Page:Inquiry into the Principles and Policy of the Government of the United States.djvu/485

Rh was destroying the principles of the government, would be morally true and legally false; and to assert that each or der maintained a constitutional independence of the others, would be morally false and legally true. Legal truth, by the sedition law policy, is moral falsehood; the alternative lies between betraying the principles of a good government, or submitting to be considered as libellous, seditious and traitorous. It proposes to us to wound our consciences, by becoming traitors to our constitutions; or to be rewarded with bodily punishment for constitutional loyalty. Truth and falsehood under such laws, unexceptionably mean praise and censure of men in power,

These murderers of discussion, knowledge and patriotism, engrave upon their tomb, "that private citizens have neither the right nor capacity to canvass the measures of government." Men are advised to institute governments to secure their rights, not to destroy them; for this purpose, they are allowed to possess all the rights and talents of human nature; and the ministry who preach this doctrine, no sooner climb by it into power, but they very gravely tell the same men, that they have neither talents nor rights; that they cannot distinguish between pleasure and pain; and therefore that there is no occasion for them to write or speak either truth or falsehood, upon a subject which embraces all their rights, and regulates most of their pleasures.

Such is the language of orders and privilege in every form. Into such politicians, orders and privileges transform patriots. They assail truth and knowledge, because truth and knowledge assail them. They stigmatize discussion, because it leads to discovery. They foster ignorance, because it is blind.

Every attempt by a government to control free discussion, indicates fear and jealousy. Jealousy by a government of a nation, is always criminal, because a nation cannot usurp its own rights; but jealousy by a nation of a government, is always laudable, because a government may usurp the rights of the nation.