Page:The World's Famous Orations Volume 6.djvu/115

CURRAN or not? I put another question: If any man had then published a call on that body, and stated that war was declared against the State; that the regular troops were withdrawn; that our coasts were hovered round by the ships of the enemy; that the moment was approaching when the unprotected feebleness of age and sex, when the sanctity of habitation, would be disregarded and profaned by the brutal ferocity of a rude invader: if any man had then said to them, "Leave your industry for a while, that you may return to it again, and come forth in arms for the public defense,"—I put this question boldly to you, gentlemen,—it is not the case of the volunteers of that day; it is the case of my client at this hour, which I put to you,—would that call have been then pronounced in a court of justice, or by a jury on their oaths, a criminal and seditious invitation to insurrection? If it would not have been so then, upon what principle can it be so now? What is the force and perfection of the law?

It is a question, gentlemen, upon which you only can decide; it is for you to say whether it was criminal in the defendant to be so misled, and whether he is to fall a sacrifice to the prosecution of that government by which he was so deceived. I say again, gentlemen, you can look only to his own words as the interpreter of his meaning, and to the state and circumstances of his country, as he was made to believe them, as the clue to his intention. The 105