Chapter Summary
Difficulty of restraining the liberty of the press—Particular reasons
which some nations have to cherish this liberty—The liberty of the
press a necessary consequence of the sovereignty of the people as it is
understood in America—Violent language of the periodical press in the
United States—Propensities of the periodical press—Illustrated by the
United States—Opinion of the Americans upon the repression of the abuse
of the liberty of the press by judicial prosecutions—Reasons for which
the press is less powerful in America than in France.
Liberty Of The Press In The United States
The influence of the liberty of the press does not affect political
opinions alone, but it extends to all the opinions of men, and it
modifies customs as well as laws. In another part of this work I shall
attempt to determinate the degree of influence which the liberty of the
press has exercised upon civil society in the United States, and to
point out the direction which it has given to the ideas, as well as the
tone which it has imparted to the character and the feelings, of the
Anglo-Americans, but at present I purpose simply to examine the effects
produced by the liberty of the press in the political world.
I confess that I do not entertain that firm and complete attachment to
the liberty of the press which things that are supremely good in their
very nature are wont to excite in the mind; and I approve of it more
from a recollection of the evils it prevents than from a consideration
of the advantages it ensures.
If any one could point out an intermediate and yet a tenable position
between the complete independence and the entire subjection of the
public expression of opinion, I should perhaps be inclined to adopt it;
but the difficulty is to discover this position. If it is your
intention to correct the abuses of unlicensed printing and to restore
the use of orderly language, you may in the first instance try the
offender by a jury; but if the jury acquits him, the opinion which was
that of a single individual becomes the opinion of the country at
large. Too much and too little has therefore hitherto been done. If you
proceed, you must bring the delinquent before a court of permanent
judges. But even here the cause must be heard before it can be decided;
and the very principles which no book would have ventured to avow are
blazoned forth in the pleadings, and what was obscurely hinted at in a
single composition is then repeated in a multitude of other
publications. The language in which a thought is embodied is the mere
carcass of the thought, and not the idea itself; tribunals may condemn
the form, but the sense and spirit of the work is too subtle for their
authority. Too much has still been done to recede, too little to attain
your end; you must therefore proceed. If you establish a censorship of
the press, the tongue of the public speaker will still make itself
heard, and you have only increased the mischief. The powers of thought
do not rely, like the powers of physical strength, upon the number of
their mechanical agents, nor can a host of authors be reckoned like the
troops which compose an army; on the contrary, the authority of a
principle is often increased by the smallness of the number of men by
whom it is expressed. The words of a strong-minded man, which penetrate
amidst the passions of a listening assembly, have more power than the
vociferations of a thousand orators; and if it be allowed to speak
freely in any public place, the consequence is the same as if free
speaking was allowed in every village. The liberty of discourse must
therefore be destroyed as well as the liberty of the press; this is the
necessary term of your efforts; but if your object was to repress the
abuses of liberty, they have brought you to the feet of a despot. You
have been led from the extreme of independence to the extreme of
subjection without meeting with a single tenable position for shelter
or repose.
There are certain nations which have peculiar reasons for cherishing
the liberty of the press, independently of the general motives which I
have just pointed out. For in certain countries which profess to enjoy
the privileges of freedom every individual agent of the Government may
violate the laws with impunity, since those whom he oppresses cannot
prosecute him before the courts of justice. In this case the liberty of
the press is not merely a guarantee, but it is the only guarantee, of
their liberty and their security which the citizens possess. If the
rulers of these nations propose to abolish the independence of the
press, the people would be justified in saying: Give us the right of
prosecuting your offences before the ordinary tribunals, and perhaps we
may then waive our right of appeal to the tribunal of public opinion.
But in the countries in which the doctrine of the sovereignty of the
people ostensibly prevails, the censorship of the press is not only
dangerous, but it is absurd. When the right of every citizen to
co-operate in the government of society is acknowledged, every citizen
must be presumed to possess the power of discriminating between the
different opinions of his contemporaries, and of appreciating the
different facts from which inferences may be drawn. The sovereignty of
the people and the liberty of the press may therefore be looked upon as
correlative institutions; just as the censorship of the press and
universal suffrage are two things which are irreconcilably opposed, and
which cannot long be retained among the institutions of the same
people. Not a single individual of the twelve millions who inhabit the
territory of the United States has as yet dared to propose any
restrictions to the liberty of the press. The first newspaper over
which I cast my eyes, upon my arrival in America, contained the
following article:
In all this affair the language of Jackson has been that of a heartless
despot, solely occupied with the preservation of his own authority.
Ambition is his crime, and it will be his punishment too: intrigue is
his native element, and intrigue will confound his tricks, and will
deprive him of his power: he governs by means of corruption, and his
immoral practices will redound to his shame and confusion. His conduct
in the political arena has been that of a shameless and lawless
gamester. He succeeded at the time, but the hour of retribution
approaches, and he will be obliged to disgorge his winnings, to throw
aside his false dice, and to end his days in some retirement, where he
may curse his madness at his leisure; for repentance is a virtue with
which his heart is likely to remain forever unacquainted.
It is not uncommonly imagined in France that the virulence of the press
originates in the uncertain social condition, in the political
excitement, and the general sense of consequent evil which prevail in
that country; and it is therefore supposed that as soon as society has
resumed a certain degree of composure the press will abandon its
present vehemence. I am inclined to think that the above causes explain
the reason of the extraordinary ascendency it has acquired over the
nation, but that they do not exercise much influence upon the tone of
its language. The periodical press appears to me to be actuated by
passions and propensities independent of the circumstances in which it
is placed, and the present position of America corroborates this
opinion.
America is perhaps, at this moment, the country of the whole world
which contains the fewest germs of revolution; but the press is not
less destructive in its principles than in France, and it displays the
same violence without the same reasons for indignation. In America, as
in France, it constitutes a singular power, so strangely composed of
mingled good and evil that it is at the same time indispensable to the
existence of freedom, and nearly incompatible with the maintenance of
public order. Its power is certainly much greater in France than in the
United States; though nothing is more rare in the 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, the press cannot create human passions by its own power,
however skillfully it may kindle them where they exist. In America
politics are discussed with animation and a varied activity, but they
rarely touch those deep passions which are excited whenever the
positive interest of a part of the community is impaired: but in the
United States the interests of the community are in a most prosperous
condition. A single glance upon a French and an American newspaper is
sufficient to show the difference which exists between the two nations
on this head. In France the space allotted to commercial advertisements
is very limited, and the intelligence is not considerable, but the most
essential part of the journal is that which contains the discussion of
the politics of the day. In America three-quarters of the enormous
sheet which is set before the reader are filled with advertisements,
and the remainder is frequently occupied by political intelligence or
trivial anecdotes: it is only from time to time that one finds a corner
devoted to passionate discussions like those with which the journalists
of France are wont to indulge their readers.
It has been demonstrated by observation, and discovered by the innate
sagacity of the pettiest as well as the greatest of despots, that the
influence of a power is increased in proportion as its direction is
rendered more central. In France the press combines a twofold
centralization; almost all its power is centred in the same spot, and
vested in the same hands, for its organs are far from numerous. The
influence of a public press thus constituted, upon a sceptical nation,
must be unbounded. It is an enemy with which a Government may sign an
occasional truce, but which it is difficult to resist for any length of
time.
Neither of these kinds of centralization exists in America. The United
States have no metropolis; the intelligence as well as the power of the
country are dispersed abroad, and instead of radiating from a point,
they cross each other in every direction; the Americans have
established no central control over the expression of opinion, any more
than over the conduct of business. These are circumstances which do not
depend on human foresight; but it is owing to the laws of the Union
that there are no licenses to be granted to printers, no securities
demanded from editors as in France, and no stamp duty as in France and
formerly in England. The consequence of this is that nothing is easier
than to set up a newspaper, and a small number of readers suffices to
defray the expenses of the editor.
The number of periodical and occasional publications which appears in
the United States actually surpasses belief. The most enlightened
Americans attribute the subordinate influence of the press to this
excessive dissemination; and it is adopted as an axiom of political
science in that country that the only way to neutralize the effect of
public journals is to multiply them indefinitely. I cannot conceive
that a truth which is so self-evident should not already have been more
generally admitted in Europe; it is comprehensible that the persons who
hope to bring about revolutions by means of the press should be
desirous of confining its action to a few powerful organs, but it is
perfectly incredible that the partisans of the existing state of
things, and the natural supporters of the law, should attempt to
diminish the influence of the press by concentrating its authority. The
Governments of Europe seem to treat the press with the courtesy of the
knights of old; they are anxious to furnish it with the same central
power which they have found to be so trusty a weapon, in order to
enhance the glory of their resistance to its attacks.
In America there is scarcely a hamlet which has not its own newspaper.
It may readily be imagined that neither discipline nor unity of design
can be communicated to so multifarious a host, and each one is
consequently led to fight under his own standard. All the political
journals of the United States are indeed arrayed on the side of the
administration or against it; but they attack and defend in a thousand
different ways. They cannot succeed in forming those great currents of
opinion which overwhelm the most solid obstacles. This division of the
influence of the press produces a variety of other consequences which
are scarcely less remarkable. The facility with which journals can be
established induces a multitude of individuals to take a part in them;
but as the extent of competition precludes the possibility of
considerable profit, the most distinguished classes of society are
rarely led to engage in these undertakings. But such is the number of
the public prints that, even if they were a source of wealth, writers
of ability could not be found to direct them all. The journalists of
the United States are usually placed in a very humble position, with a
scanty education and a vulgar turn of mind. The will of the majority is
the most general of laws, and it establishes certain habits which form
the characteristics of each peculiar class of society; thus it dictates
the etiquette practised at courts and the etiquette of the bar. The
characteristics of the French journalist consist in a violent, but
frequently an eloquent and lofty, manner of discussing the politics of
the day; and the exceptions to this habitual practice are only
occasional. The characteristics of the American journalist consist in
an open and coarse appeal to the passions of the populace; and he
habitually abandons the principles of political science to assail the
characters of individuals, to track them into private life, and
disclose all their weaknesses and errors.
Nothing can be more deplorable than this abuse of the powers of
thought; I shall have occasion to point out hereafter the influence of
the newspapers upon the taste and the morality of the American people,
but my present subject exclusively concerns the political world. It
cannot be denied that the effects of this extreme license of the press
tend indirectly to the maintenance of public order. The individuals who
are already in the possession of a high station in the esteem of their
fellow-citizens are afraid to write in the newspapers, and they are
thus deprived of the most powerful instrument which they can use to
excite the passions of the multitude to their own advantage. *a
a
[ They only write in the papers when they choose to address the people
in their own name; as, for instance, when they are called upon to repel
calumnious imputations, and to correct a misstatement of facts.]
The personal opinions of the editors have no kind of weight in the eyes
of the public: the only use of a journal is, that it imparts the
knowledge of certain facts, and it is only by altering or distorting
those facts that a journalist can contribute to the support of his own
views.
But although the press is limited to these resources, its influence in
America is immense. It is the power which impels the circulation of
political life through all the districts of that vast territory. Its
eye is constantly open to detect the secret springs of political
designs, and to summon the leaders of all parties to the bar of public
opinion. It rallies the interests of the community round certain
principles, and it draws up the creed which factions adopt; for it
affords a means of intercourse between parties which hear, and which
address each other without ever having been in immediate contact. When
a great number of the organs of the press adopt the same line of
conduct, their influence becomes irresistible; and public opinion, when
it is perpetually assailed from the same side, eventually yields to the
attack. In the United States each separate journal exercises but little
authority, but the power of the periodical press is only second to that
of the people. *b
b
[ See Appendix, P.]
The opinions established in the United States under the empire of the
liberty of the press are frequently more firmly rooted than those which
are formed elsewhere under the sanction of a censor.
In the United States the democracy perpetually raises fresh individuals
to the conduct of public affairs; and the measures of the
administration are consequently seldom regulated by the strict rules of
consistency or of order. But the general principles of the Government
are more stable, and the opinions most prevalent in society are
generally more durable than in many other countries. When once the
Americans have taken up an idea, whether it be well or ill founded,
nothing is more difficult than to eradicate it from their minds. The
same tenacity of opinion has been observed in England, where, for the
last century, greater freedom of conscience and more invincible
prejudices have existed than in all the other countries of Europe. I
attribute this consequence to a cause which may at first sight appear
to have a very opposite tendency, namely, to the liberty of the press.
The nations amongst which this liberty exists are as apt to cling to
their opinions from pride as from conviction. They cherish them because
they hold them to be just, and because they exercised their own
free-will in choosing them; and they maintain them not only because
they are true, but because they are their own. Several other reasons
conduce to the same end.
It was remarked by a man of genius that “ignorance lies at the two ends
of knowledge.” Perhaps it would have been more correct to have said,
that absolute convictions are to be met with at the two extremities,
and that doubt lies in the middle; for the human intellect may be
considered in three distinct states, which frequently succeed one
another. A man believes implicitly, because he adopts a proposition
without inquiry. He doubts as soon as he is assailed by the objections
which his inquiries may have aroused. But he frequently succeeds in
satisfying these doubts, and then he begins to believe afresh: he no
longer lays hold on a truth in its most shadowy and uncertain form, but
he sees it clearly before him, and he advances onwards by the light it
gives him. *c
c
[ It may, however, be doubted whether this rational and self-guiding
conviction arouses as much fervor or enthusiastic devotedness in men as
their first dogmatical belief.]
When the liberty of the press acts upon men who are in the first of
these three states, it does not immediately disturb their habit of
believing implicitly without investigation, but it constantly modifies
the objects of their intuitive convictions. The human mind continues to
discern but one point upon the whole intellectual horizon, and that
point is in continual motion. Such are the symptoms of sudden
revolutions, and of the misfortunes which are sure to befall those
generations which abruptly adopt the unconditional freedom of the
press.
The circle of novel ideas is, however, soon terminated; the touch of
experience is upon them, and the doubt and mistrust which their
uncertainty produces become universal. We may rest assured that the
majority of mankind will either believe they know not wherefore, or
will not know what to believe. Few are the beings who can ever hope to
attain to that state of rational and independent conviction which true
knowledge can beget in defiance of the attacks of doubt.
It has been remarked that in times of great religious fervor men
sometimes change their religious opinions; whereas in times of general
scepticism everyone clings to his own persuasion. The same thing takes
place in politics under the liberty of the press. In countries where
all the theories of social science have been contested in their turn,
the citizens who have adopted one of them stick to it, not so much
because they are assured of its excellence, as because they are not
convinced of the superiority of any other. In the present age men are
not very ready to die in defence of their opinions, but they are rarely
inclined to change them; and there are fewer martyrs as well as fewer
apostates.
Another still more valid reason may yet be adduced: when no abstract
opinions are looked upon as certain, men cling to the mere propensities
and external interests of their position, which are naturally more
tangible and more permanent than any opinions in the world.
It is not a question of easy solution whether aristocracy or democracy
is most fit to govern a country. But it is certain that democracy
annoys one part of the community, and that aristocracy oppresses
another part. When the question is reduced to the simple expression of
the struggle between poverty and wealth, the tendency of each side of
the dispute becomes perfectly evident without further controversy.