III. Closely connected with this, and springing from the same causes, is a contrast between the North and the South, in respect to free speech and open discussion by lip and by type.
The theory of the North is, that every man has the right, on every subject, to the freest expression of his opinions, and the fullest right to urge them upon the convictions of others. It is not a permission of law; it is the inherent right of the individual. Law is only to protect the citizen in the use of that right.
It is the theory of the North that society is as much a gainer by this freedom of discussion as is the individual.
It is a perpetual education of the people, and a safeguard to the State. There is the utmost latitude of speech and discussion among our citizens. The attempt to abridge it would be so infatuated that the most dignified Court that ever sat in Boston would become an object of universal merriment and ridicule, that should presume to arrest and cause to be indicted any man for free speaking in old Faneuil Hall. Merriment, I say, for who would not laugh at a philosopher who would set snares for the stars, and fix his net to catch the sun, and regulate their indiscreet shining. Darkness and silence are excellent for knaves and tyrants; but the attempt to command the one or the other in the North, changes the knave to an imbecile and the tyrant to a fool.
But should any power, against the precedents of the past, the spirit of our people, the theory of our civil polity and the rights of individual man succeed, and make headway against free speech, and put it in jeopardy, it would convulse the very frame-work of society. There would be no time for a revolution—there would be an eruption, and fragmentary Judges, Courts and their minions would fly upward athwart the sky, like stones and balls of flame driven from the vomiting crater of a furious volcano! No. This is a right like the right of breathing. This is a liberty that broods upon us like the atmosphere. The grand American doctrine that men may speak what they think, and may print what they speak—that all public measures shall have free public discussion—cannot be shaken; and any party must be intensely American that can afford to destroy the very foundation of American principle that public questions shall be publicly discussed, and public procedure be publicly agreed upon. Right always gains in the light, and Wrong in the dark. An owl can whip an eagle in the night!
The South, holding a heathen theory of man—an aristocratic theory of society,—is bound to hold, and does hold, a radically opposite practice in respect to rights of speech and freedom of the press.
There is not freedom of opinion in the South and there cannot be.
Men may there talk of a thousand things—of all religious doctrines, of literature, of art, of public political measures—but no man has liberty to talk as he pleases about the structure of southern society, and apply to the real facts of southern life and southern internal questions that searching investigation and public exposure which, in the North, brings every possible question to the bar of public opinion, and makes society boil like a pot!
Yes, you may speak of Slavery, if you will defend it; you may preach about it, if you shingle its roof with Scripture texts; but you may not talk, nor preach, nor print abolition doctrines, though you believe them with the intensity of inspiration!
The reason given is, that it will stir up insurrection. And so it will. It is said that free speech is inflammatory. So it is. That it would bring every man's life in the South into jeopardy; that, in self-defence, they most limit and regulate the expression of opinion. But what is that theory of Government, and what is the state of society under it, in which free speech and free discussion are dangerous? It is the boast of the North, not alone that speech and discussion are free, but that we have a society constructed in every part so rarely, wisely, and justly, that they can endure free speech; no file can part, but only polish. We turn out any law, and say, Discuss it! that it may be the stronger! We challenge scrutiny for our industry, for our commerce, for our social customs, for our municipal affairs, for our State questions, for all that we believe, and all that we do, and everything that we build. We are not in haste to be born in respect to any feature of life. We say—probe it, question it, put fire to it. We ask the experience of the past to sit and try it. We ask the ripest wisdom of the present to test and analyze it. We ask enemies to plead all they know against it. We challenge the whole world of ideas, and the great deep of human interests to come up upon anything that belongs, or is to belong, to public affairs. And then, when a truth, a policy, or a procedure comes to birth, from out of the womb of such discussion, we know that it will stand. And when our whole public interests are rounded out and built up, we are glad to see men going around and about, marking well our towers, and counting our bulwarks. May it do them good to see such architecture and engineering! And it is just this difference that distinguishes the North and the South. We have institutions that will stand public and private discussion—they have not. We will not have a law, or custom, or economy, which cannot be defended against the freest inquiry. Such a rule would cut them level as a mowed meadow! They live in a crater, forever dreading the signs of activity. They live in a powder magazine. No wonder they fear light and fire. It is the plea of Wrong since the world began. Discussion would unseat the Czar; a free press would dethrone the ignoble Napoleon; free speech would revolutionize Rome. Freedom of thought and freedom of expression! they are mighty champions, that go with unsheathed swords the world over, to redress the weak, to right the wronged, to pull down evil and build up good. And a State that will be damaged by free speech ought to be damaged. A King that cannot keep his seat before free speech ought to be unseated. An order or an institution that dreads freedom of the press has reason to dread it. If the South would be revolutionized by free discussion, how intensely does that fact show her dying need of revolution! She is a dungeon, full of damps and death-air. She needs light and ventilation. And the only objection is, that if there were light and air let in, it would no longer be a dungeon.