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

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Here is the translated text as follows:

JAMES THOMPSON CALLENDER

James Thompson Callender was fined two hundred dollars and required to find sureties for good behavior for a period of two years.

Five years later, Chase was impeached before the Senate of the United States for oppressive and vexatious conduct during the trial and indecent solicitude for the conviction of the accused.

THE TRIAL

In the United States Circuit Court, District of Virginia, Richmond, June 1800.

Hon. Samuel Chase and Hon. Cyrus Griffin, Judges.

On May 28, James Thompson Callender was indicted under the Sedition Law by a grand jury for a seditious libel upon John Adams, President of the United States.

The matter set out in the indictment as libelous was as follows:

"The reign of Mr. Adams has been one continued tempest of malignant passions. As President, he has never opened his lips or lifted his pen without threatening and scolding; the grand object of his administration has been to exasperate the rage of contending parties, to calumniate and destroy every man who differs from his opinions. Mr. Adams has labored, and with melancholy success, to break up the bonds of social affection, and under the ruins of confidence and friendship, to extinguish the only gleam of happiness that glimmers through the dark and despicable farce of life.

"The contriver of this peace has been suddenly converted, as he said, to the presidential system, that is to a French war, an American navy, a large standing army, an additional load of taxes, and all the other symptoms and consequences of debt and despotism."

The narrative is taken from Mr. Hill's "Decisive Battles of the Law."

Bibliography:

- Wharton's State Trials. See ante, p. 778.
- See ante, p. 778.

**Cyrus Griffin (1749-1810):** Born in Virginia and educated in England; Member of the Legislature; Member of Congress, 1778, 1781, 1787; President of Congress, 1788; President of the Federal Court of Admiralty Appeals from its creation until its abolition; Commissioner to the Creek Nation, 1789; United States District Judge, 1789-1810. Died in Yorktown, Va.