latter country than to
hear of a prosecution having been instituted against it. The reason
of this is perfectly simple: the Americans, having once admitted
the doctrine of the sovereignty of the people, apply it with perfect
consistency. It was never their intention to found a permanent state
of things with elements which undergo daily modifications; and there
is consequently nothing criminal in an attack upon the existing laws,
provided it be not attended with a violent infraction of them. They
are moreover of opinion that courts of justice are unable to check
the abuses of the press; and that as the subtilty of human language
perpetually eludes the severity of judicial analysis, offences of this
nature are apt to escape the hand which attempts to apprehend them. They
hold that to act with efficacy upon the press it would be necessary to
find a tribunal, not only devoted to the existing order of things, but
capable of surmounting the influence of public opinion; a tribunal which
should conduct its proceedings without publicity, which should pronounce
its decrees without assigning its motives, and punish the intentions
even more than the language of an author. Whosoever should have the
power of creating and maintaining a tribunal of this kind would waste
his time in prosecuting the liberty of the press; for he would be the
supreme master of the whole community, and he would be as free to
rid himself of the authors as of their writings. In this question,
therefore, there is no medium between servitude and extreme license; in
order to enjoy the inestimable benefits which the liberty of the press
ensures, it is necessary to submit to the inevitable evils which it
engenders. To expect to acquire the former and to escape the latter
is to cherish one of those illusions which commonly mislead nations
in their times of sickness, when, tired with faction and exhausted by
effort, they attempt to combine hostile opinions and contrary principles
upon the same soil.

The small influence of the American journals is attributable to several
reasons, amongst which are the following:

The liberty of writing, like all other liberty, is most formidable
when it is a novelty; for a people which has never been accustomed to
co-operate in the conduct of State affairs places implicit confidence
in the first tribune who arouses its attention. The Anglo-Americans
have enjoyed this liberty ever since the foundation of the settlements;
moreover,