Bradford reporter. [volume] (Towanda, Pa.) 1844-1884, 1856-08-21
IFor the Bradford Reporter.l
THE RIGHT OF FREE DISCUSSION.

tions OF our land, in unqualified hostility to the
principles of honest and manly discussion of
certain truths especially if the advocate of
those truths dare to stand forth upon his own
responsibility, as man, untrammeled by that
| prejudice so often attached to some nominal
reform, sect or party, the highest qualifications
of which consist in an unmanly evasion of prin-
ciple, and in the exercise of personal invective
and false insinuations indicative only of con-
tracted minds. The self-styled Democratic
party VT the present day, with slavery in the
lead, with naughty arrogance, assumes to be
the only party in favor of the Union and the
| Constitution, and the only correct interpreters
of that instrument. 1t thus lures many of the
weak and ignorant into its support by the
| plausibility Of its name, and its arrogant pre-
tensions. 1t assumes with that dictatorial
power, so common to slavery, to control the
| freedom of speech in the Senate and in the
House of Representatives. 1t has vanly tried
to gag the freedom of the Press in portions of
| the States by threats, by the use of cudgels,
| fSt-cuffing, pistols &c.-Having already ac-
cOmplished it in Kansas, it is ever ready to APP
ply opprobrious epithets to those who presum-
ed to advocate the cause of freedom in opposi-
! ton to the nSOlent demands of slavery-call-
ing them traitors to the Union and the Con-
stitutiOn. AS if ones patriotism and support
of that Constitution founded upon our declara-
tion of "equal rights to all men," were only
to be tested by rigid adherence to the pre-
tensions of Slavery 1t calls men Abolition
lists" for opposing the introduction of slavery,
! by brute force, into territories where it does
not exist, or never did exist If the opposi-
! ton of slavery into free territory constitute
men traitors to the Union and the Constitu-
tion," then were the founders OF that Union
and the trainers of that Constitution, traitors.
! For the founders of our Union and Constitu-
tion were the same men who made that Ordi-
nance declaring our North West Territory
forever free from slavery. They were men
! from both the free and slave states. In their
day it was not counted a crime, or even sin
to speak against the wrongs of slavery. The
subject was then freely discussed all over the
| land, and the evil sought to be remedied as far
as could well be. But in our day, slavery
having grown so arrogant under the false garb
of Democracy" drives citizens from their
families and homes for presuming to mingle
with " Black Republicans " in supporting those
/ doctrines early established by our fathers. 1t
goes into the Senate Chamber, assassin like,
and fells Senator in a defenceless position, to
the floor, because he advanced arguments in
! parliamentary debate which its supporters could
meet fairly and openly. And the Democratic
! party, by its votes, acts and speeches, upholds
the coward crime. Let those who deny that
count in q summary manner, with various wea-
! pOns of coward warfare, for making simple
statement of facts, prejudicial to the greedy
designs of Slavery. And yet when met in its
chosen field of contest face to face, it shrinks
from the issue with that chiyalry growing out
of naughty assumptions, without that moral
courage growing out of right in a contest with
wrong, to back it up. The very fact that
slavery has become so sensitive, that it cannot
bear to be touched by the hand of free discus
sion, as vested by right in Congress, and in the
people of the States, by the Constitution, is
one of the sureSt evidences of its being great
wrong. For truth and right are ever most
! fair and comcly, when exposed to full view
Truth challenges investigation but evil ever
wishes to keep in the dark. The fact is, it
will not bear exposure to the light of candid
Observation-Disclosures its supporters are
driven to various snbterfuges to shield it from
the attack of Justice Such for instance as
" Popular Sovereignty" Democracy" I'm
ion" Constitution" &c-aIl meaningless
terms with them, only used to court popular
favor, as they are hurrying down the tide of
despotism and ruin by their own msrule. They
seem, at times, like men who have become
reckless in the support of desperate cause,
unable to bear up under the convictions OF
truth, of right, and freedom-forced to resist
by the subterfuge of some catch-word, or by
force of the still more weighty reasoning to-
them-the cudgel Thus do they seek to tram
pie upon those great birtlrrights of Liberty
freedom of speech and of the press thinking
to stife the honest convictions of earnest seek
ers after truth They seemingly forget the adj
monitions of history and philosophy, that the
lever of despotism used to "subdue " freedom,
NAV turn into means for subduing themselves.
The right of free discussion should ever be
held in high regard by all Americans it be-
ing inseparaby connected with the principle
OF self-government In vain would be the