6923. PRESS (Freedom of the), Government and.—[continued].
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 integrity and common understanding,
cannot be battered down, even by
the 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.—
To Thomas Seymour. Washington ed. v, 43.
Ford ed., ix, 30.
(W.
Feb. 1807)
