Trial of C. B. Reynolds For Blasphemy Defence by Robert G. Ingersoll, at Morristown, N. J., May 1887

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Title: Trial of C. B. Reynolds For Blasphemy

       Defence by Robert G. Ingersoll, at Morristown, N. J., May 1887

Author: Robert G. Ingersoll

Release Date: November 22, 2011 [EBook #38103]

Last Updated: January 25, 2013

Language: English

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TRIAL OF REYNOLDS ***

Produced by David Widger

TRIAL OF C. B. REYNOLDS FOR BLASPHEMY,

At Morristown, N. J., May 1887.

Defence by Robert G. Ingersoll.

Stenographically Reported by I. N. Baker, and Revised by the Author.

1888.

Contents

PUBLISHER'S PREFACE.

MR. C. B. REYNOLDS, the accused, is an accredited missionary of freethought and speech who, under the guarantees of the Constitution, went from town to town in New Jersey, lecturing and preaching to those—had invited him and to all who chose to come. His methods of invitation were the ordinary ones of circulars, newspaper notices, bill posters, and personal address. His meetings were attended by the best people of the place, and were orderly and quiet except as disturbed by Christian mobs, unrestrained by local officials.

At one of these meetings, in Boonton, he was attacked with missiles of every kind, while speaking—his tent destroyed, and he compelled to seek safety in flight. An action for damages against the town resulted in a counter action for disturbing the peace. Through the cowardice and inaction of the authorities the issue was never joined.

Not daunted by persecution he continued his labors, making Morristown his next field of operations. Here he circulated a pamphlet giving his views of theology, and appended a satirical cartoon of his Boonton experience. This cartoon was the gravamen of his offence. For this he was indicted on a charge of Blasphemy, and brought before a Morristown jury. The religious farce ended in a fine of $25.00.

C. P. Farrell.

MR. INGERSOLL'S ARGUMENT

Gentlemen of the Jury: I regard this as one of the most important cases that can be submitted to a jury. It is not a case that involves a little property, neither is it one that involves simply the liberty of one man. It involves the freedom of speech, the intellectual liberty of every citizen of New Jersey.

The question to be tried by you is whether a man has the right to express his honest thought; and for that reason there can be no case of greater importance submitted to a jury. And it may be well enough for me, at the outset, to admit that there could be no case in which I could take a greater—a deeper interest For my part, I would not wish to live in a world where I could not express my honest opinions. Men who deny to others the right of speech are not fit to live with honest men.

I deny the right of any man, of any number of men, of any church, of any State, to put a padlock on the lips—to make the tongue a convict. I passionately deny the right of the Herod of authority to kill the children of the brain.

A man has a right to work with his hands, to plow the earth, to sow the seed, and that man has a right to reap the harvest. If we have not that right, then all are slaves except those who take these rights from their fellow-men. If you have the right to work with your hands and to gather the harvest for yourself and your children, have you not a right to cultivate your brain? Have you not the right to read, to observe, to investigate—and when you have so read and so investigated, have you not the right to reap that field? And what is it to reap that field? It is simply to express what you have ascertained—simply to give your thoughts to your fellow-men.

If there is one subject in this world worthy of being discussed, worthy of being understood, it is the question of intellectual liberty. Without that, we are simply painted clay; without that, we are poor miserable serfs and slaves. If you have not the right to express your opinions, if the defendant has not this right, then no man ever walked beneath the blue of heaven that had the right to express his thought. If others claim the right, where did they get it? How did they happen to have it, and how did you happen to be deprived of it? Where did a church or a nation get that right?

Are we not all children of the same Mother? Are we not all compelled to think, whether we wish to or not? Can you help thinking as you do? When you look out upon the woods, the fields,—when you look at the solemn splendors of the night—these things produce certain thoughts in your mind, and they produce them necessarily. No man can think as he desires No man controls the action of his brain, any more than he controls the action of his heart. The blood pursues its old accustomed ways in spite of you. The eyes see, if you open them, in spite of you. The ears hear, if they are unstopped, without asking your permission. And the brain thinks, in spite of you. Should you express that thought? Certainly you should, if others express theirs. You have exactly the same right. He who takes it from you is a robber. For thousands of years people have been trying to force other people to think their way. Did they succeed? No. Will they succeed? No. Why? Because brute force is not an argument. You can stand with the lash over a man, or you can stand by the prison door, or beneath the gallows, or by the stake, and say to this man: Recant, or the lash descends, the prison door is locked upon you, the rope is put about your neck, or the torch is given to the fagot. And so the man recants. Is he convinced? Not at all. Have you produced a new argument? Not the slightest. And yet the ignorant bigots of this world have been trying for thousands of years to rule the minds of men by brute force. They have endeavored to improve the mind by torturing the flesh—to spread religion with the sword and torch. They have tried to convince their brothers by putting their feet in iron boots, by putting fathers, mothers, patriots, philosophers and philanthropists in dungeons. And what has been the result? Are we any nearer thinking alike to-day than we were then?

No orthodox church ever had power that it did not endeavor to make people think its way by force and flame. And yet every church that ever was established commenced in the minority, and while it was in the minority advocated free speech—every one. John Calvin, the founder of the Presbyterian Church, while he lived in France, wrote a book on