Abridgment of the Debates of Congress, from 1789 to 1856, Vol. 2 (of 16)

by United States. Congress

This combination against our peace is extensive; it embraces characters whose stations demand a different course. Is this House free from it? Recollect what a few days ago fell from the very gentleman (Mr. Livingston) who now so boldly and violently calls on us to reject this bill at the instant of its coming before us, without suffering it to be read a second time. The gentleman proposed a resolution requesting the President to instruct Mr. Gerry to conclude a treaty with the French Government; and declared that "he believed a negotiation might be opened, and that it was probable a treaty might be concluded which it would be honorable to the United States to accept. He did not wish to frustrate so happy an event by any punctilio, because they had refused to treat with three Envoys, but were willing to treat with one." This is in the very spirit of the malicious paragraph I just now read. It is pursuing the same systematic course of operations. The gentleman also said, (what has not been published, however,) that "the commission of the Envoys being joint and several, Mr. Gerry had unquestionably ample powers to treat alone." Here are circumstances of what I call a combination against the Government, in attempts to persuade the people of certain facts, which a majority of this House, at least, and of the people at large, I believe, know to be unfounded. Who can say that Mr. Gerry has power to treat alone, or that the French Government is willing to treat with him on fair and honorable terms? Gentlemen do not believe either, let them say what they will. Does such a commission empower one to exercise the functions of the whole in opposition to the opinions of his colleagues? It would produce the most inextricable confusion. The severalty of the powers is well known always to be a provision against such accidents as may prevent or disable a part of the Commissioners from acting. I mention these things to show what false ideas gentlemen endeavor to impress the public mind with on this subject.

The gentleman (Mr. Livingston) makes his proclamation of war on the Government in the House on Monday, and this infamous printer (Bache) follows it up with the tocsin of insurrection on Tuesday. While this bill was under consideration in the Senate, an attempt is made to render it odious among the people. "Is there any alternative," says this printer, "between an abandonment of the constitution and resistance?" He declares what is unconstitutional, and then invites the people to "resistance." This is an awful, horrible example of "the liberty of opinion and freedom of the press." Can gentlemen hear these things and lie quietly on their pillows? Are we to see all these acts practised against the repose of our country, and remain passive? Are we bound hand and foot that we must be witnesses of these deadly thrusts at our liberty? Are we to be the unresisting spectators of these exertions to destroy all that we hold dear? Are these approaches to revolution and Jacobinic domination, to be observed with the eye of meek submission? No, sir, they are indeed terrible; they are calculated to freeze the very blood in our veins. Such liberty of the press and of opinion is calculated to destroy all confidence between man and man; it leads to a dissolution of every bond of union; it cuts asunder every ligament that unites man to his family, man to his neighbor, man to society, and to Government. God deliver us from such liberty, the liberty of vomiting on the public floods of falsehood and hatred to every thing sacred, human, and divine! If any gentleman doubts the effects of such a liberty, let me direct his attention across the water; it has there made slaves of thirty millions of men.

At the commencement of the Revolution in France those loud and enthusiastic advocates for liberty and equality took special care to occupy and command all the presses in the nation; they well knew the powerful influence to be obtained on the public mind by that engine; its operations are on the poor, the ignorant, the passionate, and the vicious; over all these classes of men the freedom of the press shed its baneful effects, and they all became the tools of faction and ambition, and the virtuous, the pacific, and the rich, were their victims. The Jacobins of our country, too, sir, are determined to preserve in their hands the same weapon; it is our business to wrest it from them. Hence this motion so suddenly made, and so violently supported by the mover, to reject this bill without even suffering it to have a second reading; hence this alarm for the safety of "the freedom of speech and of the press."

Mr. Harper said, if, in voting against the rejection of this bill, his vote should be considered as giving his assent to all its provisions, it would be misunderstood. He thought it right and necessary to make a law on the subject; but not exactly such a law as the present, his particular objections to which he should make known when the subject was fully before him. He should vote against a rejection of the bill, because to vote for it, would be to declare that no law ought to be passed to restrict seditious writing and speaking, which was not his opinion.

He had often heard in this place, and elsewhere, harangues on the liberty of the press, as if it were to swallow up all other liberties; as if all law and reason, and every right, human and divine, was to fall prostrate before the liberty of the press; whereas, the true meaning of it is no more than that a man shall be at liberty to print what he pleases, provided he does not offend against the laws, and not that no law shall be passed to regulate this liberty of the press. He admitted that a law which should say a man shall not slander his neighbor would be unnecessary; but it is perfectly within the constitution to say, that a man shall not do this, or the other, which shall be injurious to the well-being of society; in the same way that Congress had a right to make laws to restrain the personal liberty of man, when that liberty is abused by acts of violence on his neighbor.

Mr. H. knew the liberty of the press had been carried to a very considerable extent in this country. He had frequently seen private character vilely calumniated; he had himself come in for a share of abuse, but he had always despised the base calumniators, believing that a man's propriety of conduct would always be sufficient to shield him against these slanders. When he saw the President of the United States and the Government of the Union defamed, he still despised them, and he believed also that the people were not affected by them, because he saw they did not rise in insurrection against the Government; and if they had not believed that all the things which were said respecting the Government were vile falsehoods, he should have thought the people the most wretched fools, had they not risen against it.

Mr. Nicholas was sorry this motion had been made, because it prevents members from going into the modification of the bill, which he was convinced would completely exemplify the folly of the principle; but until gentlemen saw what form the bill was finally to take, it was impossible to speak with precision on its merits; because if the declarations of the gentlemen from Connecticut and South Carolina were attended to, it would be found they are most afraid of the speeches and letters of gentlemen in this House. They acknowledge, however, they cannot prevent members from speaking what they please here. What, then, is their aim? Do they mean to prevent the publication of their sentiments to their constituents and to the world? If this was not their intention, he could not tell what it was.

There was one general view of this subject, which Mr. N. took to be the most momentous that this country ever saw. He was ready to go with gentlemen into measures for affording a liberal support to the war, which it appears must be gone into; but he was not ready to create a domestic tyranny. The people of this country are competent judges of their own interests, and he was desirous that the press should remain perfectly free to give them every information relative to them; and to restrict it, would be to create a suspicion that there is something in our measures which ought to be kept from the light. It was striking at the root of free republican Government, to restrict the use of speaking and writing. He wished, however, to see the bill put into such a shape as the friends of it themselves might approve.

Mr. Livingston said, after receiving the chastisement of the gentleman from Connecticut on one cheek, he, like a good Christian, had turned the other to the gentleman from South Carolina, and received the stripes of both. He expressed his acknowledgments to these gentlemen, however, if not for their chastisement, for the insight which they had given the House into this bill. They have said, its design is not only to restrict the liberty of the press, which is secured by the constitution, but the liberty of speech on this floor. The gentleman from South Carolina did not say explicitly that he wished this; but he said he was regardless of what was said in the public papers, either of private or personal slander, or of a slander on the Government, until he heard a certain speech delivered in this House; and though he said he did not intend to restrict the liberty of speech in this House, he must have had something of the kind in view. [Mr. Harper said it was not his intention to restrict the freedom of speech on that floor, but the consequences of it out of doors.] Then, said Mr. L., he will either restrict the members from speaking, or, in some way, prevent the people from knowing what has been said. How is this to be done? By shackling newspapers, and preventing that free communication of sentiment which has heretofore been expressed on public topics.

The gentleman from Connecticut had been pleased to read a quotation from some observations which he had made on a former occasion, which that gentleman thought highly blamable. Mr. L. said, what he had read he avowed to be his sentiments. He avowed them with pride, and he trusted he should always avow them with pride. Nor could he see how acts made contrary to the constitution could be binding upon the people; unless gentlemen say Congress may act in contravention to the constitution. [Mr. Otis asked who were to be the judges?] Mr. L. answered, the people of the United States. We, said he, are their servants, when we exceed our powers, we become their tyrants!