Year: 1865

General Mcdowell has declined to per-
NIT the revival of any of the newspapers
recently suppressed by the mob in San Fran
cisco, on the ground that the public interest
will not admit of publications of that char
acter. The respectable journals of San
Francisco condemn the mobocrats and their
late wanton destruction of private property.
The Bulletin says there was more love of
plunder confusion and riot in the feelings
of the rabble, than love of country. A
San Francisco correspondent of the Sac
ramento Union, characterizes the transac-
tions of the mob as "a business demonstra-
tion;" and says one newspaper was bent on
cleaning out its more successful cotempo-
praries," and hence thought that their ap-
paratus had better be tumbled into the
street. The correspondent adds that the
affair was checked in its career; that had it
been otherwise, "monopolies would have be-
come the order of the day" That is to say,
had the mob not been checked, there would
have only been left newspaper monopoly
to conduct the printing business in San
Francisco! What glorious consummation
that would have been-for the remaining
newspaper Offices. But if it was such a
great crime in the plundering rabble to de-
stroy those printing offices, how comes it
that General Mcdowell in part justified it
and how does it come that he can interpose
to prevent their re- establishment? Is the
Generals authority greater than the su-
preme law of the land, the Constitution of
the United States The Constitution says:


''Congress shall make no law respecting an
establishment of religion, or prohibiting the
free exercise thereof; abridging the freedom
of speech, or of the Press


Congress can make no law abridging the free
dom of speech, or of the Press; but General
Mcdowell must be greater than the Constitution
or Congress- for he can abridge both the free
dom of speech and of the press with impunity
Is this the freedom the soldiers and officers in
the United States service have for the past four
years been fighting for? If So we have greatly
misunderstood the principles which the war
has been waged to maintain. We have thought
the war was prosecuted to maintain free gov
ernment--to maintain the Constitution, with all
its guarantees of liberty to the citizen, and for
the purpose of Furnishing those engaged in the
war against the Constitution and laws of the
UDited States. But if the vital principles of the
government and the plainest provisions of the
Constitution are to be subverted and set at
naught by officers of the army, then the war for
the preservation of liberty and Union has been
miserable failure, and the citizens of the Uni
ted States are subjugated to accept any kind of
government or despotism that the military arm
of the government may see fit to vouchsafe
them. In the language Of a cotemporary, if
free criticism can no longer be tolerated in this
country and irresponsible mobs are to be up
held in destroying the private property of
citizens, who have violated no law, "then fare
vel. to the liberty OF the Press-the brightest
and most inestimable jewel in the diadem of free
America" and ali hail to the advent of a new
era, when drunken rabbles, and the military
heroes of disgraceful retreats and battles lost,
will lay down the rules which shall guide once
free Press in its conduct