The daily exchange. [volume] (Baltimore, Md.) 1858-1861, 1858-08-17

the Citizens of Baltimore, His Honor the Mayor
has issued Proclamation, which we also publish.
In referring with appropriate comments, in our
article of Saturday last, to the editorial observa-
tons of the american upon the occurrences of the
Thursday preceding, at our office, we had no
intention to enter upon an editorial controversy
with that journal. We were quite aware that our
readers were entitled TO expect in our columns,
more agreeable and useful matter than an exposure
of the delinquencies of a newspaper, whose posi-
ton and short comings are beginning, we think,
to be pretty well understood and properly appre-
cated. But regarding the tone of the article in
question as evidence of Generalization more hui
initiating, because it is sin against better knowl
edge than the riot for which it was but conceal
ed apology, felt it our public duty to notice it,
as a melancholy sign of the times. We are per-
suaded that in doing so we neither magni6ed our
selves nor unduly deprecated our contemporary,
and we have the satisfaction of personally know
ing, that our observations were welcomed and APP
proved by many good and impartial men, who had
no reason for concurring in them, except convic-
ton of their truth and justice.
In the american of yesterday, an effort was made
to retrieve the position, and palliate the mscon-
duct of that journal, by sort of impersonal dis
QUESTION upon the independence of the press, with
a very personal enumeration of the virtues of the
american ITSELF in that regard. The purposes
of the article too obvious, and the utter reck-
lessness of its hafassertons is too bald to require
detailed exposure, so far as are concerned, be-
L I
and to whose Judgment we are willing to submit it.
The occasion however seems to proper one,
for putting an end, to certain unfounded imputa-
tons, heretofore whispered only among interested
parties, and now, for the first time halfventured
into print, in quarter ostensibly respectable.
Extricatng as we best can, the points of the
A'nerican's article of yesterday from the BUNsBY-
like complications in which, naturally or by de-
sign, they are imbedded-their 'sgniicance''
seems to be ths-that in the exposure of public
evils and abuses, we have assailed 'the private
characters of persons in official stations, and have
confined our independence to exposing the errors
of conduct of our political opponents" By so
doing, it is nsinuated that we ''have abused the
freedom of the press, in violation of law and
''should not escape our share of responsibility
the evidence which provokes'' being "not less
reprehensible than the violence which assais."
Our independence is further limited to be only ''that
of press, independent of the laws of regard for
facts'
In reply to the last mentioned charge we have
only TO say that the facts which we have given to
the public, from time to time, through our
columns, have been obtained in the usual
manner, through reporters upon whose in
tegrity there is stain of which we know or
from private sources upon which we have had
reason to rely. We have published every one of
them upon our individual and legal responsibility,
and with the exception of the case of Mr. ENGLISH,
we have never been called upon to correct them in
any essential particular, that we remember. We
challenge and are prepared to meet investiga-
tion judicial or otherwise, into the truth of any
and every published statement to which we have
given sanction
That we have attacked the 'tprivate character
of any public officer, except in far such 'pri
vate character may have formed part or the es-
sence of his official unftness or delinquency, is a
disreputable insinuation, for which we defy the
production of the most remote semblance of proof
If an official is Ignorant or drunken, or incom-
petent worthless, or corrupt, surely it is no
improper assault upon his 'sprivate character to
say So If he is devoured by his own vanity, or
perverted by his ambition, or has his head
turned by his elevation, and is but an empty, or
windy demagogue, where he should be faithful
and laborious public servant, surely his vanity
and his ambition and his demagoguery are public
nuisances and public property, and an Independent
press is false to itself and its duties if it pauses to
SWIVEL over them as private secrets, instead of
boldly exposing them with downright, outspoken
truth. There has been too much of such Difference
for apparently respectable imposture-too much of
such tolerance for what ought not to be tolerated
too much drowsy association and unmanly
silence among us. Our contemporary of the
american has been the high priest in such servile
ministrations, and has preached and practiced in /
their spirit during its long career of time-serving
compromise, until the community which it infu-
ences has almost grown to forget that truth is a
living thing and the press the living minister of
truth. We have not the folly to believe that it is
for US to reform the world--but we have resolved
at least to repay the confidence with which the
public has already honored us, and to deserve
that which we shall ask from it hereafter in our
humble sphere, by saying the truth, as we honestly
believe it, of public men and measures. We have
erred, no doubt as other men err, and it may be
we shall do so again, but while we shall always be
prepared to set right the wrong which we in
advertenty may do, we shall cease to ask the
patronage OF the community the instant that we
grow afraid TO expose public servant who has
done public wrong Thus far have we pone
already. We deny that we have gone further and
we repe the charge that we have assaulted private
character, or violated the sanctty of private life,
as libel which we could not duly characterize,
without losing our selfrespect
The remaining accusatien-that we have con-
nned our animadversions upon public men and
thlngs, to our political opponents is hardly de-
serving OF notice. That The EXCHANGE has bean
IN any sense, political or party press, every
impartial reader knows to be wholly untrue. The
American is doubly criminal in making the insinu-
ation because it knows, what its readers have not
the opportunity OF, knowing that the pol;t;csl
papers of the Democratic party have not failed tn
denounce this journal, since its commencement
for what they have been pleased to call its wholly
un-democratc structures upon the leading members
of that communion. In the City of Baltimore or
State of Maryland we are not aware of the exist
tence of any functionaries belonging to the Demo-