Orators of England

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Guy Carleton Lee
G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1900 - Orators
 

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Page 204 - I, AB , do sincerely promise and swear that I will be faithful and bear true allegiance to her Majesty, Queen Victoria...
Page 32 - It is very difficult to define the invisible line that divides perfect and partial insanity; but it must rest upon circumstances duly to be weighed and considered both by judge and jury, lest on the one side there be a kind of inhumanity toward the defects of human nature; or, on the other side, too great an indulgence given to great crimes.
Page 91 - February, 1810, being founded on circumstances of a temporary nature, which have happily ceased to exist, the said Treaty is hereby declared to be void in all its parts, and of no effect ; without prejudice, however, to the ancient Treaties of Alliance, Friendship and Guarantee, which have so long and so happily subsisted between the two Crowns, and which are hereby renewed by the High Contracting Parties, and acknowledged to be of full force and effect.
Page 40 - ... a man standing for life or death for a crime, he ought not, in my opinion, to be acquitted; and if courts of law were to be governed by any other principle, every departure from sober, rational conduct would be an emancipation from criminal justice. I shall place my claim to your verdict upon no such dangerous foundation. I must convince you, not only that the unhappy prisoner was a lunatic, within my own definition of lunacy, but that the act in question was the immediate, unqualified offspring...
Page 230 - Can we be said to do unto others as we would that they should do unto us, if we wantonly inflict on them even the smallest pain?
Page 47 - Let me suppose that the character of an insane delusion consisted in the belief that some given person was any brute animal, or an inanimate being (and such cases have existed), and that upon the trial of such a lunatic for murder, you firmly, upon your oaths, were convinced, upon the uncontradicted evidence of an hundred persons, that he believed the man he had destroyed, to have been a potter's vessel; that it was quite impossible to doubt that fact, although to all other intents and purposes he...
Page 115 - Let us fly to the aid of Portugal, by whomsoever attacked; because it is our duty to do so: and let us cease our interference where that duty ends. We go to Portugal not to rule, not to dictate, not to pre'scribe constitutions — but to defend and to preserve the independence of an ally. We go to plant the standard of England on the well-known heights of Lisbon. Where that standard is planted, foreign dominion shall not come.
Page 178 - ... heads and honest hearts of an English jury would have confounded such sophistry, and declared by their verdict that moderation of language is a relative term, which varies with the subject to which it is applied ; that atrocious crimes are not to be related as calmly and coolly as indifferent or trifling events ; that if there be a decorum due to exalted rank and authority, there is also a much more sacred decorum due to virtue and to human nature, which would be outraged and trampled under foot...
Page 182 - ... should be made subservient to the purposes of barbarism — than that literature should be employed to teach a toleration for cruelty, to weaken moral hatred for guilt, to deprave and brutalize the human mind.
Page 157 - ... of murder, who were cruel only from cowardice and calculating selfishness, are perfectly willing to transfer their venal pens to any government that does not disdain their infamous support. These men, republicans from servility, who published rhetorical panegyrics on massacre, and who reduced plunder to a system of ethics, are as ready to preach slavery as anarchy. But the more daring, I had almost said the more respectable, ruffians cannot so easily bend their heads under the yoke. These fierce...

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