FREEDOM OF THE PRESS.
The freedom of the press, as understood and secured by high constitutional authority, consists in its identification with every principle which is involved in our Declaration of Independence. It dare not aim its shafts at the existence of the government, the Constitution, and the Union. And yet has not the press—a portion of it, we mean—aimed to do so during this rebellion, and that, too, at a time while claiming that government’s protection? A press devoted to the cause of traitors is as much a traitor to the government as are those who are arrayed in arms for its destruction. It ceases to be considered the palladium of liberty, and assumes at once the character of a rebel and a spy, the moment it strikes at the root of the tree whose fruit is freedom!
Our government, unfortunately, at the outbreak of the rebellion did not claim the power to suppress such treasonable publications, but actually left them free to publish what they pleased. The consequence was, and is, that that portion of the press is as hostile to the administration now as it was in the beginning, silence giving them consent to commit crime. Nor was this all: our very postal department assisted in disseminating their papers by allowing them to go and come with impunity. Thus the mails established by the United States Government were and, we are afraid, are still used for its own destruction. Is there any principle of law or of justice to sanction such leniency on our part?
Judge Story, of the Supreme Court, on one occasion, commenting on that clause of the Constitution securing the freedom of the press, says,—
“That this amendment was intended to secure to every citizen an absolute right to speak or write or print whatsoever he might please, without any responsibility, public or private, therefor, is a supposition too wild to be indulged in by any rational man. This would be to allow to every citizen the right to destroy at his pleasure the reputation, the peace, the property, and even the personal safety of every other citizen. A man might, out of mere malice or revenge, accuse another of the most infamous crimes, might excite against him the indignation of all his fellow-citizens by the most atrocious calumnies, might disturb, nay, overturn all his domestic peace, and embitter his parental affections, might inflict the most distressing punishments upon the weak, the timid, and the innocent, might prejudice all a man’s civil and political and private rights, and might stir up sedition, rebellion, and treason, even against the government itself, in the wantonness of his passions or the corruption of his heart. Civil society could not go on under such circumstances. Men would then be obliged to resort to private vengeance to make up the deficiency of the law; and assassinations and savage cruelties would be perpetrated with all the frequency belonging to barbarous and cruel communities. It is plain, then, that the language of this amendment imports no more than that every man has a right to speak, write, and print his opinions upon any subject whatever, without any prior restraint, so always that he does not injure any other person in his rights, person, property, or reputation, and so always that he does not thereby disturb the public peace or attempt to subvert the government.”
POST-OFFICE CURIOSITIES.
There are many curious things daily occurring in the post-office under this head. In “Chambers’s Journal” we find the following:—
“A formal but most essential rule makes letters once posted the property of the postmaster-general until they are delivered as addressed, and they must not be given up to the writers on any pretence whatever. One or two requests of this kind related to us we are not likely soon to forget. On one occasion a commercial traveller called at an office and expressed a fear that he had enclosed two letters in wrong envelopes, the addresses of which he furnished. It appeared from the account which he reluctantly gave, after a refusal to grant his request, that his position and prospects depended upon his getting his letters and correcting the mistakes, inasmuch as they revealed plans which he had adopted to serve two mercantile houses in the same line of business, whose interests clashed at every point. Another case occurred in which a fast young gentleman confessed to carrying on a confidential correspondence with two young ladies at the same time, and that he had, or feared he had, crossed two letters which he had written at the same sitting. Writing of this, we are reminded of a case in which a country postmaster had a letter put into his hand through the office-window, together with the following message, delivered with great emphasis:—‘Here’s a letter; she wants it to go along as fast as it can, ‘cause there’s a feller wants to have her here, and she’s courted by another feller that’s not here, and she wants to know whether he’s going to have her or not.’”
The Fatal Letter.—A tradesman’s daughter, who had been for some time engaged to a prosperous young draper in a neighboring town, heard, from one whom she and her parents considered a creditable authority, that he was on the verge of bankruptcy. Not a day was to be lost in breaking the bond by which she and her small fortune were linked to penury. A letter, strong and conclusive in its language, was at once written and posted, when the same informant called upon the young lady’s friends to contradict and explain his former statement, which had arisen out of some misunderstanding. They rushed at once to the post-office; and no words can describe the scene,—the reiterated appeals, the tears, the wringing of hands, the united entreaties of father, mother, and daughter, for the restoration of the fatal letter. But the rule admitted of no exception, and the young lady had to repent at leisure of her inordinate haste.
In this country we are not so strict, as any person posting a letter can have it restored to him by simply signing his name to the fact of its being by him written. We would, however, suggest to the department the propriety of establishing the English system; for we feel confident that the moment rogues turn their attention to the post-office for the purpose of plunder, taking advantage of this loose way of doing business will be the consequence. Another thing: it will make men more careful, and thus save the department an immense deal of trouble.