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

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Reading Time: 4 minutes [511 words]

Here is the translated text as follows:

JAMES THOMPSON CALLENDER

The book was published with the charges that were false, scandalous, and malicious, and it was claimed that they were written with the intent to defame. It was stated that if he could prove the charges, he must be acquitted. The same question, "whether they had formed and delivered an opinion on the charges against the traverser," was put by the judge to eight of the other jurymen successively before they were sworn in chief, and they all answered in the negative.

Mr. Hoy said that it was unnecessary to put this question to the other three jurymen, and they were accordingly sworn in chief immediately. The eighth juror, Bassett, answered, when the previous question was put to him, that though he had never read or heard the charges in the indictment, and knew not what the traverser had published, yet he had formed an unequivocal opinion that such a book as "The Prospect Before Us" came within the sedition law. However, no objection was made to him, and he was sworn in like the rest.

The Clerk read the indictment to the jury, which was in these words:

The grand inquest of the United States of America, in and for the Virginia district, upon their respective oaths, do present that James Thompson Callender, late of the district of Virginia, printer, being a person of wicked, depraved, evil-disposed, disquiet, and turbulent mind and disposition, and falsely and maliciously designing and intending to defame the President of the United States, and to bring him into contempt and disrepute, and to excite the hatred of the good people of the United States against him on the first day of February, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred, and of the independence of the United States of America the twenty-fourth, in the Virginia district aforesaid, and within the jurisdiction of this honorable court, did wickedly and maliciously write, print, utter, and publish a false, scandalous, and malicious writing against the said President of the United States, of the tenor and effect following, that is to say:

"The reign of Mr. Adams (meaning John Adams, Esq., President of the United States) has been one continued tempest of malignant passions. As President, he (meaning the said President of the United States) has never opened his (meaning the said President of the United States) lips or lifted his (the said President meaning) pen without threatening and scolding; the grand object of his (meaning the said President of the United States) administration has been to exasperate the rage of contending parties, to calumniate and destroy every man who differs from his opinions. Mr. Adams (meaning the President of the United States) 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 faces of life."

And also, the following false, scandalous, and malicious words, that is to say, "the contriver of this piece had been suddenly gone."