ther
the church-wardens of the parish, in the absence of the vestry, had any
means of enforcing a rate except the antiquated interdict or
ecclesiastical censure. It was not on legal technicalities, however, but
on the broad principle of religious equality, that Campbell supported
the abolition of church rates, in which he included the Edinburgh
annuity-tax.

In the same year he spoke for Lord Melbourne, in the action (thought by
some to be a political conspiracy[3]) which the Hon. G.C. Norton brought
against the Whig premier for criminal conversation with his wife. At
this time also he exerted himself for the reform of justice in the
ecclesiastical courts, for the uniformity of the law of marriage (which
he held should be a purely civil contract) and for giving prisoners
charged with felony the benefit of counsel. His defence of _The Times_
newspaper, which had accused Sir John Conroy, equerry to the duchess of
Kent, of misappropriation of money (1838), is chiefly remarkable for the
Confession--"I despair of any definition of libel which shall exclude no
publications which ought to be suppressed, and include none which ought
to be permitted." His own definition of blasphemous libel was enforced
in the prosecution which, as attorney-general, he raised against the
bookseller H. Hetherington, and which he justified on the singular
ground that "the vast bulk of the population believe that morality
depends entirely on revelation; and if a doubt could be raised among
them that the ten commandments were given by God from Mount Sinai, men
would think they were at liberty to steal, and women would consider
themselves absolved from the restraints of chastity." But his most
distinguished effort at the bar was undoubtedly the speech for the House
of Commons in the famous case of _Stockdale v. Hansard_, 1837, 7 C. and
P. 731. The Commons had ordered to be printed, among other papers, a
report of the inspectors of prisons on Newgate, which stated that an
obscene book, published by Stockdale, was given to the prisoners to
read. Stockdale sued the Commons' publisher, and was met by the plea of
parliamentary privilege, to which, however, the judges did not give
effect, on the ground that they were entitled to define the privileges
of the Commons, and that publication of papers was not essential to the
functions of parliament. The matter was settled by an act of 1840.

In 1840 Campbell conducted the prosecution against John Frost, one o