The liberty of the press, also, is a theme of discord not less important
than the emancipation of aristocrats. The Jacobins are decidedly adverse
to it; and it is a sort of revolutionary solecism, that those who boast
of having been the original destroyers of despotism, are now the
advocates of arbitrary imprisonment, and restraints on the freedom of the
press. The Convention itself is divided on the latter subject; and,
after a revolution of five years, founded on the doctrine of the rights
of man, it has become matter of dispute--whether so principal an article
of them ought really to exist or not. They seem, indeed, willing to
allow it, provided restrictions can be devised which may prevent calumny
from reaching their own persons; but as that cannot easily be atchieved,
they not only contend against the liberty of the press in practice, but
have hitherto refused to sanction it by decree, even as a principle.
It is perhaps reluctantly that the Convention opposes these powerful and
extended combinations which have so long been its support, and it may
dread the consequences of being left without the means of overawing or
influencing the people; but the example of the Brissotins, who, by
attempting to profit by the services of the Jacobins, without submitting
to their domination, fell a sacrifice, has warned their survivors of the
danger of employing such instruments.
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