however elevated, by their functions, to a purely spiritual vision, have been sometimes obliged to defend their bodies from the assaults of members, who have either fancied or discovered, that the spirit of the speeches they have delivered, has not been exactly reported, but misrepresented by them, and that pugilistic encounters have actually taken place on the floor of the house, in which the spirit-catchers, or sum-and-substance-men, have gotten the better of their antagonists, and that "the Fourth Estate" has risen, in consequence, to the position which it seems disposed to occupy, as a branch of the National Legislature, a representation which, if correct, reflects little dignity, and certainly enhances nothing of the character for prowess of the Representative Body. We do not now allude to the Reporters, who occupy a most important and eminently useful position, in which fidelity and accuracy, when they are attained, entitle them to the highest praise and confidence. It is true, indeed, and the fact was recently adverted to, in the Senate of the United States, as highly creditable to Reporters, as a body, that several of the most distinguished writers and authors of Great Britain, who now attract a large share of public attention, we believe Mr. Dickens is among the number,-first commenced their career in that humble and laborious, but truly useful and honorable station.

The improvement that will take place in the Newspaper Press, in this country and elsewhere, will keep pace with the advances of individuals, and of society, in arts, in science, in morals, in religion, in a knowledge of the principles of government, in literary attainments, and in whatever can adorn life and elevate the tone of thought, of feeling and of action among us. The press is a powerful instrument for good or for evil every where, and the great object of those who are entrusted with its control, or who assume the responsibility of it, should be, to disseminate the truth and the truth only, free from passion, free from prejudice, free from the influence of party spirit, as far as such exemption from injurious influences, is attainable by man in the present condition of the world. What is the liberty of the Press? In common apprehension, we fear, it is the liberty to print and publish any thing and every thing, be it what it may,the good and the bad, the true and the false, and whether

the motive, that prompts to the publication, be innocent or mischievous. This is not the true liberty of the press, and few notions of it are more erroneous. Man has no liberty to do wrong wilfully, to propagate error voluntarily, and to employ a free press for this purpose. The liberty of the press is as much violated by this intentional mischief, as the liberty of speech, which we enjoy in this country, is violated by base and malicious slander. The true liberty of the press, consists in nothing more, and nothing less, than the liberty of the moral agent that controls it. If man be not free, the press is not and cannot be; and it is free, for the plain and forcible reason, that man is so, morally and politically. The press is nothing without a master, free as we suppose it to be. The very idea of control denotes dependence somewhere; and on whom and on what does the press lean for support? On man, the free agent, and it is no more and no less free, not a jot, than its master is. It has no motive, no volition, no agency, no responsibility apart from him. The man and his press are bound together, and the man, and not the press, is responsible for what the press says and does. The press is the instrument, the agent, the representative, so to speak, by means of which the free agent, man, developes his powers and accomplishes his purposes. And how far is the conductor of the press,-how far is he free? To a certain extent, and no further. Man, free as he is, holds his freedom under certain bonds,-the bonds of good behavior. He cannot break these bonds with impunity. He is fast bound by law,-by the law of God,-by the law of nature, by human law. If he look before him, law is there. If he turn to the right hand or to the left, he is met by law. He is surrounded, on all sides, by law,powerful law, and do what he will, and struggle as hard as he may, he cannot escape from it.. If he break one law, he instantly comes under the operation of another. If he violate that, another is sure to bring him up. It is useless for him to contend with law. He is perfectly powerless without it. His hands are stricken down in the attempt, as with the sword of the avenger, and he slinks away terrified, and howls at the pain of the stroke. He must act according to law, or he must not act at all; or, if he does, he is a madman or a fool. And what is the law according to which he must act? THE TRUTH, the truth in every thing. VOL. I. NO 1.

3

This is the law by which a free moral agent, a politician, a philosopher, a man of letters, is to govern his conduct, and be governed in it. And this, and nothing more than this, is the freedom of the press, and the freedom of speech,-blessings of which we boast so much,-the liberty to speak,-the liberty to write and to publish the truth, and all kinds of it, for the benefit of individuals, and of society at large.

If this be the true liberty of the press, what are its abuses? Obviously the publication of any thing untrue, whose tendency is mischievous, the dissemination of false statements, and erroneous opinions, on any subject, knowing them to be so, the withholding of the truth, by partial representations of acknowledged facts, and the addition to the truth of false and extraneous matter, not true, and the employment of the truth for purposes calculated to disturb the public peace. These are the abuses of the press, for which he who utters opinions by means of it, is responsible to his conscience, his God, and his country. It might be interesting to inquire, how far that powerful and popular organ, the Newspaper Press of the United States, has kept within these just and Constitutional limits of its liberty, since the formation of our government. The result would be, indeed, a history of human nature, for the time being,-a history of men, elevated perhaps by their talents or by their position, but still a history of men, displaying, according to their character and principles of action, the best or the worst features belonging to their race; the history of partizans and of patriots; of ambitious political aspirants, and of true lovers of their country and their kind; of men, sometimes occupied in the pursuit of novelties to amuse, and sometimes of facts to inform; now engaged about matters of infinite moment to the public weal, and now eager about trifles that seriously concern nobody; the history of wise men, and of weak ones;-of men of sound sense, sterling understanding, and thoroughly acquainted with facts, with principles, with human nature in all its varieties of strength and weakness and folly, and of mere pretenders, ignorant of all that they ought to know, and, equally so, of all that they assume to teach; the history of the polite and courteous, of the morose and sullen, of the bully and the gentleman; of men agitated by the fiercest passions of hate and jealousy, and giving birth to the ebullitions of their anger, scorn and

resentment in language the most coarse, bitter and offensive that can be conceived, and of men of calm reflection and sober judgment, who love the truth for the good it produces, take the world for better or for worse as they find it, look upon it in a philosophical and friendly spirit, and always more upon the bright than the dark side of it, and try to amend it, and chase away the clouds that hover over it, rather than to rail at it, or its occupants; the history of the brawling demagogue, with liberty on his lips, and usurpation and despotism at his heart, and of the haughty aristocrat, who having power, would like to keep it and use it, with a view to his own glory, and in order to confine the lordlings of the kennel, who spout democracy and popular rights and universal equality, in their proper places; the history of the timid editor, who looks this way and that way and every way, and dares not speak his own mind, if he have one, which may sometimes be doubted, for fear that he shall lose a patron here or a patron there, or a patron in the other place, which loss of patronage will materially weaken the pillars, not very strong yet, of his establishment; and the history of the bold, dare-devil editor, who sets the world at defiance, and who is determined to maintain his post, with a sturdy spirit, to vindicate his principles, whether they be good or bad, to assert his opinions, whether they be true or false,-whether the world hiss, or whether it applaud him for his independence,-whether it fawn upon his knees with spaniel fondness, or bark at his heels and bite them with bull-dog ferocity, and be the consequences what they may, for reproach or for fame, for restraint or for liberty, for death or for apotheosis; the history of the fine scholar, who has studied the learned languages, is acquainted with the abstract sciences, and who, because he can turn a period gracefully and to admiration, has turned to the Press for bread, and the history of the illiterate pedant, who is ignorant of what a sentence is, who takes words for asses, or for things as meaningless, who has got no further into his accidence, than to the personal pronoun, I, and who, of course, murders shamefully the King's English, or what, if the "Book of Royal Authors" is a true specimen of literature in high places, is quite as good as the King's, the Democrat's. The history of the Newspaper Press, in our country, of the Free Press, about which so great a clamour is

raised,of the Press protected in its freedom and its rights by the laws and the Constitution, and justly so protected,the Press, above the authority of censors, ecclesiastical or civil, before the overt act of publication, the history of this Press, then, is nothing more and nothing less, than the history of the human beings who have had the control of it, so far as they have employed it to express truly their own views and sentiments; the history of men governed by every variety of principle; actuated by all kinds of passions, ambition, party spirit, love of fame; having different objects to achieve by it, occupation, livelihood, wealth, notoriety, public good. All kinds of characters appear on this arena, the learned and the illiterate; the modest man and the vain one; the poor and the proud; the man of genius and the simpleton who fancies that he is wiser than his fellows; all these, and more than all these by a hundred fold, appear in these lists of fame or folly, and all, whatever their judgment or their qualifications, assert the freedom of the press, the dignity of the press, and the power of the press, and employ it, like men standing on an elevation above the crowd, and quite at their ease, to propagate all sorts of opinions, adapted to all classes, and to all parties, to the friends of the government, and the friends of the people, to persons of every age, capacity, condition, taste, temperament, and degree of progress. The Newspaper Press, in a word, is like the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. If we would have the good, it seems to be the lot of humanity, however melancholy a one we sometimes fancy it to be, to take the evil along with it, and we can no more separate these elements in the cup of life, in the present condition of the world, than we can divide light from darkness at the point where day ends and night begins,-an union too firmly knit in an everlasting covenant, ever to be annulled by our puny legislation. When we look at the bright side of the picture, and consider the advantages of various kinds which the Newspaper has conferred upon society and the age; the evils it has corrected, the good it has done, the reforms it has achieved, the light and information it has shed every where, we are ready to pronounce it a blessing to the world and to our country; but when, on the other hand, we contemplate the various offences it has committed against truth, justice and decorum, against good institutions, against the