The Jeffersonian. [volume] (Atlanta, Ga.) 1907-1917, 1913-06-12

granted, with reservation or all 9TH
ers to the States or to the people,
the positive authority under which
the Sedition Act could be passed
must be produced by those who as
sert it's constitutionality. In what
part of the Constitution, then, is
this authority to be found?
''In the United States the people,
not the Government, possess abso-
lutte sovereignty. The Legislature,
no less than the Executive, is under
limitations of power. Encroach-
ments are regarded as possible from
one as we'll as the other Hence, in
the United States, the great and es-
sential rights of the people are Sc
cured against legislative as we'll as
executive ambition. They are Sc
cured, not by laws paramount to
to perogative, but by the Constitu-
ton paramount to laws This Sc
curity Of the freedom of the press
requires that it should be exempt
not only from previous restraints of
the executive, as in Great Britain,
but from legislative restraint also;
and this exemption to be effectual
must be an exemption not only from
previous inspection of licensers but
from the subsequent penalty of the
laws. -
1t is common for the advocates of
the implied powers OF the ConStitu-
ton to deride Mr. Jefferson as a
constitutional lawyer, but no one
has ever been presumptious enough
to attack Mr.. Madison, who was
called the father of the Constitution.
Mr.. Webster, who was acknowledged
as one Of the very greatest of consti-
tutional lawyers, speaking of Mr..
Madison, said: He was better &C
quainted with the Constitution of
the United States than any other
man. He saw it in it's cradle, held it
in his arms, as one may say, in it's
infancy; who presented and recon-
mended it to the American people,
and who saw it adopted very much
under the force of his own reason
ing and the weight Of his own repu-
tation; who lived long enough to see
1t prosperous, to enjoy it's highest
hOnOrS, and who at last went down
to the grave beneath ten thousand
blessings"
Senator Benjamin H. Hill said in
his great speech in the United States
Senate on the Union and It's Enc
mics: Il believe Mr.. Madis7 IN un-
derstood the Constitution of this
country better than any man who
ever lived in it.
In 1886 President Jackson recon-
mended to Congress that a law be
passed excluding abolition literature
from the mails Henry Clay, in a
speech in the Senate, argued with
great force that Congress did not
have the power to enact such q law.
Mr.. Calhoun, in his celebrated re-
port, contended for the constitution
ality Of the bill solely on the ground
that the Congress could exclude
such incendiary literature for the
reason some of the States had de-
clared such literature contraband,
and the bill was in aid of the en-
forcement of the State laws. The
bill was defeated in the Senate
The Supreme Court of the United
States has never passed on the con-
stitutionality of the section for the
alleged violation of which Mr.. Wat
son has been indicted. In Jackson's
case, SO U. s., 727, and Rapier's
case, 143 U. S., ITO, the Supreme
Court held the lottery statute con-
stitutional, and from q casual read
ing of the opinions in these cases,
one might be inclined to believe they
would hold the obscene publication
statute constitutional, but there is
this distinction between the two
statutes, there is a guaranty in the
Constitution of the frppdOno nf tho