New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1873-07-12
MUZZLING THE PRESS.

We have no desire to create alarm or to ex-
cite the apprehensOns of the timid with regard
to present political poItents. And yet it seems
to us no thoughtful man can contemplate the
steps in our later national progress, their
manifest direction and inevitable tendency,
without feeling that there is cause at least for
anxiety. Stop now only for moment and
consider few plain facts, that shall not be
recited in heat or passion, but that demand
of every citizen calm and measured judg-
ment Pending before Judge BlatchfOrd
for his decision to be rendered next
Wednesday is a question, in a prose-
cutiOn for libel, of vastly larger import than
even that momentous issue which so lately
absorbed all our thought and demanded all
our sacrifice. That was mainly q question of
union or disunion; cOserence OF disruption
of the existence of one strong, free govern.
ment OF two weak ones. Judge Blatchford
decides in his court next Wednesday Ques-
ton which goes to the very marrow of the
experiment Of popular government: to wit,
whether the press shall be free and unshackled,
or shall by ingenious shifts and subtleties
and by such methods of indirection as shah
blind the people while they bind the victim,
turn it over helpless to the will and caprice
of absolute power.
1t is a simple question for Judge BlatchfOrd,
whether Mr.. Charles A. Dana, prosecuted for
libel in the United States Court of the Dis
trict of Columbia, shall be removed out of the
Jurisdiction of the State of New-YOrk and
taken to the District of Columbia for trial.
Mr.. Dana's offense is in having criticised
whether too freely or not is not to the purpose
of this discussion-the acts of certain public
officers in Washington. Affidavit having been
made by purchasers of Mr.. Dana's paper of
its publication in the City of Washington,
criminal proceedings were instituted in the
United States Court, and a warrant issued for
his arrest. He was arrested in this city and
taken before United States Commissioner John
I. Davenport, and warrant for his removal
to Washington asked. There were some
things in the proceedings before the Com
missioner which were slightly suggestive of the
peculiar direction of our national progress.
The dctatOrial manners and ridiculous AFRO
gance of this young man, indicating as they
did his belief in the absolute power by which no
was supported, might in an older or dis
creeter person have had some serious sig
nifcance. But it would be hard to hold any
body or any thing responsible for Mr.. Daven
ports manners. He did have judgment
enough to deny himself the pleasure of i'm
prisoning the witnesses, or of Handwriting Mr..
Dana and sending him to Washing
ton. For this degree of self-restraint
prachced by Mr.. Davenport the community
should be grateful. The question of removal
now comes before Judge Blatchford He is to
decide whether the Federal power, paying no
more regard to State lines. or State govern
ments, or any State authority than though there
were none, shall stretch forth its hand and
lay it on the citizen to drag him for trial,
upon whatever Offense, before jury selected
from population that has no dependence
except upon the public treasury, and whose
! only local industry is the public service.
The methods Of Mr.. Dana's treatment of
public topics, and the spirit of his criticism,
We do not here discuss, nor do VIC touch tho
constitutional questions in the case or the
technicalities of legal construction. We only
ask now that it be borne in mind that this ia
the first attempt OF the kind u,on the press.
and that it will be cited hereafter as a pre-