A few remarks on the nature of
the liberty of the press and on its relations to the governing powers
will not, therefore, at this time, be inopportune.

Men are apt, at times, in the excitement of political partisanship, to
forget that the freedom of the press is, like all other social liberty,
relative and not absolute; that it is not license to publish whatsoever
they please, but only that which is _within certain defined limits_
prescribed by the people as the legitimate extent to which expression
through the public prints should be permitted; and that it is because
these limits are regulated by the whole people, for the whole people,
and not by the arbitrary caprice of a single individual or of an
aristocracy, that the press is denominated free. Let it be remembered,
then, as a starting point, that the press is amenable to the people;
that it is controlled and regulated by them, and indebted to them for
whatever measure of freedom it enjoys.

The scope of this liberty is carefully defined by the statutes, as also
the method by which its transgression is to be punished. These
enactments minutely define the nature of an infringement of their
provisions, and point out the various methods of procedure in order to
redress private grievance or to punish public wrong, in such instances.
These statutes emanate from the people, are the expression of their
will, and in consonance with them the action of the executive
authorities must proceed, whenever the civil law is sufficient for the
execution of legal measures.

But there comes a time, in the course of a nation's existence, when the
usual and regular methods of its life are interrupted; when peaceful
systems and civilized adaptations are forced to give place to the ruder
and more peremptory modes of procedure which belong to seasons of
hostile strife. The slow, methodical, oftentimes tedious contrivances of
ordinary law, admirably adapted for periods of national quietude, are
utterly inadequate to the stern and unforeseen contingencies of civil
war. Laws which are commonly sufficient to secure justice and afford
protection, are then comparatively powerless for such ends. The large
measure of liberty of speech and of the press safely accorded when there
is ample time to correct false doctrines and to redress grievances
through common methods, is incompatible with the rigorous promptitude,
energy, celerity, and unity of action necessary to the preservation of
national ex