CHAPTER permanent injury,) now that newspapers have become a XIII. necessary of life—a means, as it were, of carrying on an 1799. extended conversation between all the members of the

community, the same indulgence and impunity which have been found necessary for the safety and comfort of verbal intercourse ought to be extended to this new method of talking, and the same means, and they only, relied upon for suppressing its abuses.

With respect, in particular, to political discussions and political newspapers, a freedom as wide as this, however it may often degenerate into license, seems quite indispensable. In all free states it has been found necessary to guarantee to the members of the Legislature perfect impunity for any thing said in their legislative character. This impunity is liable to be greatly abused, and it often is greatly abused by bad and malicious men; but without it, nothing like freedom of discussion, or the detecting and ferreting out of political abuses, could be expected. And why not grant a similar impunity-at least to the extent of freedom from criminal prosecutions to those by whom politics are discussed before the tribunal of the whole people? Falsehood thus disseminated may be exceedingly grievous to the party be lied; but being thus made to assume a distinct form, those parties have the advantage of detecting and expos ing it. Very seldom, indeed, can it do them any per manent injury (in which case they have their remedy by private suit), while the dread of being publicly de nounced, acts upon the less honest with tremendous force. The existence of one such fearless paper as the Aurora, however objectionable in many respects that paper might be, operated, beyond all question, as a greater check to misconduct on the part of the Federal officials than all the laws put together.

SEDITIOUS LIBELS.

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But it may be asked, why object to criminal prosecu- CHAPTER tions when the truth may be given in evidence? Because this is a concession in many cases, such as that of 1799. Lyon, for example, much more showy than substantial. Even when the facts charged are of such a nature as to admit of distinct proof, to bring witnesses might often be difficult, and would always be expensive. There is another objection, much more serious. What in political prosecutions for libel is charged as false allegation, very often is but mere statement of opinion, matter of inference, as to which testimony is out of the question; and often too these charges are made, like similar charges in a bill of equity, for the very purpose of driving the party accused to confess or deny the allegations.

As all popular governments rest for support, not upon force, but upon opinion, assaults upon them limited to words ought to be repelled by words only. The press is open to the government also. To convict those who as sail it of falsehood and malice by a candid exposition of facts, is the most certain means to destroy their influence. To appeal to the law will always expose to the charge of being driven by conscious guilt to silence by force, in default of reason, the complaints and criticisms of the people, part of whose right and liberty it is to complain and to criticise-a right and liberty of too delicate a nature, and too much intertwined with the first principles of freedom, to be rashly interfered with.

Such are some of the arguments by which the wisdom and expediency of that part of the Sedition Law relating to libels, as well as of the whole system of criminal prosecutions for libels in the state courts, might have been plausibly, if not, indeed, convincingly assailed. But nothing of this sort proceeded from the mouths of the opposition. They confined themselves very strictly to the

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CHAPTER Constitutional argument. It was a special restriction of the powers of the general government, not the general 1799. liberty of the press for which they contended. Not a word was uttered against the exercise of that same pow er by the states, the exercise of which by the Federal government was denounced as fatal to liberty. The op. position argued, not like liberal statesmen and wise legislators, but only like violent anti-Federal politicians.

While the nomination of envoys to France was still pending, the bills for the increase of the navy had become laws. Two others relating to the same subject were passed shortly after, one embracing a code of rules for the naval service, the other creating a fund for navy hospitals by a reservation out of the monthly wages of seamen employed in the navy, similar to that authorized at the last session in case of merchant seamen. By a third act the marine corps was increased to a regiment of a thousand men. The Senate bill for a conditional increase of the army was also passed, as was another increasing the regiments of the standing force to a thousand men each.

The laws relating to intercourse with the Indians, to the post-office, and to the collection of the revenue, were revised and re-enacted, and, in compliance with the recommendation of the president in his opening speech, the officers of the United States were required to assist ir the enforcement of the local quarantine laws. By an act for increasing their salaries the secretaries of state and of the treasury were henceforth to receive $5000 each; the other two secretaries, $4500; the attorney general, controller, treasurer, auditor, commissioner of the revenue, and postmaster general, $3000 each; the registrar of the treasury, $2400; the accountants of the war and navy departments, $2000 each; the assistant

FINANCES.

REVOLUTIONARY BALANCES.

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postmaster general, $1700. The salaries of the clerks CHAPTER in the executive department were also increased, and a new tariff of fees was established for the officers, wit- 1799. nesses, and attorneys in the United States courts. This increase of salaries was most violently opposed, and a great clamor was raised against it out of doors. But no reduction was made when these very opposers came, soon after, to have the majority and the offices.

The appropriations for the services of the current year, exclusive of the interest on the public debt and the conditional two millions for the augmentation of the army, but including some unexpended balances of former appropriations, amounted to nine millions, half of which was for the navy alone. The whole amount of means required for the service of the year exceeded thirteen millions of dollars. The resources for meeting this heavy expenditure consisted, in addition to the ordinary revenue, of the two million direct tax, the preparations for collecting which were now nearly completed, and of the five million loan lately filled at an interest of eight per

cent.

In this time of need, the balances due from the states on the settlement of their Revolutionary accounts were again called to mind, and an act was passed offering to discharge all such debtor states as within a year would pass laws for paying within five years, or to expend within that time, in fortifications, a sum in stocks of the United States at their then market value, equal, at par value, either to the balance due or to the whole amount of the state debt which the United States had assumed. This latter alternative was intended to meet the case of New York, the balance due from which very considerably exceeded the amount of the debt of that state assumed by the general government, the United States being content

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CHAPTER to relinquish the surplus of their claim, if they could but get back the amount thus unadvisedly advanced. New 1799. York availed itself of this and the former act on the subject to make a partial payment by expenditures on for tifications; but nothing was got, or has been, to this day, from any of the other debtor states.

Meanwhile a naval action of some importance had occurred in the West Indies. Of the two French frigates by which Bainbridge had been captured, one had returned to France, manned in part, as we have seen, by impressed American sailors. The other, L'Insurgente, one of the very vessels with which the renegade Barney had blustered in the Chesapeake two years before, fell in with the Constitution, one of Barry's squadron, from which, however, she succeeded in escaping, the Consti tution having carried away one of her top-masts in the chase. Though reckoned the best sailer in the French navy, L'Insurgente did not fare so well with the Constellation, the flag-ship of Truxtun's squadron, by which she was chased off the island of St. Kitt's, and brought into close action after a three hours' pursuit, during deb. 9. which the French frigate carried away her main top-mast. As to number of guns, the ships were about equal; but the Constellation's heavier metal gave her a decided advantage; and, after an action of an hour and a quar ter, L'Insurgente struck her colors, having lost twenty killed and forty-six wounded. The Constellation had only three men wounded and one killed, but her rigging was considerably cut to pieces. The prize was manned and sent to the United States. The news, which arrived March 12. in America shortly after the adjournment of Congress, of this first action between French and American national ships, filled the Federalists with delight, while the