Note 4. To give the reader some idea of the price of European articles
in the Western country, I will mention cloth. A coat which costs 4
pounds in England, is charged 7 pounds 10 shillings at New York; and at
Cincinnati, in the West, upwards of 10 pounds.

VOLUME ONE, CHAPTER SIX.

NEWSPAPER PRESS.

Mr Tocqueville observes, "that not a single individual of the twelve
millions who inhabit the territory of the United States has as yet dared
to propose any restrictions upon the liberty of the press." This is
true, and all the respectable Americans acknowledge that this liberty
has degenerated into a licentiousness which threatens the most alarming
results; as it has assumed a power, which awes not only individuals, but
the government itself. A due liberty allowed to the press, may force a
government to do right, but a licentiousness may compel it into error.
The American author, Mr Cooper, very justly remarks: "It may be taken
as a rule, that _without_ the liberty of the press there can be no
_popular liberty_ in a nation, and without its licentiousness, neither
_public honesty, justice_, or a proper regard for _character_. Of the
two, perhaps, that people is the happiest which is deprived altogether
of a free press, as private honesty and a healthful tone of the public
mind are not incompatible with narrow institutions, though neither can
exist under the corrupting action of a licentiousness press."

And again--"As the press of this country now exists, it would seem to be
expressly devised by the great agent of mischief, to depress and destroy
all that is good, and to elevate and advance all that is evil in the
nation. The little truth which is urged, is usually urged coarsely,
weakened and rendered vicious by personalities, while those who live by
falsehoods, fallacies, enmities, partialities, and the schemes of the
designing, find the press the very instrument that devils would invent
to effect their designs."

A witty, but unprincipled statesman of our own times, has said, that
"speech was bestowed on man to conceal his thoughts;" judging from its
present condition, he might have added--"the press, in America, to
_pervert truth_."

But were I to quote the volumes of authority from American and English
writers, they would tire the reader. The above are for the present
quite sufficient to establish the fact, that the press in the United
States is licentious to the highest possible degree, and defies con