The weekly pioneer and Democrat. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn. Territory) 1855-1865, 1863-06-19
William Cullen Bryant on thc Free
dom of the Press.

We copy the following manly words from
the New York Eoening Post, edited by
WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT. They present
a striking contrast to the contemplate
drivel of the Chicago Tribune and the St.
Paul Press:
The President has had the good sense to
revoke the laundering edict of General
Burnside, in regard to the Chicago Times,
and that paper will emit, as heretofore, it's
daily mouthful of bad breath. We hope
that the mere withdrawal of the offensive
military order has been accompanied by
secret intimation to the General that his
duty is, not to regulate the politics of his
department, but to drive the rebels out of
it with fire and sword. Within the lines
of his army he can do pretty much as he
pleases as to the admission or extrusiOn OF
journals; the law renders him practically
supreme there, and sound judgment would
also seem to suggest that the minds of his
troops ought not to be perverted by the
fulsome assaults which the reactionary
journals are apt to make upon our military
chiefs; but outside of his lines, and partic-
ularly in districts where there is not only
and expression must be left in unrestricted
freedom.
1t cannot be doubted that the circulation
of false reports in the shape of news, OF
unjust judgments of prominent men, of ILL
natured criticisms of official acts, of argu-
ments and appeals in favor of the disor-
ganizing sentiments of the secessionists,
are to deplorable extent pernicious; it is
even unpleasant to feel that such false
hoods and n.alignities are so much ditfused
around us but it is an infinitely greater
evil to attempt to subject the minds and
! tongues of men to force than it is to allow
these errors free course. We, in fact, know
them to be errors only by the free exercise
letters upon one class of minds, they will
soon be imposed upon another class, until
in the end there is no such thing as free
inquiry left, and consequently no sense of
truth, no justice, no intellectual and moral
progress. A leaden reign of authority,
which is too often the cloak of mere stu
pidity, will reduce society to the blank
ignorance and stagnation of the elder times.
1t has cost humanity good many efforts
and hard blows to learn the lessons Of toll
Grafton. All men are naturally disposed
to think that those who disagree with them
in opinion are either fools or knayes, and
their first impulse by way of putting an end
to the errors of others is to cut off their
heads, or to shut them up in dungeons,
where they can no longer propagate their
injurious sentiments. For many ages of
the world no other remedies were attempt
ed with supposed heretics or misbelievers
Even now, in some of the foremost nations
of Europe, the state undertakes to regulate
the opinions of its subjects by pains and
penalties But enlightened opinion uni.
versally condemns the practice, not as USE
less solely in respect to the end desired,
which is the suppression OF error, but as
positively deleterious to all the higher in
terests of society. It converts power into
despotism; it renders the citizen a con-
spirator and hypocrite, and it breeds per-
petual discontents and civil wars.
We hope the President, therefore, will
not content himself with revocation of
Burnside's order. He should cause it to
be known that his administration means to
adhere to the laws of the country, and to
the great acknowledged principles OF civil
liberty. 1t has already suffered in the esti-
nation of its friends, and provoked the Bit
terest hostility of its enemies, because of
the mere suspicion that it purposely over
rides the rights of the press. Nothing is
so sacred in the eyes of the American citi-
zen as his prerogative of approving or con-
demning the acts of his servants. Nothing
ought to be dearer to those public servants
themselves the only mode in which
they can discover that they are rightfully
performing the duties with which they are
charged is through the expression of public
opinion. A conscientious statesman is
always eager to learn the sentiments of his
nation, and to conform his acts to its re-
quirements. |