Page:Inquiry into the Principles and Policy of the Government of the United States.djvu/489

Rh Free discussion will instruct the publick mind, Sn what is ]ust or excellent in government, as it refines the taste and judgement of mankind in relation to other sciences. And publick officers will be compelled to conform their characters, as authors do books, to this refinement. The license of the press, like the license of the stage, will be corrected; and even the frauds and tyranny of newspapers, will at length be resisted by this correct, trusty and inexorable tribunitial power; which will learn to pronounce its veto against deviations from the principles of free government, with the same skill it discloses in detecting deviations from the principles of other sciences. Without it, the best principles may slide into the worst j the liberty of the press itself might be perverted ; and printers might become tyrants under the cap of liberty. This might be effected by extracting from the liberty of the press, the right of producing condemnation, by withholding the means of defence, or of killing unheard. But this species of tyranny too enormous for governments to claim, would be soon detected by free discussion, as a fraud upon principle, to which it would at length bring hack culprits, by opening to defence the channel of accusation.

God has not by sedition laws, prohibited to man the free examination of his works; but man "cloathed in a brief authority," arrogantly extorts a species of reverence, which the deity disclaims. "Consider my works; I have given you reason and left it free." Such is the law of the creator. "Reverence my qualities; presume not to consider my works; use your reason according to my will." Such is the law of a creature. It is a law which idols in every shape enact, because free inquiry would never mistake them for gods. Governments resort to sedition laws, for the same reasons which induce many dealers in newspapers to obstruct free inquiry; to hide their frauds, and make themselves idols.

When a fraud commences iti operations, it is annoyed by truth and knowledge. To meet these enemies in the open