512 Sheet – American State Trials 1918 Volume X Leo Frank Document

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Here is the translated text as follows:

480. X. AMERICAN STATE TRIALS.

At certain critical seasons, even in the mildest government, the people are liable to run into riots and tumults. There are church quakes and state quakes in the moral and political world, as well as earthquakes, storms, and tempests in the physical. However, it must be said in favor of the people and of human nature that it is a general, if not a universal truth, that the aptitude of the people to mutinies, seditions, tumults, and insurrections is in direct proportion to the despotism of the government. In governments completely despotic, where the will of one man is the only law, this disposition is most prevalent; in aristocracies, next; in mixed monarchies, less than in either of the former; in complete republics, least of all. Under the same form of government, as in a limited monarchy, for example, the virtue and wisdom of the administration may generally be measured by the peace and order that are seen among the people. However this may be, such is the imperfection of all things in this world that no form of government, and perhaps no wisdom or virtue in the administration, can at all times avoid riots and disorders among the people.

Lord Chief Justice Holt, in Mawgridge's Case (Kelyng 128), says, "Now it hath been held that if A, of his malice prepensed, assaults B to kill him, and B draws his sword and attacks A and pursues him, then A, for his safety, gives back and retreats to a wall, and B still pursuing him with his drawn sword, A in his defense kills B. This is murder in A. For A, having malice against B, and in pursuance thereof endeavoring to kill him, is answerable for all the consequences of which he was the original cause. It is not reasonable for any man that is dangerously assaulted, and when he perceives his life in danger from his adversary, but to have liberty for the security of his own life, to pursue him that maliciously assaulted him; for he that hath manifested that he hath malice against another, is not fit to be trusted with a dangerous weapon in his hand—and so resolved by all the Judges when they met at Sergeant's Inn, in preparation for my Lord Morley's trial."

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