Sedition in Nova Scotia: R. v. Howe and the Contested Legality of Seditious Libel
![handle is hein.journals/unblj51 and id is 99 raw text is: SEDITION IN NOVA SCOTIA: R. v. HOWE AND
THE CONTESTED LEGALITY OF SEDITIOUS
LIBEL
Barry Cahill*
Nova Scotia had found [in Joseph Howe] not only its John Wilkes but also its
Charles James Fox. - W.S. Maclutt, 1965
Introduction
New Brunswick was the first jurisdiction in what is now Canada to attempt to
legislate on the subject of criminal libel. In February 1797, at the climax of a
protracted constitutional struggle between the executive and legislative branches,
New Brunswick's House of Assembly passed a bill enacting Fox's LibelAct of 1792,
a liberal but limited advance affecting sedition law when the reformers finally
triumphed, briefly.' Though supported by the Loyalist Attorney-General, Jonathan
Bliss (a future chiefjustice of the province), the bill was rejected by the Council and
did not become law. Though never in force in New Brunswick, Fox's LibelAct was
in force in Nova Scotia, where reception of the criminal laws of England was not
statutory butjudicial, and those acts passed in amelioration of the common law and
[which] increased the liberty of the subject were in force by analogy with the
common law itself. Thus, Fox's LibelAct, being declaratory of the common law,
was good law in Nova Scotia from the moment of its coming into force in England.
Joseph Howe, defending himself on a charge of seditious libel in 1835, not only took
for granted that Fox's Libel Act was in force but also referred to it as the
Declaratory Act.2 Fox's LibelAct was good law because it 'declared' (clarified)
received criminal procedure by removing doubts respecting the functions ofjuries
Independent scholar, Halifax NS. This article is dedicated to the memory of F. Murray Greenwood.
F.M. Greenwood & B. Wright, Introduction: State Trials, the Rule of Law, and Executive Powers in
Early Canada, in F. M. Greenwood & B. Wright, eds., Canadian State Trials, Voltme I: Law, Politics
and Sectrit Measures, 1608-1837 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1996) at 29, 30. For the
constitutional struggle, see D.G. Bell, The Reception Question and the Constitutional Crisis of the
1790's in New Brunswick (1980) 29 U.N.B.L.J. 157.
-.I.A. Chisholm, rev. & ed., The Speeches and Public Letters ofJoseph Howe (Halifax: The Chronicle
Puhlishing Co. Ltd., 1909) 66.](ViewImageLocal?handle=hein.journals/unblj51&div=9&collection=&method=preview&ext=.png&size=3)
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Sedition in Nova Scotia: R. v. Howe and the Contested Legality of Seditious Libel
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