within their knowledge with the lies of the day. I really look with commiseration over the great body of my fellow citizens, who, reading newspapers, live and die in the belief that they have known something of what has been passing on in the world in their time; whereas the accounts they have read in newspapers are just as true a history of any other period of the world as of the present, except that the real names of the day are affixed to their fables. General facts may indeed be collected from them, such as that Europe is now at war, that Bonaparte has been a successful warrior, that he has subjected a great portion of Europe to his will, etc., etc., but no details can be relied upon. I will add that the man who never looks into a newspaper is better informed than he who reads them; inasmuch as he who knows nothing is nearer the truth than he whose mind is filled with falsehoods and errors. He who reads nothing will still learn the great facts, and the details are all false. Perhaps an editor might begin a reformation in some such way as this: Divide his paper into four chapters, heading the first, Truths; 2d, Probabilities; 3d, Possibilities; 4, Lies. The first chapter would be very short, as it would contain little more than authentic papers and information from such sources as the editor would be willing to risk his reputation for their truth. The second would contain what from a mature consideration of all circumstances his judgment should conclude to be probably true. This, however, should rather contain too little than too much. The third and fourth should be professedly for those readers who would rather have lies for their money than the blank paper they would occupy. Such an editor would have to set his face against the demoralizing practice of feeding the public mind habitually with slander, and the depravity of taste which this nauseous ailment induces. Defamation is becoming

.

a necessity of life; insomuch that a dish of tea in

the morning or evening cannot be digested without this stimulant.

T

HE only security for all is in a free press. The force of public opinion cannot be resisted, when permitted freely to be expressed. The agitation it produces must be submitted to. It is necessary to keep the waters pure.

15. 491.

D

URING this administration, and in order to disturb

it, the artillery of the press has been levelled against us, charged with whatsoever its licentiousness could devise or dare. These abuses of an institution so important to freedom and science are deeply to be regretted, inasmuch as they tend to lessen its usefulness, and to sap

3. 380. its safety;

. nor was it uninteresting to the world that an experiment should be fairly and fully made, whether freedom of discussion, unaided by power, is not sufficient for the propagation and protection of truth-whether a government, conducting itself in the true spirit of its constitution, with zeal and purity, and doing no act which it would be unwilling the whole world should witness, can be written down by falsehood and defamation

he who has time renders a service to morals and public tranquility, in reforming these abuses by the salutary coercions of the law; but the experiment is noted, to prove that, since truth and reason have maintained their ground against false opinions in league with false facts, the press, confined to truth, needs no other legal restraint; the public judgment will correct false reasonings and opinions, on a full hearing of all parties; and no other definite line can be drawn between the inestimable liberties of the press and its demoralizing licentiousness. If there be still improprie

ties which this rule would not restrain, its supplement must be sought in the censorship of public opinion.

A

S to myself, conscious that there was not a truth on earth which I feared should be known, I have lent myself willingly as the subject of a great experiment, which was to prove that an administration, conducting itself with fairness, with integrity and common understanding, cannot be battered down even by the II. 155. falsehoods of a licentious press, and consequently still less by the press as restrained within the legal and wholesome limits of truth. This experiment was wanting for the world to demonstrate the falsehood of the pretext that freedom of the press is incompatible with orderly government. I have never therefore even contradicted the thousands of calumnies so industriously propagated against myself. But the fact being once established, that the press is impotent when it abandons itself to falsehood, I leave to others to restore it to its strength by recalling it within the pale of truth. Within that it is a noble institution, equally the friend of science and of civil liberty.

T

HE greatest favor which can be done me is the communication of the opinions of judicious men, of men who do not suffer their judgments to be biased by either interests or passions.

II. 159.

T

HE light which has been shed on mankind by the art of printing has eminently changed the condition of the world. As yet, that light has dawned on the middling classes only of the men of Europe. The kings

and the rabble, of equal ignorance, have not as yet received its rays; but it continues to spread, and while 15. 465. printing is preserved it can no more recede than the sun return on his course. A first attempt to recover the right of self-government may fail, so may a second, a third. All Europe, Russia excepted, has caught the spirit; and all will obtain representative government, more or less perfect. This is now well understood to be a necessary check on kings, whom they will probably think it more prudent to chain and tame than to exterminate. To attain all this, however, rivers of blood must yet flow, and years of desolation pass over, yet the object is worth rivers of blood, and years of desolation. For what inheritance so valuable can man leave to his posterity?

D

4. 12.

CHAPTER XVII.

MISCELLANEOUS EXTRACTS

EAR PAGE.-In the most melancholy fit that any

poor soul ever was, I sit down to write to you. Last night, as merry as agreeable company and dancing with Belinda in the Apollo could make me, I never could have thought the succeeding sun could have seen me as wretched as I now am! I was prepared to say a great deal: I had dressed up, in my own mind, such thoughts as occurred to me, in as moving a language as I knew how, and expected to have performed in a tolerably creditable manner. But, good Lord! when I had an opportunity of venting them, a few broken sentences, uttered in great disorder and interrupted with pauses of uncommon length, were the too visible marks of my strange confusion.

J

OHN ADAMS

I. 49.

and Equity never had weight enough on the face of the earth, to govern the councils of men. It is interest alone which does it, and it is interest alone which can be trusted. It has been said we are independent individuals (referring to the colonies) making a bargain together. The question is not what we are now, but what we ought to be when our bargain is made. The Confederacy is to make us one individual only; it is to form us like separate pieces of metal, into one common mass. We shall no longer retain our separate individuality, but become a single individual as to all questions submitted to the confederacy.