The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1904-06-05

Sedition Law he wrote to Mrs John
Adams in July, 1904: II discharged
every person under punishment or
prosecution under the Sedition law, be-
cause l considered and now consider
that law to be a nullity, as absolute
and as palpable as if Congress had
ordered US to fall down and worship a
golden image; and that it was as
much my duty to arrest it's execution
in every stage, as it would have been
to have rescued from the fiery turn
ace those who should have been cast
into it for refusing to worship the i'm
age. 1t was accordingly done in every
instance, without asking what the Of
tenders had done, or against whom
they had offended, but whether the
pains they were suffering were infiict-
ed under the pretended Sedition law
During his administration, some of
Mr. Jefferson's over Jealous friends in
Connecticut had instituted a proSecu-
ton against a clergyman in that State,
for n libel against the President, from
the pulpit. AS soon as he was in
formed of it, Mr.. jefferson wrote to
Mr.. Granger, the General,
then in Connecticut, that ''he had laid
ii down as a law to himself to take
no notice of the thousand calumnies
issued against him, but to trust his
character to his own conduct and Tie
candour of his fellow citizens. that he
had no reason to be dissatisfied with
that course, and was unwilling it
should be broken through He there
fore desired him to request the district
attorney to dismiss the prosecution.
Having afterwards heard of SubpoenaS
for witnesses, he made "a peremptory
request to the same effect. The dis
trict attorney did dismiss the prosecu-
ton, and accompanied the dismission
with the avowal that the court had no
jurisdiction over libels. There were
other prosecutions, of which he had
no previous knowledge but they were
all dismissed at the same time. The
clergyman afterwards, in letter to
Mr.. Granger, discovered all personal
i'll will to Mr.. Jefferson, and solemnly
declared he had not uttered the words
charged. These prosecutions were dis
missed, as Tucker says in his Life of
Jefferson" on the same grounds as he
had himself acted on in the case of
Duane Calender and others, in con-
sidering the Sedition law unconStitu-
| tional.
In a letter to Mr. Granger in 1914.
Mr.. jefferson wrote: with respect
to the diSmisSion of the prosecutions
for sedition. in Connecticut, it is we'll
known to have been a tenet of the re-
zens, that the Sedition Law was con-
trary to the Constitution, and, there
fore, void. On this ground | consider
ed il as a nullity whenever | met it in
the course of my duties; and on this
ground | directed nolle proSequis in
all the prosecutions which had been
instituted under it; and, as far as the
public sentiment can be inferred from
the occurrences of the day, we must
say that this opinion had the sanction
of the nation. The prosecutions.
therefore, which were afterwards in
stituted in Connecticut, of which two
were against printers, two against
preachers, and one against Judge,
were too inconsistent with this prin-
ciple to be permitted to go on. We
were bound to administer to others
the same measure of law, not which
they had melted to us, but we to our
selves, and to extend to all equally the
protection of the same constitutional
principles. These prosecutions. too,
We're chiefly for charges against my
self, and / had from the beginning
| laid it down as rule to notice moth
ing of the kind. / believe that the
| long course of services in which | had
acted on the public stage, and under
the eye of my fellow citizens, furnish
/ ed better evidence to them of my char
acter and principles than the angry
| invectives of adverse partisans in
/, whose eyes the very acts most APP
proved by the majority We're subjects
of the greatest demerit and censure.
! These prosecutions against them.
! therefore, were to be dismissed as a
matter of duty"
Why did Mr.. jefferson maintain
silence when unjustly accused and
why did he prevent the prosecution of
men who had slandered him? The
answer is found in his own words. He
| profoundly believed that, while a free
press would often wound and tenn
porarily injure, ten thousand times
more evil would follow censorship or
prosecutions than to trust to the in
nate good sense of the public to sep
arate the true from the false, and, be-
| fore Emerson put in into an axiom,
Jefferson was confident of this truth
ga man passes for what he is worth.
| Very idle is all curiosity concerning
other peoples estimate of us, and idle
/ is all fear of remaining unknown. If
a man know that he can do anything
that he can do it better than any
one else-he has a pledge of the ac-
| acknowledgement of that fact by all per-
sons. The world is full of judgment
| days, and into every assembly that a
| man enters, in every action that he
attempts, he is gagged and stamped. "
| His conviction upon that point was
| put into an epigram in q letter to
| Thomas Seymore in February, 1907.
He wrote: 1.-The press is impotent
| when it abandons itself to falSehood,"
That truth he more fully emphasized
and elaborated in a long letter to Mr..
| Seymore, from which the following
extracts are taken.s Conscious that
there was not a truth on earth which
| feared should be known, | have lent
myself willingly as the subject of q
great experiment, which was to prove
that an administration, conducting
itself with integrity and common
understanding, cannot be battered
down, even by the falsehoods of q
licentious press, and consequently still
less by the press as restrained within
legal and wholesome limits of truth.
This experiment was wanting for the
world to demonstrate the falsehood of
the pretext that freedom of the press
Is incompatible with orderly govern
ment. | have never, therefore, even
contradicted the thousands of calum-
MES so induStriouSly propagated
against myself. But the fact being
once established, that the press is inn
potent when it abandons itself TO
| falsehood, i leave to others to restore