Weekly standard. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1858-1865, 1864-09-21
A FREE PRESS.

A FREE PRESS.
The State Of Mississippi once fostered
free press. It will startle our readers. to
see the statement in type that such time
honored custom, and hitherto highly es-
tened privilege, has been swept away in
the mad whirl of foolish and desperate
legislation. We mourn to sayit, but there
does not and cannot exist to-day free
press in Mississippi. 1t is quite true that
no effort has yet been made on the part
Of the would be petty sub-despotism that
rules at Macon to control the tone or char
acter Of all the newspapers in the State
but it will be seen from the subjoined ex-
tract from an official note that it is de-
signed to accomplish the work Of destroy
ing the boasted " freedom Of the press"
80 far as Mississippi is concerned, in far
more summary and effectual way. The
extract to which we allude is from an Off
Ger in high favor, and is couched in the
following language:
Il am authorized by Gov. Clark to say
to you that no exemptions will be granted
to any printing establishment except the
State organ, the (the Daily Czarsoaa,) and.
only those in that Office that are necessary
' to carry on the same. You will, therefore,
/ presume, have to. close up in Jackson
for at least thirty days or until the emer-
gency shall have passed.
The Congress of the Confederate States
have Thought it wise policy to exempt
sufficient number of printers to keep up
the newspapers of the country. The au-
thorities of every State in the Confedera-
cy have pursued the same policy. In
Georgia, a State run by innumerable raid
j., ing parties and threatened by the most
powerful army that ever penetrated our
interior, and where there are ten papers
and fifty printers to one in Mississippi, the
newspapers were and are undisturbed in
: their high vocation of disseminating intel
ligence and intoxicating wholesome princi-
pies among the masses. In Mobile, where
the guns Of the enemy's feet are pouring
destruction upon our works and the whole
population are ordered to the trenches
in fact, throughout the State of Alabama.
menaced and engirded as it is-we have
yet to hear of the suppression of single
newspaper by either Confederate or State
authority.
This exemption of newspapers was no.
the result of favoritism in any sense, but
of proper Difference to the great princi-
pie OF The ireetom of the press which has
been not inaptly styled the "Pallidium of
our liberties" Hitherto the freedom Of
the press has been uninfringed by our gov
ern1nent from no desire to pamper ia
vored class, but from solemn conviction
that the caase would bebetter served there.
by. The few men engaged in its conduct
were exempted from military duty because
it was supposed they could do better SER
vice to the country in their avocation than
in the ranks of the army.
We shall not stop now to argue the cor
ractness Of this view of Congress and the
authorities of OF her States. Itremained for
Gov. Clark to make war upon this ancient
bnlwark--to spurn the high examples before
him, and crush all the newspapers in Mis-
s;ssippi except one-to wipe out every
medium of intelligence-to destroy every
channel through Which public sentiment
could flow except one-the estate or
gan Ibis organ.
The estate organ" TINS licensed, and
having complete monopoly Of the whole
business Of disseminating news and edu.
eating the public mind in morals, litera
ture, science, and politics, for be it re-
Inembered that tho same sweeping act
that struck down the liberty of the press
also broke up all the schools in the State,
will doubtless find the position highly lu
crative at least, and it may be slow to fnd
fault with that order of things which show
ers so many material benefits upon it.
We have no reflections whatever to make
against the estate organ " in the premises
but we earnestly submit to the people
whether newspaper, fostered as it's BY
State patronage, and screened as it is BY
Executive favor, is likely to be, under all the
circumstances, the safest and best advo
cate of The peoples rightsl
The subject is worthy Of the most Sc
rinus reflection, and we shall take occasion
to refer to it again.-Aisssssenpion.
IF Diogenes used lantern, in broad day, solel,
ard simply for the purpose Of discovering an homes
man, this proceeding was not'consistent with hi
usual sagacity. A lantern would have been NOR
appropriate appendage il he had been in search @
3 rogue !; for such characters skulk about in hole
and corners and hate the light because their deed
are evil. But suspect this philosophers real nc
tive for using lantern in mid day, was to provok
inquiry, that he might have the cynical satisfaction
Of telling all that asked him what he was searchin
for, that none of them at least were the men to hi
mind, and that his search had hitherto been fruit
less 1t is with honesty in one particular, as will
wealth, those that have the thing care less ahou
the credit of it than those who have it not N
poor man can well afford to be thought so, and tn
Less Of honesty finished rogue possesses the les
he can be supposed to want it Duke Chartre