The Plymouth weekly Democrat. (Plymouth, Ind.) 1860-1869, 1864-04-21
Judge Barnard's Char.c@Eree-
dom OfSpeeCh.
From the n. Y. Journal of Comm


The charge of Judge Barnard, delivered
last Thursday in the Court Of Oyer and
Terminer, is one deserving Of attention
Whatever else may be thought of it. he
certainly has done good service in stig-
matizing as they deserve some of the polit-
ical excuses Of the day, and above all in
defending the right to freedom of speech.
He says:
'For some time past i has been the
constant practice of a portion of the iudi-
viduals connected with the city press to
stigmatize all who differed with them in
their views as to any acts Of national ad-
mlnlstration as secessionists. with the in
tent to degrade them in the eyes of the
community by holding them out as traitors
to their country, and SO to leave them with
a reputation as sullied as that of Benedict
Arnold. THIS. / charge goa, const,tutes
l'beL Perhaps, in some few instances out
of Il thousand, charge may be true. and
publication OF it be for a justifiablc pur-
pose; but this does not excuse the paradinc
because he dissents from some views enter
tanned by newspaper or ventures to doubt
the prOprlety OF some measure of the ad-
ministration. Government is one thing:
administration is a totally different thing.
The theory Of republican government is
that it is controlled by the will of aiori-
ty of all the people as signi6ed through the
h.,ll LOT h.v = Il
people should signify their will through the
ballot box that the present war should no
longer be prosecuted, that majority. altho'
they may have mistaken the true policy.
cannot be justly said to he traitors to the
government. It is the essence Of republi-
can freedom that every citizen should have
the untrammeled right to endeavor by his
vote to have those measures carried out
which lie considers most conducive to the
welfare Of his country. But does his free
dom stop here? Is he confined to drop
ping his silent ballot? Is his mouth
gagged? Certainly not. The right to
express his views by ballot carries with it
the right to induce BIZ fair argument and
persuasion others to adopt his views. The
prevention vi lnIcrcHln9e OF views IN any
body governed by the will of majority
would indeed be tyranny.
''Next to the Interference with elections
and the dragooning OF voters by military
power. nothing is surer index of the
downfall of a republic than the total pre-
yention of an interchange of views, or the
prevention Of the expression of any views
other than those in support Of some pro-
posed measure or candidate for Office 1t
is essential to the political freedom of
republic taat every citizen should have the
right to express his views on any political
measure or any act of the administration,
and endcavor, by argument or persuasion,
to bring others to adopt his views. Any
thing which oisturbs this right, whether it
be by armed interference or printed arti-
cles, holding one mp TO public obloquy for
entertaining any particular opinion, tends
to sap the very foundation of republic
Ii is for these reasons that [ view the in
discriminate application of the epithet, Sc
ccssionist, to all who do not yield implicit
faith to every act of an administration-to
all who do not subscribe to the party tcnets
of some public journal as extremely per-
nicious and deserving of your attention"