ot the face to allege
that the commission of them implied or indicated any criminal intent.

To get rid of the necessity of showing a criminal intent, and thereby
further to enslave the people, by reducing them to the necessity of a
blind, unreasoning submission to the arbitrary will of the government,
and of a surrender of all right, on their own part, to judge what are
their constitutional and natural rights and liberties, courts have
invented another idea, which they have incorporated among the pretended
_maxims_, upon which they act in criminal trials, viz., that "_ignorance
of the law excuses no one_." As if it were in the nature of things
possible that there could be an excuse more absolute and complete. What
else than ignorance of the law is it that excuses persons under the
years of discretion, and men of imbecile minds? What else than ignorance
of the law is it that excuses judges themselves for all their erroneous
decisions? Nothing. They are every day committing errors, which would be
crimes, but for their ignorance of the law. And yet these same judges,
who claim to be _learned_ in the law, and who yet could not hold their
offices for a day, but for the allowance which the law makes for their
ignorance, are continually asserting it to be a "maxim" that "ignorance
of the law excuses no one;" (by which, of course, they really mean that
it excuses no one but themselves; and especially that it excuses no
_unlearned_ man, who comes before them charged with crime.)

This preposterous doctrine, that "ignorance of the law excuses no one,"
is asserted by courts because it is an indispensable one to the
maintenance of absolute power in the government. It is indispensable for
this purpose, because, if it be once admitted that the people _have_ any
rights and liberties which the government cannot lawfully take from
them, then the question arises in regard to every statute of the
government, whether it be law, or not; that is, whether it infringe, or
not, the rights and liberties of the people. Of this question every man
must of course judge according to the light in his own mind. And no man
can be convicted unless the jury find, not only that the statute is
_law_,--that it does _not_ infringe the rights and liberties of the
people,--but also that it was so clearly law, so clearly consistent with
the rights and liberties of the people, as that the individual himself,
who transgressed it, _knew it to be so_, and therefore