Year: 1862




BY the constitution Of the United States the
press is free to publish what it pleases, and is
only responsible for its violation of the law oi
the land after publication. In this country the
press must be free. But every honorable, pa
triotic man who owns public journal will, Of
his own accord, abstain from publishing any
thing that can give aid to the enemy; and, were
not so many of the papers controlled by agita-
tors and low demagogues, there would be no
necessity for censorship which suspends the
constitution and establishes most dangerous
precedents in a free country.


Now, there is better remedy than censor
ship for correcting the evil, and Congress ought
to take lesson from England and France. In
England for the last thirty'years there has been
more of constitutional liberty than there ever
was before, and the reason is that the
press, in consequence of the high tax
upon newspapers, fell into the hands of
men of intelligence and men of capital, men
do nothing to endanger the general welfare or
kindle the fires of revolution. Oflate the high
tax has been removed, and cheap papers of
revolutionary character have sprung up like
mushrooms, and the once respectable press
contaminated now initiates them, in conse-
quence of the public taste having become
vitiated and depraved. The result is that Eng
land is going rapidly down the hill, and will
soon be at the bottom. In France the cheap
press at the time of the Revolution, welded by
desperate demagogues like Marat caused those
frightful excuses which made the angels weep.
In the last days of the reign of Louis Philippe
it was the cheap press that revolutiOnzed Paris
and dethroned that monarch. Louis Napoleon,
fearing the same result in regard to himself,
put bride in the mouth of the press and de-
stroyed its freedom. 1t is well ascertained
truth of history that in France free cheap
press cannot exist without producing revolu-
ton


Now the true remedy which Napoleon ought
to have applied was that which was 80 long
adopted in England, but is now unfortunately
abandoned And that is the RENE
dy for the licentiousness of the press in the
United States. 1t ought 10 be taxed like whis-
key or any other luxury. The press is great
"A
effect Of diminishing drunkenness, as its ten
dency will be to limit the use of the article to
educated and intelligent men, who are not 80
likely to abuse it. Again, whiskey will be of q
better quality, and will not do SO much injury
as it does now. Let the press in the same way
be taxed, and such price put on newspapers
US will cause them TO be read chiefly by
H. In t1,ot
a better article must be produced else
it will not sell; and, consequently, the de-
poisonous sheet will be driven out
Of the market Pr0prietors Of public journals,
too, would be men of capital, men who would
have something to lose by civil convulsion
or by public corruption. and whose interest,
therefore, would coinside with their duty in
advocating the right and dcnouncing the
wrong. The cheap and nasty demagogic pa
pers which now exist have done much to bring
the country into its present deplorsble condi-
ton The true remedy for the evil, the true
censorship. is high tax upon public journals.
Nothing will so tend TO the publication of pub
lie morals "Rcpublics," says Montesquieu,
s.sre founded on virtue" Let that be sapped
by perncous, low priced newspapers. and
democratic institutions must perish and give
place to despotism. On the other. hand, jour
mails of high price and character, conducted by
we'll informed men Of intellectual calibfe, and
men whose circumstances place them above
the reach of corruption and the influence Of the
caaaips, are well calculated to preserve public
virtue and save republic from that degene-
racy Of morals which is the sure precursor Of
it's fall.