inquiry; not to examine into the most important consideration which
can come before us, with minds heated with prejudice and filled with
passions, with vain popular opinions and humours, and when we
propose to examine into the justice of others, to be unjust
ourselves.

An inquiry is wished, as the most effectual way of putting an end to
the clamours and libels, which are the disorder and disgrace of the
times. For people remain quiet, they sleep secure, when they
imagine that the vigilant eye of a censorial magistrate watches over
all the proceedings of judicature, and that the sacred fire of an
eternal constitutional jealousy, which is the guardian of liberty,
law, and justice, is alive night and day, and burning in this house.
But when the magistrate gives up his office and his duty, the people
assume it, and they inquire too much, and too irreverently, because
they think their representatives do not inquire at all.

We have in a libel, 1st. The writing. 2nd. The communication,
called by the lawyers the publication. 3rd. The application to
persons and facts. 4th. The intent and tendency. 5th. The
matter--diminution of fame. The law presumptions on all these are
in the communication. No intent can, make a defamatory publication
good, nothing can make it have a good tendency; truth is not
pleadable. Taken juridically, the foundation of these law
presumptions is not unjust; taken constitutionally, they are
ruinous, and tend to the total suppression of all publication. If
juries are confined to the fact, no writing which censures, however
justly, or however temperately, the conduct of administration, can
be unpunished. Therefore, if the intent and tendency be left to the
judge, as legal conclusions growing from the fact, you may depend