![]() "License of the Press", an address before the Monday Evening Club, Hartford (1873).It has defended official criminals, on party pretexts, until it has created a United States Senate whose members are incapable of determining what crime against law and the dignity of their own body is-they are so morally blind-and it has made light of dishonesty till we have as a result a Congress which contracts to work for a certain sum and then deliberately steals additional wages out of the public pocket and is pained and surprised that anybody should worry about a little thing like that. It has scoffed at religion till it has made scoffing popular.Is not this insanity plea becoming rather common? Is it not so common that the reader confidently expects to see it offered in every criminal case that comes before the courts? Really, what we want now, is not laws against crime, but a law against insanity.Anthologized in Mark Twain's Sketches, New and Old (1875). "A New Crime", first published as "The New Crime" in the Buffalo Express, 16 April 1870. ![]()
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