The Council Bluffs nonpareil. [volume] (Council Bluffs [Iowa]) 1857-1867, 1859-12-24
u.
LAW AND RIGHT DEFIED.
will be no surprise to our readers
to what extent public sentiment il

1t will be no surprise to our readers who
know to what extent public sentiment in the
South is depraved by the debauchng effect
Of slavery, and who know how servle the
Pro Slavery Administration now in power
is, to learn that the circulation of more than
thrce-fourths of the public journals and
books, including in the latter, the NEW
TESTAMENT, in the mails of the government,
Is forbidden IN Virginia, and that the pro-
hlbItiOn has the sanction of the Post Master
General at Washington! Elsewhere IN this
paper we print the letter of that officer, to
deputy at Falls Church, in that State, in
winch State law is not only suffered to
override Il law of Congress framed in obe-
dIcnce to Il constitutional requirement, but
TO override also the principles upon which
the government rests. This letter makes
every deputy postmaster in Virginia the
judge, jury and executive officer in every
case Of ''incendiarianism which comes be-
fore him. There is no paper printed in
America that may not be snatched out of
the mai, az sccme time or another "a the
"incendiary" Plea; because no paper can
be printed year that will not sometime ia
vor that Religion and that Democracy with
which human slavery is at war. There is
no book in all English literature (unless it
be one of larper's emascu!ated volumes, or
some smiling brochure of the American
Tract Society that will be exempt from
seizure. The works of the army of poets.
dvines and statesmen, that are liberal
enough to merit preservation from oblivion,
all may fall within the rule which the Post
Master General lays down for the guidance
nF ,hnr
says he, "under the responsibilities resting
upon you as an officer and as citizen, de-
terminc whether the books, pamphlets, news
papers, ETC., received by you for distribu-
ton, are of the inccndiarv character descrlb-
ed in the statute; and, if you believe they
are, then you are not ODl Y not obliged to de-
liver to those to whom they are addressed,
but you are empowered and required, by
your duty to tho State Of which you are a
citizen, to dispose Of them in strict confer
nifty 10 the provisions Of the law referred
TO. The people of Virginia may not only
forbid the introduction and dissemination
of such documents within their borders, but,
If brought there in the mails, they may, BY
appropriate legal proceedings, have them
destroyed" "YDu must ''-you, some
roadside tavern-keeper, who asserts The
mail with measure rather than by the d.
rections on the packages-you, q keeper of
the grocery at the Oads-you, the ser
vile tool of faction, in the dcnser settlements
you, any adventurrr who wins, by disrep-
utable service, postmastcr's commission
you are the censor Of the Press you are
to determine according to your judgment
what is lncendlary in character and what is
not. You hold the muzzle-the gag-and
you have the sanction of this government in
applying it as you please!
This is q free country; Virginia is not
Venetia; the Republic of the United States
is not the Empire of Austria Chicago
Press & Irib.