U.S. v. Dorr, 2 Phil. 332 (1903)
TOPIC: Government of the Philippines, Defined
FACTS:
The defendants have been convicted upon a complaint charging them with the offense of writing, publishing, and circulating a scurrilous libel against the Government of the United States and the Insular Government of the Philippine Islands.The complaint is based upon section 8 of Act No. 292 of the Commission, which is as follows:
Every person who shall utter seditious words or speeches, write, publish, or circulate scurrilous libels against the Government of the United States or the Insular Government of the Philippine Islands, or which tend to disturb or obstruct any lawful officer in executing his office, or which tend to instigate others to cabal or meet together for unlawful purposes, or which suggest or incite rebellious conspiracies or riots, or which tend to stir up the people against the lawful authorities, or to disturb the peace of the community, the safety and order of the Government, or who shall knowingly conceal such evil practices, shall be punished by a fine not exceeding two thousand dollars or by imprisonment not exceeding two years, or both, in the discretion of the court.
The alleged libel was published as an editorial in the issue of the “Manila Freedom” of April 6, 1902, under the caption of “A few hard facts.”
Issues:
whether their publication constitutes an offense under section 8 of Act No. 292.
Rulings:
Several allied offenses or modes of committing the same offense are defined in that section, viz: (1) The uttering of seditious words or speeches; (2) the writing, publishing, or circulating of scurrilous libels against the Government of the United States or the Insular Government of the Philippine Islands; (3) the writing, publishing, or circulating of libels which tend to disturb or obstruct any lawful officer in executing his office; (4) or which tend to instigate others to cabal or meet together for unlawful purposes; (5) or which suggest or incite rebellious conspiracies or riots; (6) or which tend to stir up the people against the lawful authorities or to disturb the peace of the community, the safety and order of the Government; (7) knowingly concealing such evil practices.
Can the article be regarded as embraced within the description of “scurrilous libels against the Government of the United States or the Insular Government of the Philippine Islands?” In the determination of this question we have encountered great difficulty, by reason of the almost entire lack of American precedents which might serve as a guide in the construction of the law. There are, indeed, numerous English decisions, most of them of the eighteenth century, on the subject of libelous attacks upon the “Government, the constitution, or the law generally,” attacks upon the Houses of Parliament, the Cabinet, the Established Church, and other governmental organisms, but these decisions are not now accessible to us, and, if they were, they were made under such different conditions from those which prevail at the present day, and are founded upon theories of government so foreign to those which have inspired the legislation of which the enactment in question forms a part, that they would probably afford but little light in the present inquiry. In England, in the latter part of the eighteenth century, any “written censure upon public men for their conduct as such,” as well as any written censure “upon the laws or upon the institutions of the country,” would probably have been regarded as a libel upon the Government. (2 Stephen, History of the Criminal Law of England, 348.) This has ceased to be the law in England, and it is doubtful whether it was ever the common law of any American State. “It is true that there are ancient dicta to the effect that any publication tending to “possess the people with an ill opinion of the Government” is a seditious libel ( per Holt, C. J., in R. vs. Tuchin, 1704, 5 St. Tr., 532, and Ellenborough, C. J., in R. vs. Cobbett, 1804, 29 How. St. Tr., 49), but no one would accept that doctrine now. Unless the words used directly tend to foment riot or rebellion or otherwise to disturb the peace and tranquility of the Kingdom, the utmost latitude is allowed in the discussion of all public affairs.” (11 Enc. of the Laws of England, 450.) Judge Cooley says (Const. Lim., 528): “The English common law rule which made libels on the constitution or the government indictable, as it was administered by the courts, seems to us unsuited to the condition and circumstances of the people of America, and therefore never to have been adopted in the several States.”
We find no decisions construing the Tennessee statute (Code, sec. 6663), which is apparently the only existing American statute of a similar character to that in question, and from which much of the phraseology of then latter appears to have been taken, though with some essential modifications.
The important question is to determine what is meant in section 8 of Act No. 292 by the expression “the Insular Government of the Philippine Islands.” Does it mean in a general and abstract sense the existing laws and institutions of the Islands, or does it mean the aggregate of the individuals by whom the government of the Islands is, for the time being, administered? Either sense would doubtless be admissible.
We understand, in modern political science, . . . by the term government, that institution or aggregate of institutions by which an independent society makes and carries out those rules of action which are unnecessary to enable men to live in a social state, or which are imposed upon the people forming that society by those who possess the power or authority of prescribing them. Government is the aggregate of authorities which rule a society. By “dministration, again, we understand in modern times, and especially in more or less free countries, the aggregate of those persons in whose hands the reins of government are for the time being (the chief ministers or heads of departments).” (Bouvier, Law Dictionary, 891.) But the writer adds that the terms “government” and “administration” are not always used in their strictness, and that “government” is often used for “administration.”
Defamation of individuals, whether holding official positions or not, and whether directed to their public conduct or to their private life, may always be adequately punished under the general libel law. Defamation of the Civil Commission as an aggregation, it being “a body of persons definite and small enough for its individual members to be recognized as such” (Stephen, Digest of the Criminal Law, art. 277), as well as defamation of any of the individual members of the Commission or of the Civil Governor, either in his public capacity or as a private individual, may be so punished. The general libel law enacted by the Commission was in force when Act No. 292, was passed. There was no occasion for any further legislation on the subject of libels against the individuals by whom the Insular Government is administered — against the Insular Government in the sense of the aggregate of such individuals. There was occasion for stringent legislation against seditious words or libels, and that is the main if not the sole purpose of the section under consideration. It is not unreasonable to suppose that the Commission, in enacting this section, may have conceived of attacks of a malignant or scurrilous nature upon the existing political system of the United States, or the political system established in these Islands by the authority of the United States, as necessarily of a seditious tendency, but it is not so reasonable to suppose that they conceived of attacks upon the personnel of the government as necessarily tending to sedition. Had this been their view it seems probable that they would, like the framers of the Sedition Act of 1798, have expressly and specifically mentioned the various public officials and collegiate governmental bodies defamation of which they meant to punish as sedition.
The article in question contains no attack upon the governmental system of the United States, and it is quite apparent that, though grossly abusive as respects both the Commission as a body and some of its individual members, it contains no attack upon the governmental system by which the authority of the United States is enforced in these Islands. The form of government by a Civil Commission and a Civil Governor is not assailed. It is the character of the men who are intrusted with the administration of the government that the writer is seeking to bring into disrepute by impugning the purity of their motives, their public integrity, and their private morals, and the wisdom of their policy. The publication of the article, therefore, no seditious tendency being apparent, constitutes no offense under Act No. 292, section 8.