commonwealth, by both the friends and opponents of the law, the latter, to secure a majority in the next Legislature that would repeal it, the former, to secure a majority that would sustain it and even make it more effectual in checking the sale of intoxicating liquors. The Courier was open to both parties, and both parties availed themselves of the privilege that was granted. A friendly correspondence between me and the Hon. Samuel Hoar of Concord, illustrated the fact, that a controversy might be carried on without anger or vituperation, - however much some might be disposed to manifest a different temper. Legislature of 1840 repealed the law.

INDEPENDENCE OF THE PRESS.

The

Nothing has ever excited my indignation more than attacks made upon the Press by writers and speakers, who wanted a subject on which to pour out the filthy dregs of ill-nature, -nothing has more quickly provoked me to the utterance of the strongest language I could command. Scribblers, whose communications have been rejected, may be expected to take their revenge in scolding, or by insulting the offending editor with anonymous letters. Some men of high standing have been known to descend from their elevated positions in the pulpit or at the bar to abuse a poor printer, who had the audacity to refuse a compliance with their wishes, and may possibly have thrown an effusion of their spleen or stupidity into the fire. I remember that, at the trial of a supposed murderer, in the state of Rhode-Island, some fifteen, or perhaps twenty, years ago, one of the most cele

brated lawyers in New-England pronounced an unmanly and undignified sentence of condemnation upon the press, accusing the newspaper printers, indiscriminately, with wilful falsehood and misrepresentation in regard to his client, and cautioning the jury against believing any thing they might see in the newspapers, - for " a newspaper was the last place in which an honest man should look for truth," — or words to that effect. On one occasion, having refused to insert a certain communication, a professedly religious editor in Boston was pleased to take up the cause of the aggrieved writer, and, after accusing me of servility and want of independence, (as if the independence of an editor consisted altogether in submission to the wishes of correspondents,) very charitably undertook to represent all those who supported the paper as reprobates and sinners, and outcasts from all moral and civil associations. While fretting under this charge of want of independence, my choler gained vent and was emitted in this wise:

"It is said that the Press of our country is free, – nay, we boast of its freedom. Why? because any one may establish a press of his own? or because printers and publishers are responsible only to the undefinable law of libel? Is it because the proprietor may use his press as his passions or his fancies invite him? Is it because he possesses the sovereign power of making it the channel of truth and virtuous communication, or the foul and pestilent sewer of falsehood and moral contamination? Is it because he may wield it as an instrument of good or an engine of evil? Is it because its rapidly multi

plying power affords a ready means of gratifying the benevolence of the heart, or satiating the malevolence of the passions? How fallacious are such opinions! The Press free, and the Editor and Publisher dependent for their subsistence upon the shifting and weathercock opinions of some one or two thousand subscribers, who pay the paltry pittance of their subscription, as an ungrateful convalescent pays the fees of his physician, with most graceless reluctance; - who deem the paper, which they honor with their patronage, as a part of their personal property, over which they possess the same power of control as of their wardrobe ;-in which they have a right to demand the insertion of their opinions, upon all subjects, whether political, poetical, mechanical, or rigmarolical, whilst the poor half paid and sometimes wholly starved Editor or Printer must pay for his refusal to insert by the forfeiture of his correspondent's subscription.

"An occurrence of some interest calls forth editorial commentary. The article contains opinions too indigestible for pampered appetites, and the wounded sensibilities of some fifty or a hundred subscribers are quieted by a fractious order to stop the paper.' And yet the Press is free? – so it is;-very free; as free as mechanical industry and uncontrolled power of printing and publishing can make it; but, alas for the proprietor! his freedom may well be questioned; he truly may be pardoned, if he should sometimes lose his identity in the vexatious struggles between his duty and his interest. Still the Press is free! Blessed freedom! blessed independence! - where

the dungeons of the Inquisition live only in story, and the frowns of Censors are as little cared for as the age of a sparrow. O how free is the American Press! how boldly it pours forth its volumes of wrath against rulers and aspirants! how fearlessly it canvases the demerits of the living and the merits of the dead! How smooth and uninterrupted is its course, whilst whole columns of lying paragraphs float quietly along, impelled by the propitious gales of partizan applause! How sure and how secure seem the secular interests of the proprietor, whilst his diurnal folio circulates in the broad field of party patronage! What boots it whether honest Paul pays for the paper, or damns the impertinence of the collector? It is sufficient that there is an end to be obtained, and the paper must be pushed into circulation at any hazard, or by any sacrifice, until the printer is compelled to "look to his bond," and be grateful for a barren indemnity, where he had been taught by the managers of the farce to expect a profitable harvest. The fact is, too many of our presses are the exclusive property of sects and parties, and their editors but the twilight shadows of bodies without souls. They assume the responsibility of opinions which belong to them only by adoption; and feel, whilst writhing under a conviction that all is not so honest as it should be, that there is no alternative but to hoodwink their consciences or to starve. Hence the multiplicity of presses; hence the clamorous appeals to the public for support and patronage; hence the crouching and cringing to the aristocratical sensibility of one class, and the unceasing and active irritation applied to the

jacobinical prejudices of another; hence all the wild effusions of illiberality and dogmatism, all the madness and licentiousness of atheism. There seems to be no room for neutrality, no time for pause in the warfare of the passions; no rest for the high-strung cords of embittered feelings; war, war to the utterance. Such is the blessed freedom of the Press. And why is this? Is it necessary that an editor should exhaust his intellect in a constant endeavor to furnish the poison of pestilent excitement, or, by unceasing study, how best to minister to the craving appetite of slander and defamation? Is the taste of the public so entirely vitiated, that nothing but caustic applications, bitter satire, unchristian reproach, garbled and mutilated extracts, patched and pieced until the nakedness of truth is hid beneath the many-colored mantle of falsehood, will satisfy its cormorant appetite? Is it possible? — but we desist, satisfied that there is yet a redeeming principle in our people,-a counteracting power, abundantly sufficient to set at nought the rabid venom of the party Press, and restore its columns to the cause of truth, and save its conductors from the curse of purchased dependence."

MR. WEBSTER.

It has been mentioned, that the Courier had been the uniform supporter of Mr. Webster, in his efforts to secure protection to domestic industry by means of a tariff. Such was my devotion to this cause, and my admiration of Mr. Webster's laborious efforts to sustain it, that a paragraph which opposed the policy, or spoke disparagingly of those efforts, seldom appeared in the