see it depends
on where you were born ; much depends on our sur
roundings.
Of course, there are men born in Turkey who are not
Mohammedans, and there are men born in this country
who are not Christians—Methodists, Unitarians, or
Catholics ; plenty of them who are unbelievers ; plenty
of them who deny the truth of the Scriptures; plenty
of them who say : “I know not whether there be a God
or not.” Well, it is a thousand times better to say that
honestly than to say dishonestly that you believe in
God.
If you want to know the opinion of your neighbor,
you want his honest opinion. You do not want to be
deceived. You do not want to talk with a hypocrite.
You want to get straight at his honest mind ; and then
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you are going to judge him, not by what he says, but by
what he does. It is very easy to sail along with the
majority ; easy to sail the way the boats are going;
easy to float with the stream; but when you come to
swim against the tide, with the men on the shore
throwing rocks at you, you will get a good deal of
exercise in this world.
And do you know that we ought to feel under the
greatest obligations to men who have fought the pre
vailing notions of their day ? There is not a Presbyterian
in Morristown that does not hold up for admiration the
man that carried the flag of the Presbyterians when they
were in the minority ; not one. There is not a Methodist
in this State who does not admire John and Charles
Wesley and Whitefield, who carried the banner of that
new and despised sect when it was in the minority.
They glory in them because they braved public opinion,
because they dared to oppose idiotic, barbarous and
savage statutes like this. And there is not a Universalist
that does not worship dear old Hosea Ballou ; I love
him myself; because he said to the Presbyterian
minister : “You are going around trying to keep people
out of hell, and I am going around trying to keep hell
out of the people.” Every Universalist admires him
and loves him because, when despised and railed at and
spit upon, he stood firm, a patient witness for the eternal
mercy of God. And there is not a solitary Protestant
who does not honor Martin Luther: who does not
honor the Covenanters in poor Scotland, and that poor
girl who was tied out on the sand of the sea by Episco
palians, and kept there till the rising tide drowned her,
and all she had to do to save her life was to say, “ God
save the kingbut she would not say it without the
addition of the words, “ If it be God’s will.” No one,
who is not a miserable, contemptible wretch, can fail
to stand in admiration before such courage, such self
denial, such heroism. No matter what the attitude of
your body may be, your soul falls on its knees before
such men and such women.
Let us take another step. Where should we have
been if authority had always triumphed ? Where should
�DEFENCE OF FREETHOUGHT.
31
we have been if such statutes had always been
carried out ? We have now a science called astronomy.
That science has done more to enlarge the horizon of
human thought than all things else. We now live in an
infinite universe. We know that the sun is a million
times larger than our earth, and we know that there are
other great luminaries millions of times larger than our
sun. We know that there are planets so far away that
light, travelling at the rate of one hundred and eightyfive thousand miles a second, requires fifteen thousand
years to reach this grain of sand, this tear we call the
earth ; and we now know that all the fields of space are
sown thick with constellations. If that statute had been
enforced, that science would not now be the property of
the human mind. That science is contrary to the Bible,
and for asserting the truth you become a criminal. For
what sum of money, for what amount of wealth, would
the world have the science of astronomy expunged from
the brain of man ? We learned the story of the stars in
spite of that statute.
The first men who said the world was round were
scourged for scoffing at the Scriptures. And even
Martin Luther, speaking of one of the' greatest men
that ever lived, said: “ Does he think with his little
lever to overturn the Universe of God ?” Martin
Luther insisted that such men ought to be trampled
under foot. If that statute had been carried into
effect, Galileo would have been impossible. Kepler,
the discoverer of the three laws, would have died with
the great secret locked in his brain, and mankind would
have been left ignorant, superstitious, and besotted. And
what else ? If that statute had been carried out, the
world would have been deprived of the philosophy of
Spinoza; of the philosophy, of the literature, of the
wit and wisdom, the justice and mercy of Voltaire, the
greatest Frenchman that ever drew the breath of life,
the man who by his mighty pen abolished torture in a
nation and helped to civilise a world.
If that statute had been enforced, nearly all the
books that enrich the libraries of the world could not
have been written. If that statute had been enforced,
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DEFENCE OF FREETHOUGHT.
Humboldt could not have delivered the lectures now
known as “ The Cosmos.” If that statute had been
enforced, Charles Darwin would not have been allowed
to give to the world his discoveries, that have beencof
more benefit to mankind than all the sermons ever
uttered. In England they have placed his sacred dust
in the great Abbey. If he had lived in New Jersey,
and this statute could have been enforced, he would
have lived one year at least in your penitentiary.
Why ? That man went so far as not simply to deny
the truth of your Bible, but absolutely to deny the
existence of your God. Was he a good man ? Yes,
one of the greatest and noblest of men. Humboldt,
the greatest German who ever lived, was of the same
opinion.
And so I might go on with the great men of to-day.
Who are the men who are leading the race upward and
shedding light in the intellectual world ? They are the
men declared by that statute to be criminals. Mr.
Spencer could not publish his books in the State of New
Jersey. He would be arrested, tried, and imprisoned ;
and yet that man has added to the intellectual wealth of
the world.
So with Huxley, so with Tyndall, so with Helmholz ;
so with the greatest thinkers and greatest writers of
modern times.
You may not agree with these men, and what does
that prove ? It simply proves that they do not agree
with you, that is all. Who is to blame ? I do not
know. They may be wrong, and you may be right;
but if they had the power, and put you in the peniten
tiary simply because you differed from them, they
would be savages; and if you have the power and
imprison men because they differ from you, why then, of
course, you are savages.
No; I believe in intellectual hospitality. I love
men that have a little horizon to their minds ; a little
sky, a little scope. I hate anything that is narrow and
pinched and withered and mean and crawling, and that
is willing to live on dust. I believe in creating such
an atmosphere that things will burst into blossom. I
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33
believe in good will, good health, good fellowship,
good feeling, and if there is any God on the earth, or
in heaven, let us hope that he will be generous and
grand. Do you not see what the effect will be ? I am
not cursing you because you are a Methodist, and not
damning you because you are a Catholic, or because
you are an Infidel; a good man is more than all of
these. The grandest of all things is to be in the highest
and noblest sense a man.
Now let us see the frightful things that this man, the
defendant in this case, has done. Let me read the
charges against him as set out in this indictment.
I shall insist that this statute does not cover any pub
lication, that it covers simply speech, not in writing,
not in book or pamphlet. Let us see :—
“ This Bible describes God as so loving that he drowned the
whole world in his mad fury.”
Well, the great question about that is, is it true ?
Does the Bible describe God as having drowned the
whole world with the exception of eight people ? Does
it, or does it not ? I do not know whether there is any
body in this country who has really read the Bible, but
I believe the story of the Flood is there. It does say
that God destroyed all flesh, and that he did so because
he was angry. He says so himself, if the Bible be
true.
The defendant has simply repeated what is in the
Bible. The Bible says that God is loving, and says
that he drowned the world, and that he was angry. Is
it blasphemy to quote from the “ Sacred Scriptures ? ”
“ Because it was so much worse than he, knowing all things,
ever supposed it could be.”
Well, the Bible does say that he repented having
made man. Now is there any blasphemy in saying that
the Bible is true ? That is the only question. It is a
fact that God, according to the Bible, did drown nearly
everybody. If God knows all things, he must have
known at the time he made them that he was going to
drown them. Is it likely that a being of infinite
wisdom would deliberately do what he knew he must
undo ? Is it blasphemy to ask that question ? Have
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DEFENCE OF FREETHOUGHT.
you a right to think about it at all ? If you have, you
have the right to tell somebody what you think; if
not, you have no right to discuss it, no right to think
about it. All you have to do is to read it and believe
it—open your mouth like a young robin, and swallow
worms or shingle nails, no matter which.
The defendant further blasphemed and said that:—
“An all-wise, unchangeable God, who got out of patience
with a world which was just what his own stupid blundering
had made it, knew no better way out of the muddle than to
destroy it by drowning I ”
Is that true ? Was not the world exactly as God
made it ? Certainly. Did he not, if the Bible be true,
drown the people ? He did. Did he know he would
drown them when he made them ? He did. Did he
know they ought to be drowned when they were made ?
He did. Where, then, is the blasphemy in saying so ?
There is not a minister in this world who could ex
plain it—who would be permitted to explain it, under
this statute. And yet you would arrest this man and
put him in the penitentiary. But after you lock him in
the cell, there remains the question still. Is it possible
that a good and wise God, knowing that he was going
to drown them, made millions of people ? What did
he make them for ? I do not know. I do not pretend
to be wise enough to answer that question. Of course,
you cannot answer the question. Is there anything
blasphemous in that? Would it be blasphemy in me
to say I do not believe that any God ever made men,
women, and children, mothers, with babes clasped to
their breasts, and then sent a flood to fill the world with
death ?
A rain lasting for forty days, the water rising hour
by hour, and the poor wretched children of God climb
ing to the tops of their houses, then to the tops of the
hills. The water still rising—no mercy. The people
climbing higher and higher, looking to the mountains
for salvation, the merciless rain still falling, the in
exorable flood still rising. Children falling from the
arms of mothers—no pity. The highest hills covered,
infancy and old age mingling in death, the cries of
�DEFENCE OF FREETHOUGHT.
35
women, the sobs and sighs lost in the roar of the waves,
the heavens still relentless. The mountains are covered,
a shoreless sea rolls round the world, and on its billows
are billions of corpses.
This is the greatest crime that man has imagined,
and this crime is called a deed of infinite mercy.
Do you believe that ? I do not believe one word of
it, and I have the right to say to all the world that this
is false.
If there be a good God, the story is not true. If
there be a wise God, the story is not true. Ought an
honest man to be sent to the penetentiary for simply
telling the truth ?
Suppose we had a statute that whoever scoffed at
Science, whoever by profane language should bring the
Rule of Three into contempt, or whoever should attack
the proposition that two parallel lines will never include
a space, should be sent to the penetentiary, what would
you think of it ? It would be just as wise and just as
idiotic as this.
And what else says the defendant ?
“ The Bible God says that his people made him jealous''
“ Provoked him to anger."
Is that true ? It is. If it is true, is it blasphemous ?
Let us read another line—
“ And now he will raise the mischief with them: that his
anger burns like hell."
That is true. The Bible says of God : “ My anger
burns to the lowest hell.” And that is all that the
defendant says. Every word of it is in the Bible. He
simply does not believe it, and for that reason is a
“ blasphemer.”
I say to you now, gentlemen, and I shall argue to the
Court, that there is not in what I have read a solitary
blasphemous word; not a word that has not been said in
hundreds of pulpits in the Christian world. Theodore
Parker, a Unitarian, speaking of this Bible God, said:
“ Vishnu, with a necklace of skulls; Vishnu, with
bracelets of living, hissing serpents, is a figure of Love
and Mercy compared to the God of the Old Testament.”
That we might call “blasphemy,” but not what I have read.
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DEFENCE OF FREETHOUGHT.
Let us read on :—
“ He would destroy them all were it not that he feared the
wrath of the enemy.”
That is the Bible, word for word. Then the defendant,
in astonishment, says:—
“ The Almighty God afraid of his enemies !"
That is what the Bible says. What does it mean ?
If the Bible is true, God was afraid.
“ Can the mind conceive of more horrid blasphemy ?”
Is not that true ? If God be infinitely good and wise
and powerful, is it possible he is afraid of anything ?
If the defendant had said that God was afraid of his
enemies, that might have been blasphemy; but this man
says the Bible says that, and you are asked to say that
it is blasphemy. Now, up to this point there is no blas
phemy, even if you were to inform this infamous statute,
this savage law.
“ The Old Testament records for our instruction in morals
the most foul and bestial instances of fornication, incest, and
polygamy, perpetrated by God's own saints ; and the New
Testament endorses these lecherous wretches as examples for all
good Christians to follow.”
Now, is it not a fact that the Old Testament does
uphold polygamy ? Abraham would have gotten into
trouble in New Jersey; no doubt of that. Sarah could
have obtained a divorce in this State ; no doubt of that.
What is the use of telling a falsehood about it ? Let us
tell the truth about the patriarchs.
Everybody knows that the same is true of Moses.
We have all heard of Solomon, a gentleman with five
or six hundred wives, and three or four hundred other
ladies with whom he was acquainted. This is simply
what the defendant says. Is there any blasphemy about
that ? It is only the truth. If Solomon were living in
the United States to-day we should put him in the penetentiary. You know that, under the Edmunds’ Mormon
law, he would be locked up. If you should present a
petition signed by his eleven hundred wives you could
not get him out.
So it was with David. There are some splendid things
about David, of course. I admit that, and pay my
�DEFENCE OF FREETHOUGHT.
37
tribute of respect to his courage; but he happened to
have ten or twelve wives too many, so he shut them up,
put them in a kind of penetentiary, and kept them there
till they died. That would not be considered good
conduct even in Morristown. You know that. Is it
any harm to speak of it ? There are plenty of ministers
here to set it right; thousands of them all over the
country, every one with his chance to talk all day Sunday,
and nobody to say a word back. The pew cannot reply
to the pulpit, you know; it has just to sit there and take
it. If there is any harm in this, if it is not true, they
ought to answer it. But it is here, and the only answer
is an indictment.
I say that Lot was a bad man. So I say of Abraham
and of Jacob. Did you ever know of a more despicable
fraud practised by one brother on another than Jacob
: practised on Esau ? My sympathies have always been
with Esau. He seemed to be a manly man. Is it
blasphemy to say that you do not like a hypocrite, a
murderer, or a thief, because his name is in the Bible ?
How do you know what such men are mentioned for ?
May be they are mentioned as examples, and you
certainly ought not to be led away and induced to
imagine that a man with seven hundred wives is a
pattern of domestic propriety, one to be followed by
yourself and your sons. I might go on and mention the
names of hundreds of others who comfhitted every con
ceivable crime in the name of religion ; who declared
war, and on the field of battle killed men, women, and
babes, even children yet unborn, in the name of the most
merciful God. The Bible is filled with the names and
.crimes of these sacred savages, these inspired beasts.
Any man who says that a God of love commanded the
commission of these crimes is, to say the least of it,
mistaken. If there be a God, then it is blasphemous to
charge him with the commission of crime.
But let us read further from this indictment:—
“ The aforesaid printed document contains other
^scandalous, infamous, and blasphemous matters and
.things to the tenor and effect following, that is to say ”—
Then comes this particularly blasphemous line :
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DEFENCE OF FREETHOUGHT.
11 Now, reader, take time and calmly think it over.”
Gentlemen, there are many things I have read that I
should not have expressed in exactly the same language
used by the defendant, and many things that I am going
to read I might not have said at all, but the defendant
had the. right to say every word with which he is
charged in this indictment. He had the right to give
his honest thought, no matter whether any human being
agreed with what he said or not, and no matter whether
any other man approved of the manner in which he
said these things. I defend his right to speak, whether I
believe in what he spoke or not, or in the propriety of
saying what he did. I should defend a man just as
cheerfully who had spoken against my doctrine as one
who had spoken against the popular superstitions of my
time. It would make no difference to me how unjust
the attack was upon my belief, how maliciously ingenious ;
and no matter how sacred the conviction that was
attacked, I would defend the freedom of speech. And
why ? Because no attack can be answered by force, no
argument can be refuted by a blow, or by imprisonment,
or by fine. You may imprison the man, but the argu
ment is free ; you may fell the man to the earth, but the
■statement stands.
The defendant in this case has attacked certain
beliefs thought by the Christian world to be sacred.
-Yet, after all, nothing is sacred butthetruth, and by
truth I mean what a man sincerely and honestly
believes. The defendant says :—
“ Take time to calmly think it over : Was a Jewish girl the
mother of God, the mother of your God ? ”
The defendant probably asked this question supposing
that it must be answered by all sensible people in the
negative. If the Christian religion is true, then a Jewish
girl was the mother of Almighty God. Personally, if
the doctrine is true, I have no fault to find with the
statement that a Jewish maiden was the mother of God.
Millions believe that this is true; I do not believe it;
but who knows ? If a God came from the throne of the
universe, came to this world and became the child of a
pure and loving woman, it would not lessen, in my eyes,
the dignity or the greatness of that God.
�DEFENCE OF FREETHOUGHT.
39
There is no more perfect picture on the earth or
within the imagination of man than a mother holding
in her thrilled and happy arms a child, the fruit of
love.
No matter how the statement is made, the fact
remains the same. A Jewish girl became the mother
of God. If the Bible is true, that is true, and to repeat
it, even according to your law, is not blasphemous, and
to doubt it, or to express the doubt, or to deny it, is not
contrary to your Constitution.
To this defendant it seemed improbable that God was
ever born of woman, was ever held in the lap of a
mother ; and because he cannot believe this he is charged
with blasphemy. Could you pour contempt on Shake
speare by saying that his mother was a woman—by
saying that he was once a poor, crying, little helpless
child ? Of course he was ; and he afterwards became
the greatest human being that ever touched the earth,
the only man whose intellectual wings have reached from
sky to sky ; and he was once a crying babe. What of
it ? Does that cast any scorn or contempt upon him ?
Does this take any of the music from Midsummer Night's
Dream, any of the passionate wealth from Antony and
Cleopatra, any philosophy from Macbeth, any intellectual
grandeur from King Lear? On the contrary, these
great productions of the brain show the growth of the
dimpled babe, give every mother a splendid dream and
hope for her child, and cover every cradle with a sublime
possibility.
The defendant is also charged with having said that
“ God cried and screamed."
Why not ? If he was absolutely a child he was like
other children—like yours, like mine. I have seen the
time, when absent from home, that I would have given
more to have heard my children cry than to have heard
the finest orchestra that ever made the air burst into
flower. What if God did cry ? It simply shows that
. his humanity was real, and not assumed; that it was a
tragedy ; real, and not a poor pretence. And the defen
dant also says that, if the orthodox religion be true, that
the—
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DEFENCE OF FREETHOUGHT.
“ God of the Universe kicked, and flung about his little arms,
and made aimless dashes into space with his little fists.”
Is there anything in this that is blasphemous ? One
of the best pictures I ever saw of the Virgin and Child
was painted by the Spaniard, Murillo. Christ appears
to be a truly natural, chubby, happy babe. Such a
picture takes nothing from the majesty, the beauty, or
the glory of the incarnation.
I think it is the best thing about the Catholic Church
that it lifts up for adoration and admiration a mother;
that it pays what it calls “ Divine honors ” to a woman.
There is certainly goodness in that; and, where a
Church has so few practices that are good, I am
willing to point this one out. It is the one redeeming
feature about Catholicism that it teaches the worship of
a woman.
The defendant says more about the childhood of Christ.
He goes so far as to say that—
“ He was found staring foolishly at his own little toes.”
And why not ? The Bible says that “ he increased
in wisdom and stature.” The defendant might have
referred to something far more improbable. In the same
verse in which St. Luke says that Jesus increased in
wisdom and stature will be found the assertion that he
increased in favor with God and man. The defendant
might have asked how it was that the love of God for
God increased.
But the defendant has simply stated that the child
Jesus grew as other children grow; that he acted like
other children ; and, if he did, it is more than probable
that he did stare at his own toes. I have laughed many
a time to see little children astonished with the sight of
their feet. They seem to wonder what on earth puts the
little toes in motion. Certainly, there is nothing blas
phemous in supposing that the feet of Christ amused
him, precisely as the feet of other children have amused
them. There is nothing blasphemous about this; on
the contrary, it is beautiful. If I believed in the exist
ence of God, the Creator of this world, the Being who,
with the hand of infinity, sowed the fields of space with
stars as a farmer sows his grain, I should like to think
�DEFENCE OF FREETHOUGHT.
41
of him as a little dimpled babe, overflowing with joy,
sitting upon the knees of a loving mother. The
ministers themselves might take a lesson even from
the man who is charged with blasphemy, and make an
effort to bring an infinite God a little nearer to the
human heart.
The defendant also says, speaking of the infant
Christ,
“ He was nursed at Mary's breast."
Yes, and if the story be true, that is the tenderest fact
in it. Nursed at the breast of woman. No painting,
no statue, no words can make a deeper and tenderer
impression upon the heart of man than this: The
Infinite God, a babe, nursed at the holy breast of
woman.
You see these things do not strike all people the
same. To a man that has been raised on the Orthodox
desert, these things are incomprehensible. He has been
robbed of his humanity. He has no humor, nothing
but the stupid and the solemn. His fancy sits with
folded wings.
Imagination, like the atmosphere of Spring, wooes
every seed of earth to seek the blue of heaven, and
whispers of bud and flower and fruit. Imagination
gathers from every field of thought and pours the
wealth of many lives into the lap for one. To the
contracted, to the cast-iron people who believe in
heartless and inhuman creeds, the words of the defendant
seem blasphemous, and to them the thought that God
was a little child is monstrous.
They cannot bear to hear it said that he was nursed
at the breast of a maiden, that he was wrapped in
swaddling clothes, that he had the joys and sorrows of
other babes. I hope, gentlemen, that not only you, but
the attorneys for the prosecution, have read what is known
as the “Apocryphal New Testament,” books that were
once considered inspired, once admitted to be genuine,
and that once formed a part of our New Testament.
I hope you have read the books of Joseph and Mary, of
the Shepherd of Hermes, of the Infancy and of Mary, in
which many of the things done by the youthful Christ
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DEFENCE OF FREETHOUGHT.
are described; books that were once the delight of the
Christian world; books that gave joy to children,
because in them they read that Christ made little birds
of clay, that would at his command stretch out their
wings and fly with joy above his head. If the defen
dant in this case had said anything like that, here in
the State of New Jersey, he would have been indicted ;
the orthodox ministers would have shouted “blas
phemy,” and yet these little stories made the name of
Christ dearer to children.
The Church of to-day lacks sympathy ; the theologians
are without affection. After all, sympathy is genius. A
man who really sympathises with another understands
him. A man who sympathises with a religion instantly
sees the good that is in it, and the man who sympathises
with the right, sees the evil that a creed contains.
But the defendant, still speaking of the infant Christ,
is charged with having said :—
“ God smiled when he was comfortable. He lay in a cradle
and was rocked to sleep."
Yes, and there is no more beautiful picture than
that. Let some great religious genius paint a picture
of this kind; of a babe smiling with content, rocked in
the cradle by the mother who bends tenderly and
proudly above him. There could be no more beautiful,
no more touching picture than this. What would I
not give for a picture of Shakespeare as a babe, a
picture that was a likeness; rocked by his mother ? I
would give more for this than for any painting that now
enriches the walls of the world.
The defendant also says that—
“ God was sick when cutting his teeth."
And what of that ? We are told that he was
tempted in all points, as we are. That is to say, he was
afflicted, he was hungry, he was thirsty, he suffered the
pains and miseries common to man. Otherwise, he was
not flesh, he was not human.
“ He caught the measles, the mumps, the scarlet fever, and
the whooping cough."
Certainly he was liable to have these diseases, for he
was, in fact, a child. Other children have them. Other
�DEFENCE OF FREETHOUGHT.
43
children, loved as dearly by their mothers as Christ
■could have been by his, and yet they are taken from
the little family by fever ; taken, it may be, and buried in
the snow, while the poor mother goes sadly home,
wishing that she was lying by its side. All that can
be said of every word in this address, about Christ and
about his childhood, amounts to this; that he lived the
life of a child; that he acted like other children. I
read you substantially what he has said, and this is
considered blasphemous.
He has said that.
“ According to the Old Testament, the God of the Christian
world commanded people to destroy each other.”
If the Bible is true, then the statement of the de
fendant is true. Is it calculated to bring God into
•contempt to deny that he upheld polygamy, that he
ever commanded one of his generals to rip open with
the sword of war the woman with child ? Is it blas
phemy to deny that a God of infinite love gave such
■commandments ? Is such a denial calculated to pour
contempt and scorn on the God of the orthodox ? Is it
blasphemous to deny that God commanded his children
to murder each other ? Is it blasphemous to say that he
was benevolent, merciful, and just ?
It is impossible to say that the Bible is true and that
God is good. I do not believe that a God made this
world, filled it with people, and then drowned them. I
do not believe that infinite wisdom ever made a mistake.
If there be any God, he was too good to commit such an
infinite crime, too wise to make such a mistake. Is this
blasphemy ? Is it blasphemy to say that Solomon was
not a virtuous man, or that David was an adulterer ?
Must we say, when this ancient king had one of his
best generals placed in the front of the battle, deserted
him and had him murdered for the purpose of stealing
his wife, that he was “ a man after God’s own heart ? ”
Suppose the defendant in this case were guilty of some
thing like that. Uriah was fighting for his country,
fighting the battles of David, the king. David wanted
to take from him his wife. He sent for Joab, his com
mander-in-chief, and said to him :—
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DEFENCE OF FREETHOUGHT.
“ Make a feint to attack a town. Put Uriah at the
front of the attacking force, and when the people sally
forth from the town to defend its gate, fall back, so that
this gallant, noble, patriotic man may be slain.”
This was done, and the widow was stolen by the king.
Is it blasphemy to tell the truth, and to say exactly what
David was ? Let us be honest with each other ; let us
be honest with this defendant.
For thousands of years men have taught that the
ancient patriarchs were sacred, that they were far better
than the. men of modern times, that what was in them
a virtue is in us a crime. Children are taught in Sundayschools to admire and respect these criminals of the
ancient days. The time has come to tell the truth about
these men, to call things by their proper names, and
above all to stand by the right, by the truth, by mercy,
and by justice. If what the defendant has said is
blasphemy under this statute, then the question arises,
Is the statute in accordance with the Constitution ? If
this statute is constitutional, why has it been allowed to
sleep for all these years ? I take this position : Any law
made for the preservation of a human right, made toguard a human being, cannot sleep long enough to die ;
but any law that deprives a human being of a natural'
right if that law goes to sleep it never wakes, it sleeps
the sleep of death.
I call the attention of the Court to that remarkable
case in England where, only a few years ago, a man
appealed to trial by battle. The law allowing trial by
battle had been asleep in the statute book of England
for more than two hundred years, and yet the Court
held that, in spite of the fact that the law had been
asleep (it being a law in favor of a defendant), he was.
entitled to trial by battle. And why ? Because it was.
a statute at the time made in defence of a human right,,
and that statute could not sleep long enough or soundly
enough to die. In consequence of this decision the Par
liament of England passed a special act doing away for
ever with the trial by battle.
When a statute attacks an individual right the State
must never let it sleep, When it attacks the right of
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45
the public at large and is allowed to pass into a state of
slumber, it cannot be raised for the purpose of punishing
an individual.
Now, gentlemen, a few words more. I take an
almost infinite interest in this trial, and before you
decide, I am exceedingly anxious that you should under
stand with clearness the thoughts I have expressed
upon this subject. I want you to know how the
civilised feel, and the position now taken by the leaders
of the world.
A few years ago almost everything spoken against the
grossest possible superstition was considered blasphemous.
The altar hedged itself about with the sword ; the priest
went in partnership with the king. In those days
statutes were levelled against all human speech. Men
were convicted of blasphemy because they believed in
an actual personal God; because they insisted that God
had body and parts. Men were convicted of blas
phemy because they denied that God had form. They
have been imprisoned for denying the doctrine of transubstantiation, and they have been torn in pieces for
defending that doctrine. There are few dogmas now
believed by any Christian Church that have not at some
time been denounced as blasphemous.
When Henry VIII. put himself at the head of the
Episcopal Church a creed was made, and in that creed
there were five dogmas that must of necessity be believed.
Anybody who denied any one was to be punished—for
the first offence with fine, with imprisonment, or branding;
and for the second offence with death. Not one of those
five dogmas is now a part of the creed of the Church of
England.
So I could go on for days and weeks and months, show
ing that hundreds and hundreds of religious dogmas, to
deny which was death, have been either changed or aban
doned for others nearly as absurd as the old ones were.
It may be, however, sufficient to say that, wherever the
Church has had power, it has been a crime for any man
to speak his honest thought. No Church has ever been
willing that any opponent should give a transcript of his
mind. Every Church in power has appealed to brute
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DEFENCE OF FREETHOUGHT.
force, to the sword, for the purpose of sustaining its
creed. Not one has had the courage to occupy the open
field. The Church has not been satisfied with calling
infidels and unbelievers blasphemers. Each Church has
accused nearly every other Church of being a blas
phemer. Every pioneer has been branded as a criminal.
The Catholics called Martin Luther a blasphemer, and
Martin Luther called Copernicus a blasphemer. Pious
ignorance always regards intelligence as a kind of
blasphemy. Some of the greatest men of the world,
some of the best, have been put to death for the crime
of blasphemy—that is to say, for the crime of endea
voring to benefit their fellow-men.
As long as the Church has the power to close the lips
of men, so long, and no longer, will superstition rule this
world.
“ Blasphemy ” is the word that the majority hisses
into the ear of the few.
After every argument of the Church has been answered,
has been re/uted, then the Church cries : “ Blasphemy !”
. Blasphemy is what an old mistake says of a newlydiscovered truth.
Blasphemy is what a withered last year’s leaf says to
a this year’s bud.
Blasphemy is the bulwark of religious prejudice.
Blasphemy is the breastplate of the heartless.
And let me say now that the crime of blasphemy, as
set out in this statute, is impossible. No man can
blaspheme a book. No man can commit blasphemy by
telling his honest thought. No man can blaspheme a
God or a Holy Ghost or a Son of God. The Infinite
cannot be blasphemed.
In the olden time, in the days of savagery and super
stition, when some poor man was struck by lightning,
or when a blackened mark was left on the breast of a
wife and mother, the poor savage supposed that some
God, angered by something he had done, had taken his
revenge. What else did the savage suppose ? He
believed that this God had the same feelings, with
regard to the loyalty of his subjects, that an earthly
chief had, or an earthly king with regard to the loyalty
�DEFENCE OF FREETHOUGHT.
47
or treachery of members of his tribe, or citizens of his
kingdom. So the savage said, when his country was
visited by a calamity, when the flood swept the people
away, or the storm scattered their poor houses in frag
ments : “We have allowed some Freethinker to live:
someone is in our town or village who has not brought
his gift to the priest, his incense to the altar ; some
man of our tribe or of our country does not respect our
God.” Then for the purpose of appeasing the sup
posed God, for the purpose of again winning a smile
from heaven, for the purpose of securing a little sunlight
for their fields and homes, they dragged the accused man
from his home, from his wife and children, and with all
the ceremonies of pious brutality, shed his blood. They
did it in self-defence; they believed that they were
saving their own lives and the lives of their children ;
they did it to appease their God. Most people are now
beyond that point. Now, when disease visits a com
munity, the intelligent do not say the disease came
beqause the people were wicked; when the cholera
comes, it is not because of the Methodists, of the Catho
lics, of the Presbyterians, or of the Infidels. When the
wind destroys a town in the far West, it is not because
somebody there had spoken his honest thoughts. We
are beginning to see that the wind blows and destroys
without the slightest reference to man, without the
slightest care whether it destroys the good or the bad,
the irreligious or the religious. When the lightning
leaps from the clouds it is just as likely to strike a good
man as a bad man, and when the great serpents of flame
climb around the houses of men, they burn just as gladly
and just as joyously the home of virtue as they do the
den and lair of vice.
Then the reason for all these laws has failed. The
laws were made on account of a superstition. That
superstition has faded from the minds of intelligent
men and, as a consequence, the laws based on the
superstition ought to fail.
There is one splendid thing in nature, and that is
that men and nations must reap the consequences of
their acts—reap them in this world, if they life, and in
�DEFENCE OF FREETHOUGHT.
another if there be one. That man who leaves this
world a bad man, a malicious man, will probably be
the same man when he reaches another realm, and the
man who leaves this shore good, charitable, and honest,
will be good, charitable, and honest, no matter on what
star he lives again. The world is growing sensible
upon these subjects, and as we grow sensible, we grow
charitable.
Another reason that has been given for these laws
against blasphemy, the most absurd reason that can by
any possibility be given. It is this. There should be
laws against blasphemy, because the man who utters
blasphemy endangers the public peace.
Is it possible that Christians will break the peace ? Is
it possible that they will violate the law? Is it pro
bable that Christians will congregate together and make
a mob, simply because a man has given an opinion
against their religion ? What is their religion ? They
say, “ If a man smites you on one cheek, turn the other
also.” They say, “ We must love our neighbor as we
love ourselves.”
Is it possible, then, that you can
make a mob out of Christians, that these men, who
love even their enemies, will attack others, and will
destroy life, in the name of universal love ? And yet,
Christians themselves say that there ought to be laws
against blasphemy, for fear that Christians, who are
controlled by universal love, will become so outraged
when they hear an honest man express an honest
thought, that they will leap upon him and tear him in
pieces.
. What is blasphemy ? I will give you a definition ; I
will give you my thought upon this subject. What is
real blasphemy?
To live on the unpaid labor of other men ; that is
blasphemy.
To enslave your fellow-man, to put chains upon his
body ; that is blasphemy.
To enslave the minds of men, to put manacles upon
the brain, padlocks upon the lips ; that is blasphemy.
To deny what you believe to be true, to admit to be
true what you believe to be a lie; that is blasphemy.
�DEFENCE OF FREETHOUGHT.
49
To strike the weak and unprotected, in order that you
may gain the applause of the ignorant and superstitious
mob ; that is blasphemy.
To persecute the intelligent few, at the command of
the ignorant many; that is blasphemy.
To forge chains, to build dungeons, for your honest
fellow-men ; that is blasphemy.
To pollute the souls of children with the dogma of
eternal pain ; that is blasphemy.
To violate your conscience ; that is blasphemy.
The jury that gives an unjust verdict, and the Judge
who pronounces an unjust sentence, are blasphemers.
The man who bows to public opinion against his
better judgment and against his honest conviction, is a
blasphemer.
Why should we fear our fellow-men ? Why should
not each human being have the right, so far as thought
and its expression are concerned, of all the world ?
What harm can come from an honest interchange of
thought ?
I have been giving you my real ideas. I have spoken
freely, and yet the sun rose this morning, just the
same as it always has. There is no particular change
visible in the world, and I do not see but that we are
all as happy to-day as though we had spent yesterday
in making somebody else miserable. I denounced on
yesterday the superstitions of the Christian world, and
yet, last night I slept the sleep of peace. You will
pardon me for saying again that I feel the greatest
possible interest in the result of this trial, in the
principle at stake. This is my only apology, my
only excuse for taking your time.
For years I
have felt that the great battle for human liberty,
the battle that has covered thousands of fields with
heroic dead, had finally been won. When I read
the history of this world, of what has been endured,
of what has been suffered, of the heroism and
infinite courage of the intellectual and honest few,
battling with the countless serfs and slaves of kings
’ and priests, of tyranny, of hypocrisy, of ignorance and
prejudice, of faith and fear, there was in my heart the
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DEFENCE OF FREETHOUGHT.
hope that the great battle had been fought, and that
the human race, in its march towards the dawn, had
passed midnight, and that the “ great balance weighed
up morning.’’ This hope, this feeling, gave me the
greatest possible joy. When I thought of the many
who had been burnt, of how often the sons of liberty
had perished in ashes, of how many of the noblest
and greatest had stood upon scaffolds, and of the
countless hearts, the grandest that had ever throbbed
m human breasts, that had been broken by the tyranny
of Church and State, of how many of the noble and
loving had sighed themselves away in dungeons, the
only consolation was that the last Bastille had fallen,
that the dungeons of the Inquisition had been torn
down and that the scaffolds of the world could no
longer be wet with heroic blood.
You know that sometimes, after a great battle has
been fought, and one of the armies has been broken,
and its fortifications carried, there are occassional strag
glers beyond the great field, stragglers who know
nothing of the fate of their army, know nothing of
the victory, and for that reason, fight on. There are
a. few such stragglers in the State of New Jersey.
They have never heard of the great victory. They do
not know that in all civilised countries the hosts of
superstition have been put to flight. They do not
know that Freethinkers, Infidels, are to-day the leaders
of the intellectual armies of the world.
One of the last trials of this character, tried in Great
Britain,, and that is the country that our ancestors
fought, in the sacred name of liberty, one of the last
trials in that country, a country ruled by a State
Church, ruled by a woman who was born a queen, ruled
by dukes and nobles and lords, children of ancient
robbers, was in the year 1842. George Jacob Holyoake,
one of the best of the human race, was imprisoned on
a charge of Atheism, charged with having written a
pamphlet and having made a speech in which he had
denied the existence of the British God. The Judge
who tried him, who passed sentence upon him, went
down to his grave with a stain upon his intellect and
�DEFENCE OF FREETHOUGHT.
51
upon his honor. All the real intelligence of Great
Britain rebelled against the outrage. There was a trial
after that to which I will call your attention. Judge
Coleridge, father of the present Chief Justice of
England, presided at this trial. A poor man by the
name of Thomas Pooley, a man who dug wells for a
living, wrote on the gate of a priest that, if people
would burn their Bibles and scatter the ashes on the
lands, the crops would be better, and that they would
also save a good deal of money in tithes. He wrote
several sentences of a kindred character. He was a
curious man. He had an idea that the world was a
living, breathing animal. He would not dig a well
beyond a certain depth for fear he might inflict pain
upon this animal, the earth. He was tried before Judge
Coleridge on that charge. An infinite God was about
to be dethroned, because an honest well-digger had
written his sentiments on the fence of a parson. He
was indicted, tried, convicted and sentenced to prison.
Afterwards, many intelligent people asked for his pardon,
on the ground that he was in danger of becoming
insane. The Judge refused to sign the petition. The
pardon was refused. Long before his sentence expired
he became a raving maniac. He was removed to an
asylum, and there died. Some of the greatest men in
England attacked that Judge, among these Mr. Buckle,
author of The History of Civilisation in England one of the
greatest books in this world. Mr. Buckle denounced
Judge Coleridge. He brought him before the bar of
English opinion, and there was not a man in England
whose opinion was worth anything who did not agree
with Mr. Buckle, and did not, with him, declare the
conviction of Thomas Pooley to be an infamous outrage.
What were the reasons given ? This, among others.
The law was dead; it had been asleep for many years;
it was a law passed during the ignorance of the Middle
Ages, and a law that came out of the dungeons of
religious persecution ; a law that was appealed to by
bigots and by hypocrites, to punish, to imprison an
honest man.
In many parts of this country people have entertained
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DEFENCE OF FREETHOUGHT.
the idea that New England was still filled with the
spirit of Puritanism, filled with the descendants of those
who killed Quakers in the name of universal benevoence, and traded Quaker children in the Barbadoes for
rum, for the purpose of establishing the fact that God is
an infinite father.
Yet the last trial in Massachusetts, on a charge like
this, was when Abner Kneeland was indicted on a charge
of Atheism. He was tried for having written this
sentence: “ The Universalists believe in a God which I
do not.” He was convicted and imprisoned. Chief
Justice Shaw upheld the decision, and upheld it because
he was afraid of public opinion ; upheld it although he
must have known that the statute under which Kneeland
was indicted was clearly and plainly in violation of the
Constitution. No man can read the decision of Justice
Shaw without being convinced that he was absolutely
dominated either by bigotry or hypocrisy. One of the
judges of that court, a noble man, wrote a dissenting
opinion, and in that dissenting opinion is the argument
of a civilised, of an enlightened, jurist. No man can
answer the dissenting opinion of Justice Morton. The
case against Kneeland was tried more than fifty years
ago, and there has been none since in the New England
States ; and this case that we are now trying is the first*
ever tried in New Jersey. The fact that it is the first
certifies to my interpretation of this statute, and it also
certifies to the toleration and to the civilisation of the
people of this State. The statute is upon your books.
You inherited it from your ignorant ancestors, and they
inherited it from their savage ancestors. The people of
New Jersey were heirs of the mistakes and of the
atrocities of ancient England.
It is too late to enforce a law like this. Why has it
been allowed to slumber ? Who obtained this indict
ment ? Were they actuated by good and noble motives ?
Had they the public weal at heart, or were they simply
endeavoring to be revenged upon this defendant ? Were
they willing to disgrace the State in order that they
might punish him ?
I have given you my definition of blasphemy, and
�DEFENCE OF FREETHOUGHT.
53
now the question arises, What is worship ? Who is a
worshipper ? What is prayer ? What is real religion ?
Let me answer these questions.
Good, honest, faithful work is worship. The man
who ploughs the fields and fells the forests, the man
who works in mines, the man who battles with the
winds and waves out on the wide sea, controlling the
commerce of the world; these men are worshippers.
The man who goes into the forest, leading his wife by
the hand, who builds him a cabin, who makes a home
in the wilderness, who helps to people and civilise and
cultivate a continent, is a worshipper.
Labor is the only prayer that Nature answers; it is
the only prayer that deserves an answer—good, honest,
noble work.
A woman whose husband has gone down to the gutter,
gone down to degradation and filth; the woman who
follows him, and lifts him out of the mire, and presses
him to her noble heart until he becomes a man once
more ; this woman is a worshipper. Her act is worship.
The poor man and the poor woman who work night
and day in order that they may give education to their
children, so that they may have a better life than their
father and mother had; the parents who deny them
selves the comforts of life, that they may lay up some
thing to help their children to a higher place—they are
worshippers; and the children who, after they reap the
benefit of this worship, become ashamed of their parents,
are blasphemers.
The man who sits by the bed of his invalid wife—a
wife prematurely old and grey—the husband who sits by
her bed and holds her thin, wan hand in his as lovingly,
and kisses it as rapturously, as passionately, as when it
was dimpled—that is worship ; that man is a worshipper;
that is real religion.
Whoever increases the sum of human joy is a wor
shipper.
He who adds to the sum of human misery is a blas
phemer.
Gentlemen, you can never make me believe, no statute
can ever convince me, that there is any infinite Being in
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DEFENCE OF FREETHOUGHT.
this universe who hates an honest man. It is impos
sible to satisfy me that there is any God, or can be any
God, who holds in abhorrence a soul that has the
courage to express its thought. Neither can the whole
world convince me that any man should be punished,
either in this world or the next, for being candid with
his fellow-men. If you send men to the penetentiary
for speaking their thoughts, for endeavoring to enlighten
their fellows, then the penetentiary will become a place
of honor, and the victim will step from it, not stained,
not disgraced, but clad in robes of glory.
Let us take one more step.
What is holy ? What is sacred ? I reply that human
happiness is holy, human rights are holy. The body and
soul of man, these are sacred. The liberty of man is
of more importance than any book; the rights of man
more sacred than any religion, than any Scriptures,
whether inspired or not.
What we want is the truth ; and does anyone suppose
that all of the truth is confined in one book, that the
mysteries of the whole world are explained by one
volume ?
All that is, -all that conveys information to man, all
that has been produced by the past, all that now exists,
should be considered by an intelligent man. All the
known truths of this world, all the philosophy, all the
poems, all the pictures, all the statues, all the entrancing
music; the prattle of babes, the lullaby of mothers, the
words of honest men, the trumpet calls of duty—all
these make up the Bible of the world; everything that
is noble and true and free you will find in this great
book.
If we wish to be true to ourselves, if we wish to
benefit our fellow-men, if we wish to live honorable
lives, we will give to every other human being every
right that we claim for ourselves.
There is another thing that should be remembered
by you. You are the judges of the law as well as
the judges of the facts. In a case like this you
are final judges as to what the law is, and if you
acquit no Court can reverse your verdict.
To pre
�DEFENCE OF FREETHOUGHT.
55
vent the least misconception, let me state to you
again what I claim :—
First. I claim that the Constitution of New Jersey
declares that-—
“ The liberty of speech shall not be abridged.”
Second. That this statute, under which this indict
ment is found, is unconstitutional, because it does abridge
the liberty of speech ; it does exactly that which the
Constitution emphatically says shall not be done.
Third. I claim, also, that under this law—even if it
be constitutional—the words charged in this indictment
do not amount to blasphemy, read even in the light,
or rather in the darkness, of this statute.
Do not, I pray you, forget this point. Do not forget
that, no matter what the Court may tell you about the
law—how good it is, or how bad it is—no matter what
the Court may instruct you on that subject—do not
forget one thing, and that is, that the words charged in
the indictment are the only words that you can take
into consideration in this case. Remember that, no
matter what else may be in the pamphlet; no matter
what pictures or cartoons there may be of the gentle
men in Boonton who mobbed this man in the name of
universal liberty and love, do not forget that you have
no right to take one word into account except the
exact words set out in the indictment, that is to say,
the words that I have read to you. Upon this point
the Court will instruct you that you have nothing to do
with any other line in that pamphlet; and I now claim
that should the Court instruct you that the statute is
constitutional, still I insist that the words set out in
this indictment do not amount to blasphemy.
There is still another point. This statute says : “ Who
ever shall wilfully speak against.” Now, in this case
you must find that the defendant “wilfully” did so
and so, that is to say, that he made the statements
attributed to him knowing that they were not true.
If you believe that he was honest in what he said, then
this statute does not touch him. Even under this
statute a man may give his honest opinion. Certainly
there is no law that charges a man with /‘wilfully”
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DEFENCE OF FREETHOUGHT.
being honest “ wilfully ” telling his real opinion—
“ wilfully ” giving to his fellow-men his thought.
Where a man is charged with larceny, the indictment
must set out that he took the goods or the property
with the intention to steal, with what the law calls
the animus furandi. If he took the goods with the
intention to steal, then he is a thief; but if he took the
goods believing them to be his own, then he is guilty
of no offence. So in this case, whatever was said by
the defendant must have been “wilfully” said. And
I claim that if you believe that what the man said was
honestly said, you cannot find him guilty under this
statute.
One more point: This statute has been allowed to
slumber so long, that no man had any right to awaken
it. For more than one hundred years it has slept; and
so far as New Jersey is concerned, it has been sound
asleep since 1664. For the first time it is dug out of
its grave. The breath of life is sought to be breathed
into it, to the end that some people may wreak their
vengeance on an honest man.
Is there any evidence—has there been any—to show
that the defendant was not absolutely candid in the
expression of his opinions ? Is there one particle of
evidence tending to show that he is not a perfectly
honest and sincere man ? Did the prosecution have
the courage to attack his reputation ? No. The State
has simply proved to you that he circulated that
pamphlet, that is all.
It was claimed among other things that the defen
dant circulated this pamphlet among children. There
was no such evidence—not the slightest. The only
evidence about schools, or school-children, was that
when the defendant talked with the bill-poster, whose
business the defendant was interfering with, he asked
him something about the population of the town and
about the schools. But according to the evidence, and
as a matter of fact, not a solitary pamphlet was ever
given to any child, or to any youth. According to the
testimony, the defendant went into two or three stores,
laid the pamphlets on a show case, or threw them upon
�DEFENCE OF FREETHOUGHT.
57
a desk, put them upon a stand where papers were sold,
and in one instance handed a pamphlet to a man. That
is all.
In my judgment, however, there would have been no
harm in giving this pamphlet to every citizen of your
place.
Again I say that a law that has been allowed to sleep
for all these years, allowed to sleep by reason of the good
sense and by reason of the tolerant spirit of the State of
New Jersey, should not be allowed to leap into life
because a few are intolerant, or because a few lacked
good sense and judgment. This snake should not be
warmed into vicious life by the blood of anger.
Probably not a man on this jury agrees with me
about the subject of religion. Probably not a member
of this jury thinks that I am right in the opinions that
I have entertained and have so often expressed. Most
of you belong to some Church, and I presume that those
who do have the good of what they call Christianity at
heart. There may be among you some Methodists. If
so, they have read the history of their Church, and they
know that when it was in the minority it was persecuted,
and they know that they cannot read the history of that
persecution without becoming indignant. They know
that the early Methodists were denounced as heretics, as
ranters, as ignorant pretenders.
There are also on this jury Catholics, and they know
that there is a tendency in many parts of this country
to persecute a man now because he is a Catholic. They
also know that their Church has persecuted in times
past, whenever and wherever it had the power ; and they
know that Protestants, when in power, have always per
secuted Catholics ; and they know in their hearts that all
persecution, whether in the name of law or religion, is
monstrous, savage, and fiendish.
I presume that each one of you has the good of what
you call Christianity at heart. If you have, I beg of
you to acquit this man. If you believe Christianity to
be a good, it can never do any Church any good to put
any man in gaol for the expression of opinion. Any
Church that imprisons a man because he has used an
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DEFENCE OF FREETHOUGHT.
argument against its creed will simply convince the
world that it cannot answer the argument.
Christianity will never reap any honor, will never reap
any profit, from persecution. It is a poor, cowardly,
dastardly way of answering arguments. No gentleman
will do it, no civilised man ever did do it, no decent
human being ever did, or ever will.
I take it for granted that you have a certain regard, a
certain affection, for the State in which you live—that
you take a pride in the Commonwealth of New Jersey.
If you do, I beg of you to keep the record of your State
clean. Allow no verdict to be recorded against the
freedom of speech. At present there is not to be found
on the records of any inferior Court, or on those of the
supreme tribunal, any case in which a man has been
punished for speaking his sentiments. The records have
not been stained, have not been polluted, with such a
verdict.
Keep such a verdict from the reports of your State,
from the records of your Courts. No jury has yet, in
the State of New Jersey, decided that the lips of honest
men are not free, that there is a manacle upon the
brain.
For the sake of your State, for the sake of her reputa
tion throughout the world, for your own sakes, for the
sake of your children, and their children yet to be, say
to the world that New Jersey shares in the spirit of this
age; that New Jersey is not a survival of the Dark
Ages; that New Jersey does not still regard the thumb
screw as an instrument of progress; that New Jersey
needs no dungeon to answer the arguments of a free
man, and does not send to the penitentiary men who
think and men who speak. Say to the world that,
where .arguments are without foundation, New Jersey
has confidence enough in the brains of her people to feel
that such arguments can be refuted by reason.
For the sake of your State, acquit this man. For the
sake of something of far more value to this world than
New Jersey, for the sake of something of more impor
tance to mankind than this continent, for the sake of
human liberty, for the sake of free speech, acquit this man.
�DEFENCE OF FREETHOUGHT.
59
What light is to the eyes, what love is to the heart,
liberty is to the soul of man. Without it there come
suffocation, degradation, and death.
In the name of Liberty I implore—and not only so,
but I insist—that you shall find a verdict in favor of
this defendant. Do not do the slightest thing to stay
the march of human progress. Do not carry us back,
even for a moment, to the darkness of that cruel night
that good men hoped had passed away for ever.
Liberty is the condition of progress. Without liberty
there remains only barbarism. Without liberty there
can be no civilisation.
If another man has not the right to think, you have
not even the right to think that he thinks wrong. If
every man has not the right to think, the people of New
Jersey had no right to make a statute or to adopt a
Constitution, no jury has the right to render a verdict,
and no Court to pass a sentence.
In other words, without liberty of thought, no human
being has the right to form a judgment. It is impos
sible that there should be such a thing as real religion
without liberty. Without liberty there can be no such
thing as conscience, no such word as justice. All human
actions (all good, all bad) have for a foundation the idea
of human liberty, and without liberty there can be no
vice and there can be no virtue.
Without liberty there can be no worship, no blas
phemy, no love, no hatred, no justice, no progress.
Take the word Liberty from human speech and all
the other words become poor, withered, meaningless
sounds ; but with that word realised, with that word
understood, the world becomes a paradise.,
Understand me. I am not blaming the people. I am
not blaming the prosecution, nor the prosecuting
attorney. The officers of the Court are simply doing
what they feel to be their duty. They did not find the
indictment. That was found by the grand jury. The
grand jury did not find the indictment of its own
motion. Certain people came before the grand jury and
made their complaint; gave their testimony, and upon that
testimony, under this statute, the indictment was found.
�6o
DEFENCE OF FREETHOUGHT.
While I do not blame these people (they not being on
trial), I do not ask you to stand on the side of right.
. I cannot conceive of much greater happiness than to
discharge a public duty, than to be absolutely true to
conscience, true to judgment, no matter what authority
may say, no matter what public opinion may demand.
A man who stands by the right against the world cannot
help applauding himself, and saying : “I am an honest
man.”
I want your verdict; a verdict born of manhood, of
courage; and I want to send a despatch to-day to a
woman who is lying sick. I wish you to furnish the
words of this dispatch; only two words; and these
two words will fill an anxious heart with joy. They
will fill a soul with light. It is a very short message ;
only two words ; and I ask you to furnish them : “Not
guilty.”
You are expected to do this, because I believe you
will be true to your consciences, true to your best
judgment, true to the best interests of the people of
New Jersey, true to the great cause of Liberty.
I sincerely hope that it will never be necessary again,
under the flag of the United States, that flag for which
has been shed the bravest and best blood of the world ;
under that flag maintained by Washington, by Jefferson,
by Franklin, and by Lincoln ; under that flag in defence
of which New Jersey poured out her best and bravest
blood ; I hope it will never be necessary again for a man
to stand before a jury and plead for the Liberty of
Speech.
�Freethought Publications
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THE BIBLE HANDBOOK for Freethinkers and Inquiring
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A new edition, revised, and handsomely printed. Cheap
Edition, paper covers, Is. 6d.; cloth, 2s. 6d.
FLOWERS OF FREETHOUGHT.
By G. W. Foote.
First Series. Fifty-one Selected Articles and Essays;
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By
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�Fpeethought Publications (continued).
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Colonel Ingersoll wrote to the author:—
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Huxley says :—
By Anthony Collins.
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Is.
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�Fneethought Publications (continued).
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Dublin Core
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Title
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Victorian Blogging
Description
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A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
Creator
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Conway Hall Library & Archives
Date
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2018
Publisher
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Conway Hall Ethical Society
Text
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text.
Original Format
The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data
Pamphlet
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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Defence of freethought by Colonel Robert G. Ingersoll : being his five hours' speech to the jury at the trial for blasphemy of C.B. Reynolds, at Morristown, New Jersey, May 19 and 20, 1887
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Ingersoll, Robert Green [1833-1899.]
Description
An account of the resource
Place of publication: London
Collation: 60, [3] p. ; 19 cm.
Notes: Part of the NSS pamphlet collection. "Works by the late R.G. Ingersoll" listed on back cover. Publisher's advertisements on unnumbered pages at the end. No. 81e in Stein checklist.
Publisher
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Freethought Publishing Co.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1902
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
N337
G5779
Subject
The topic of the resource
Blasphemy
Free thought
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
<a href="http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/"><img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /></a><span> </span><br /><span>This work (Defence of freethought by Colonel Robert G. Ingersoll : being his five hours' speech to the jury at the trial for blasphemy of C.B. Reynolds, at Morristown, New Jersey, May 19 and 20, 1887), identified by </span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk"><span>Humanist Library and Archives</span></a><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span>
Format
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application/pdf
Type
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Text
Language
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English
Blasphemy
Charles B Reynolds
Litigation
NSS
Trials (Blasphemy)-New Jersey-Morristown