This clerical absurdity chooses as a check for the abuses of the
press, not the law but the dread of the mob. By so doing it deprives not
only the individual and the minority of their rights, but the majority
also, since the expression of their opinion may sometimes provoke
disturbance from the minority. A few men may make a mob as well as many.
The majority then have no right as Christian men, to utter their
sentiments if by any possibility it may lead to a mob. Shades of Hugh
Peters and John Cotton, save us from such pulpits!
Imprudent to defend the liberty of the press! Why? Because the defense
was unsuccessful? Does success gild crime into patriotism, and the want
of it change heroic self-devotion into imprudence? Was Hampden imprudent
when he drew the sword and threw away the scabbard? Yet he, judged by
that single hour, was unsuccessful. After a short exile the race he
hated sat again upon the throne.
Imagine yourself present when the first news of Bunker Hill battle
reached a New England town. The tale would have run thus, "The patriots
are routed, the redcoats victorious, Warren lies dead upon the field.
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