The liberty of the press is not always one of the most lovely traits of the freest governments:-for as the most popular kinds have generally been thought the most free, it follows that the most free will not be the most favorable to that spirit which is necessary to constitute the liberty of the press. If in answering those ingenuous, polite, and libera authors, I should bring to view some truths which have not yet appeared, by using their own method of arguing as the only means to refute their folly, I trust I shall be excused, as they have not only taught the useful lesson, but absolutely driven those who attempt to answer them into the necessity.īut notwithstanding all that has been said about the liberty of the press being destroyed by the new constitution, I scarcely expect to find a sufficient remnant of that great blessing even in our present system to bring this paper to your view.įor to those very causes which some attribute the destruction of the liberty of the press, I look up for its becoming more unbounded-since clear it is, there are great restraints of that sort already, nor can any thing else be expected in a government as popular as this is. The adversaries to the constitution have not only held up the chief heroes of their party as the infallible guides on this occasion, but have spoken of some of its friends with such asperity and disingenuousness as would induce those who were unacquainted with the dispute, to suppose, that it was nothing more than a private quarrel among some leading individuals, under whose standards all the rest of America had servilely enlisted as their vassals. When I first entered the list among the patriotic advocates for the new constitution, which I look up to now as the salvation of America, I had nothing else in view than just to expose the folly of those who made use of the names and characters of private men to support the insignificance of their own arguments.īut alarmed at the thoughts of a dissolution of the UNION, which I consider the greatest curse that could befall America, I determined to suspend my answer to those authors, to which my first address was only an introduction, until I cautioned you against laying the foundation of your own destruction by electing men for the approaching convention, who, under a pretence of amending and perfecting this new work, mean to dissolve the confederation.Īnd having in the fullest manner, I trust, proved to you in my last impossibility of amending this new plan of government, at this time, without disuniting the states, I shall now return to my first design. STATE SOLDIER, respecting the influence of great Names. To the GOOD PEOPLE of Virginia, on the new

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