Liberty magazine

“ In short, is it contended, that the liberty of the press is so much more valuable, than all other rights in society, that the public safety, nay the existence of the government itself is to yield to it? Is private redress for libels and calumny more important, or more valuable, than the maintenance of the good order, peace, and safety of society? It would be difficult to answer these questions in favour of the liberty of the press, without at the same time declaring, that such a licentiousness belonged, and could belong only to a despotism ”

“ The liberty of the press, in principle, resembles the liberty to bear arms. In the one case, the constitution guaranties a right to publish; in the other, a right to keep a musket; but he who injures his neighbor with his publications may be punished, as he who injures his neighbor with his musket may be punished. ”

“ You cannot read anything which your Government believes it wise to keep from you. We can read everything, whether the Government likes it or not. Americans believe there can be no truly free press, and no real unfettered public opinion, with the possibility of punishment hanging over the press of a country. Where the police, representing the ruling power, controls the press there is no true liberty. Whatever else may be said against the American press, it must be admitted that it is free from Government control. ”

“ It guarantees to us the liberty of the press, freedom of speech, liberty to seek for one's happiness, and to emigrate from State to State, and to enjoy all the privileges and rights that any man could in conscience ask for. ”

“ I refer to the great right of Freethought, that Freethought which is neither so low as a cottage nor so lofty as a pyramid, but is like the soaring azure vault of heaven, which over-arches both with equal case. I ask you to affirm the liberty of the press, to show by your verdict that you are prepared to give to others the same freedom that you claim for yourselves. ”

“ That the people have a right to freedom of speech, and of writing and publishing their sentiments; that the freedom of the press is one of the greatest bulwarks of liberty, and ought not to be violated. ”

“ Their employment soars so high, in its general consequences it is so intimately connected with the public happiness, that its security is provided for by the fundamental law. While it acts in a manner worthy of this distinction, the press is a fountain of light, and a source of gladdening warmth. It instructs the public mind, and animates the spirit of patriotism. Its loud voice suppresses every thing which would raise itself against the public liberty; and its blasting rebuke causes incipient despotism to perish in the bud. ”

“ No such force has occurred to the mind of man, except the freedom of discussion. If power shall seize on the press also, what will men gain by the art of printing? This noble art itself, will rivet and rut break the bonds of despotism. Under the direction of a goverament, it will operate upon civil liberty, as oracles did upon religious. The press will lie like the oracle, when a government directs its responses; and the success of falsehood, protected against investigation, is illustrated by the influence of oracles for centuries. ”

“ The freedom of speech and press, and the right of public discussion upon all matters affecting the interest of the people, are the great constitutional safeguards of popular rights, liberty and happiness. ”

“ Freedom of thought and opinion, freedom of speech, and freedom of the press, are inherent elements of political liberty. But while every citizen may freely speak, write and print, on any subject, he shall be responsible for the abuse of the liberty. ”

“ 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. ”

“ America is Democracy triumphant; the goal to which we are pressing here, the ideal towards which all noble hearts are striving. But—how long can we proclaim the glad tidings of liberty if the offensive and doubtless exaggerated details to which I have alluded are made public in the press? ”

“ For this vigilance, and indeed for almost all that keeps up in us, permanently and effectually, the spirit of regard to liberty and the public good, we must look to the unshackled and independent energies of the press. ”

“ The friends and the enemies of that instrument were stimulated to exertion by motives equally powerful; and, during the interval between its publication and adoption, every faculty of the mind was strained to secure its reception or rejection. The press teemed with the productions of temperate reason, of genius, and of passion; and it was apparent that each party believed power, sovereignty, liberty, peace, and security;—things most dear to the human heart;—to be staked on the question depending before the public. ”

“ Come, buy this print, and it will then be seen
That such a year as this has seldom been.”
Another of these stainers of paper addressed the spectators in the following terms, “Friends, now is your time to support the freedom of the press. Can the press have greater liberty? here you find it working in the middle of the Thames; and if you encourage us by buying our impressions, we will keep it going in the true spirit of liberty during the frost.” ”

“ Public discussion, free elections, responsible ministers, the liberty of the press, I have no objection to all that, the liberty of the press especially; to stifle it is absurd. I am convinced on this point. I am the man of the people: if the people really wish for liberty let them have it. ”

“ Journalism became a power of tremendous magnitude and extent. People read leading articles by torchlight, and shouted out to the moon apostrophes to liberty, ay, ‘liberty, equality, fraternity.’ These three talismanic words, too often devoid of meaning in the apprehension of those who shouted them with a fervour sufficient to split the ears of the groundlings. ”

“ That one, in such circumstances, should aspire to establish a printing press, among an educated people, might well be considered, if not ambitious, quite silly. My American friends looked at me with astonishment! “A wood-sawyer” offering himself to the public as an editor! A slave, brought up in the very depths of ignorance, assuming to instruct the highly civilized people of the north in the principles of liberty, justice, and humanity! ”

“ Peasants and mechanics are as useful to the State as any other order of men; but their utility consists in their discharging well the duties of their respective stations; it ceases when they affect to become legislators; when they intrude themselves into concerns for which their education has not fitted them. The liberty of the press is a main support of the liberty of the nation; it is a blessing which it is our duty to transmit to posterity ”

“ Liberty of the press involves, as necessary corollaries, liberty of meeting, liberty of publishing, liberty of distributing information, all the liberties engendered by the right—antedating all other rights—of informing one's self before voting. To vote is to steer; to vote is to judge. Can one imagine a blind pilot at the helm? Can one imagine a judge with his ears stuffed and his eyes put out? Liberty, then,—liberty to inform one's self by every means, by inquiry, by the press, by speech, by discussion,—this is the express guarantee, the condition of being, of universal suffrage. ”

“ THE time, it is to be hoped, is gone by, when any defence would be necessary of the ‘liberty of the press’ as one of the securities against corrupt or tyrannical government. No argument, we may suppose, can now be needed, against permitting a legislature or an executive, not identified in interest with the people, to prescribe opinions to them, and determine what doctrines or what arguments they shall be allowed to hear. ”

“ Politics require a certain mixture of indifference and passion, of freedom of thought and restrained will, which is not easily reconciled with a strong adhesion to general ideas, and a sincere intent to hold a just balance between the many principles and interests of society.
I should be unwilling to assert that in the measures proposed and passed in 1819, on the liberty of the press, we had completely avoided these rocks, or that they were in perfect harmony with the state of men's minds, and the exigencies of order at that precise epoch. ”

“ Under the special dispensation of the liberty of the press, which was construed into the license of the press, no man was too high to escape editorial vituperation if his politics did not happen to suit the management, or if his action ran counter to what the proprietors believed it should be. ”

“ It is too true to be denied, that ever since the origin of our controversy with Great Britain, the press, in this town, has been much devoted to the partizans of liberty; they have been indulged in publishing what they pleased, fas vel nefas, while little has been published on the part of government. ”

“ In this country we have established the régime of liberty, and that régime, with its attendant good and evil, must be accepted in its principle, and in all its logical consequences. If a free press becomes a fearful instrument for evil in the hands of the heedless or ill-disposed, it is no less an instrument for good in the hands of the enlightened, honest, and capable. ”

“ BY FEMALE OPERATIVES.
Our magazine is the only one which America has produced, of which no other country has produced the like. The Offering is prima facie evidence, not only of the American “factory-girls,” but of the intelligence of the mass of our country. And it is in the intelligence of the mass that the permanency of our republican institutions depends.
And our last appeal is to those who should support us, if for no other reason but their interest in “the cultivation of humanity,” and the maintenance of true democracy. There is little but this of which we, as a people, can be proud. ”

“ Thus, unrestricted liberty of the press, without detrimental consequences in a state of government free, happy, and strongly constituted, might prove injurious under a system only commencing, and in which the citizens have still to acquire liberty and prosperity. ”

“ Some experience as editor and publisher; he must be honest and just; patriotic; discreet; firm; tactful; must have power as a writer; character as a gentleman; vision, courage, one who cannot be either frightened or cajoled; and finally, one who recognizes the fact that liberty of the press is a principle that lies at the foundation of republican institutions, and must not be encroached upon, or placed in jeopardy. ”

“ Whatever facilitates a general intercourse of sentiments, as good roads, domestic commerce, a free press, and particularly a circulation of newspapers through the entire body of the people, and Representatives going from, and returning among, every part of them, is equivalent to a contraction of territorial limits, and is favorable to liberty, where these may be too extensive. ”

“ There is a good deal of loose reasoning on the subject of the liberty of the press, as if its inviolability were constitutionally such, that, like the king of England, it could do no wrong, and w as free from every inquiry, and afforded a perfect sanctuary for every abuse ”

“ If they were to suffer the Lords even to originate 537money-bills, we doubt whether such a surrender of their constitutional rights would excite half so much dissatisfaction as the exclusion of strangers from a single important discussion. The gallery in which the reporters sit has become a fourth estate of the realm. The publication of the debates, a practice which seemed to the most liberal statesman of the old school full of danger to the great safeguards of public liberty, is now regarded by many persons as a safeguard tantamount, and more than tantamount, to all the rest together. ”

“ The sixteenth article of our Bill of Rights says "The Liberty of the Press is essential to the security of Freedom in a State: It ought not therefore to be restrained in this commonwealth."
While the papers of the other states are crowded with advertisements, (free of duty) those of this state are almost destitute thereof; which justly occasions the oppressed printers of those shackled presses to make their separate complaints, as many do, owing to their being pro- hibited advertising in their own papers their own Books and Station- ery without incurring a penalty therefor. ”

“ Liberty of the press is, by constitution, statute, and custom, greater in the United States than anywhere else in the world. This liberty exists for our press so that the liberty of the whole people may thereby be guarded. ”

“ We wish to put the ideal rules into practice, to offer liberty instead of chains, and see whether liberty will not [Pg 226] disclose its proper checks; believing that a free press will prove safer than the censorship; to ordain free trade, and believe that it will not bankrupt us; universal suffrage, believing that it will not carry us to mobs or back to kings again. ”

“ If I might presume to advise them upon this great affair, I should dissuade them from any direct attempt upon the liberty of the press, which is the darling of the common people, and, therefore, cannot be attacked without immediate danger. They may proceed by a more sure and silent way, and attain the desired end without noise, detraction, or oppression. ”

“ No question connected with the liberty of the press ever excited a more universal and intense interest-ever received so acute, able, long-continued, and elaborate investigation-was ever more generally understood, or so conclusively settled by the concurring opinions of all parties, after the heated political contests of the day had passed away. ”