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5 F.Cas. 239, No. 14,70: Chases Trial 65; Whart.St.Tr. 688
Circuit Court, D. Virginia.
UNITEDSTATES v. CALLENDER.
1800.
Indictment against James Thompson Callender for a seditious libel against
the president of the United Sttes.
The matter set out in the indictment as libellous was as follows: The eign
of Mr. Adams has been one continued tempest of malignant passion. As
president, he has never opened his lips, or lifted his pen witout
threatening and scolding; the grand object of his administration has ben to
exasperate the rage of contending parties, to calumniate and destroy evry
man who differs from his opinions. Mr. Adams has laboured, and with
meancholy success, to break up the bonds of social affection, and under te
ruins of confidence and friendship, to extinguish the only gleam of
happiess that glimmers through the dark and despicable farce of life. The
cotriver of this peace has been suddenly converted, as he said, to the
presiential system, that is to a French war, an American navy, a large
standing amy, an additional load of taxes, and all the other symptoms and
consequence of debt and despotism. The same system of persecution has been
extended al over the continent, every person holding an office must either
quit it, r think and vote exactly with Mr. Adams. Adams and Washington have
since ben shaping a series of these paper jobbers into judges and
ambassadors, as ther whole courage lies in want of shame; these poltroons,
without risking a many and intelligible defence of their own measures,
raise an affected yelp aginst the corruption of the French Directory, as if
any corruption would be ore venal, more notorious, more execrated than
their own. The object with Mr. Adams was to recommend a French war,
profesedly for the sake of supporting American commerce, but in reality for
the sae of yoking us into an alliance with the British tyrant.While such
numbes of the effective agents of the Revolution languish in obscurity, or
siver in want, ask Mr. Adams whether it was proper to heap so many myriads
of ollars upon William Smith, upon a paper jobber, who, next to Hamilton
and hiself is, perhaps, the most detested character on the continent.You
will ten make your choice between innocence and guilt, between freedom and
slaery, between paradise and perdition; you will choose between the man who
has eserted and reversed all his principles, and that man whose own example
srengthens all his laws, that man whose predictions, like tose of Henry,
have been converted into history. You will choose between tha man whose
life is unspotted by a crime, and that man whose hands are reeking with the
blood o the poor, friendless Connecticut sailor: I see the tear of
indignation staring on your cheeks! You anticipate the name of John
Adams.Every featur in the conduct of Mr. Adams, forms a distinct and
additional evidence that he was determined at all events to embroil this
country with France Mr. Adams has only completed the scene of ignominy
which Mr. Washington egan.This last presidential felony will be buried by
congress in the same ciminal silence as its predecessors. Foremost in
whatever is detestable, r. Adams feels anxiety to curb the frontier
population. He was a professed aistocrat; he had proved faithful and
serviceable to the British interest. Thus we see the genuine character of
the president, when ut in a secondary station, he censured the funding
system, when at the hea of affairs, he reverses all his former principles.
He exerts himself to plune his country into the most expensive and ruinous
establishments. In the to first years of his presidency, he has contrived
pretences to double the annal expense of government by useless fleets,
armies, sinecures and jobs of eery possible description. By sending these
ambassadors to Paris, Mr. Adams ad his British faction designed to do
nothing but mischief. In that paper withall the cowardly insolence arising
from his assurance of personal safety, with all the fury, but without the
propriety or sblimity of Homers Achilles, this hoary headed incendiary,
this libeller of te governor of Virginia, bawls out to arms! then to arms!
It was floatig upon the same bladder of popularity that Mr. Adams
threatened to make this ity the centrical point of a bonfire. Reader, dost
thou envy that unfortunateold man with his twenty-five thousand dollars a
year, with the petty parde of his birth-day, with the importance of his
name sticking in every other age of the statute book. Also! he is not an
object of envy, but of compassionand of horror. With Connecticut more than
half undeceived, with Pennsylvaia disgusted, with Virginia alarmed, with
Kentucky holding him in defiance, hving renounced all his original
principles, and affronted all his honest frends, he cannot enjoy the sweet
slumbers of innocence, he cannot hope to feelthe most exquisitely
delightful sensation that ever warmed a human brast, the consciousness of
being universally and deservedly beloved.It is appy for Mr. Adams himself,
as well as for his country, that he asserted a untruth. In the midst of
such a scene of profligacy and of usury the prsident has persisted as long
as he durst, in making his utmost efforts for rovoking a French war. For
although Mr. Adams were to make a treaty with rance, yet such is the
grossness of his prejudice, and so great is theviolence of his passions,
that under his administration America would be inconstant danger of a
second quarrel. When a chief magistrate both in his speches and newspapers,
is constantly reviling France, he can neither expect or desire to live long
in peace with her. Take your choice, then, between Adms, war and beggary,
and Jefferson, peace and competency.
On Wednesday, ay 28, a continuance was asked for by the defendants
counsel, upon the folloing affidavit:
City of Richmond, ss. This day James Thompson Callender mad oath before
me, a magistrate of the said city, that William Gardner, Tech Coxe, Judge
Bee, Timothy Pickering, William B. Giles, Stephen Thompso Mason, and
General Blackburn, he believes to be material witnesses in his efence,
against an indictment found against him during the present term f the
circuit court of the United States, for the middle circuit, Virgina
district: that William Gardner aforesaid resides, he believes, in
Portmouth, in the state of New Hampshire; that Tench Coxe aforesaid resides
n Philadelphia, in the state of Pennsylvania; that Judge Bee resides, the
deonent hath understood, in South Carolina, but in what part of the stat
he knows not; that Timothy Pickering aforesaid resided of late in
Philadelphia, in the state of Pennsylvnia, but where he resides at this
time the deponent doth not know; that Wiliam B. Giles aforesaid, he hath
understood since he hath been furnished wit a copy of the indictment, and
since the said Giles hath left town, residesin the county of Amelia; and
that Gen. Blackburn resides in the county of Bth. The said James Thompson
Callender further declares, that he expects to prove by the said William
Gadner, and that he verily believes that he shall prove by the said William
ardner, that the said William Gardner was commissioner of loans for the
state of New Hampshir, under the government of the United States, and that
he was turned out of th said office of commissioner of loans because he,
the said Gardner, refuse to subscribe a
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