Corydon Press, and Anti-Masonic Democrat, Volume 2, Number 11, Corydon, Harrison County, 10 November 1830 — Page 7

Gory don Press, and JlntiAlasomc Democrat.' ov

numerous changes of individual who have occu--pied the political arena, we cannot but be forcibly f impressed with the fiuiilarity of its effects during the last liftmen years in a word, it is destined

j to recommence the Revolution, the principle of which, it has so deeply proclaimed. Placed and I ..J t . i V. . . . r r i r rw r In iiniloK Ilia t i r i

repiHCL'U, ill llIUWCiii luicnaio) u"" mow pline of the censure, as often as it has regained its V liberty, it has recommenced its interrupted work. To insure greater success, rt had been eufliciently aided by the Departmental press, which by exciting jealousies and local hatreds, by sowing conGtei nation in the bosoms of the timid, and by tormenting the authorities with interminable stratagems, have exercised an almost decisive iuduence apon the elections. These last effects, Sire, are momentous the more durable results may be remarked in the moxa!s and character of the nation. A violent lying and passionate polemic school of scandal and licentiousness, produces serious and profound altercations; it gives a false direction to the cnind-of men, fills them with dissentious and prejudices, diverts them from serious investigations, injures tilso,lhe progress of Arts and the Sciences, excites among us a continually increasing fermentations nnd maintains, even in the bosom of families, fatal distentions, and may gradually conduct w back to a state of barbarism.. Against such a variety of evils, engendered by (he press, l iw and justice are equally compelled to acknowledge their importance. It would be superfluous to investigate the causes which have axi e?lecl ana inscueiMv rnWed useless as a wea

pon in the hand of power, . It is sufficient to Juicr. jrogate experience, and to remark the present con(lition of things. The proceedings of the Judiciary furnish with .difficulty an efficacious repression. The truth, verified by observation, has for a long time been apparent to good minds,' it has lately acquired a y more marked character of evidence. To satisfy the necessity which gave rise to it, repression should be prompt and powerful on the contrary, Tt has remained sluggish, feeble and almost void; when it happens, the injury is committed and the punishment far from repairing the injury, adds to it the scandal of debate. Juridical proceedings tire j but the seditious press never tires. The one is embarrassed because there is too much to punish- the other multiplies its forces by multiplying its delinquinciea. Under different circumstances prosecutions have had their different periods of activity or relaxation. Hut what imparts to the press zeal or lukewarmness on the part of the public minister it sacks in an increase of its excesses guarantee to their impunity. The insufficiency, or rather the inutility of the precautions established by the law in force, is demonstrated by the above named facts, and it iseiqually established that the public security is compromised by the press. It is time, it is more than time to arrest its ravages. Listen, Sire, to this prolonged cry of indigna tion and consternation whicii arises from all parts

of your kingdom. Moderate men, good citizen?, and the friends of order, raise towards your Majesty their supplicating hands. They beseech you to preserve them from the return of those ca (amities under which cur fathers so long groaned. These alarms are too real not to be heard, these wishes are too legitimate not to be listened to. There is but one way of satisfying them, it is to return to the Constitution if the terms of the eighth article are ambiguous, its measures aro manifest. It is certain that the Constitution has not conceded the liberty of the press to journals and periodical writings. The liberty of publishing our personal opinions does not certainly imply the right of publishing by way of speculation, the opinions of others. The one is the useof a faculty that the law is at liberty to grant or to submit to restriction?; the other is a speculation of industry! which, like all others, and more than all others, supposes the supervision of public authority. The meaning of the Constitution in this particular, i3 exactly explained by the law, of the 2 1 st of October, 1814: we can place the more reliance upon this, as the law was presented to the Cham-

uer me oin oi JUiy, mans iu aajr vnu wuui after the adoptioo of the Constitution. In 1819, an epoch when a country system prevailed in the Chambers, it was openly proclaimed that the pet riodical press was not gorerned by the 8th article;

have imposed the necessity of a censure upon the journals. Now, Sire, it only remains? to be decided how thi mturn tn the Constitution and the law of the

Pistol uctooer snail De accompusned. l he pre sent serious aspect of affairs has resolved the qucs tion. We must not deceive ourselves we are no lon-v gerin the ordinary condition of a representative government. The principles upon which' it was established, have not remained untouched amidst political vicissitudes. A turbulent democracy, which has penetrated even into our law, is substituted for legitimate power. It disposes of the majority of elections through the man3 of journals and of societies constituted with similar views it paralyses as much as in its power the regular exercise of the most essential prerogative of the crown, that of dissolving the elective chamber. By that, even the constitution of the state is shaken. Your Majesty alone retains the power t$ preserve and establish it upon its basis. The right as well as the duty to assure its main tenance is the inseparable attribute of sovereignty, No government upon earth would be stable if it had nnt the? right to provide for its own security. This law is pre-existent to all other law, because it is founded in the nature of things. . These are, Sire, maxims which acknowledge the sanction of time and the avowal of all the civilians of Europe, fiut these maxims have a more decided sane tion, that of the constitution itself the 14th article has invested in your Majesty a sufficient povter, not certainly to change our institutions, but tc consolidate aai render turn immutable,

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