_June 27th._ Subjoined is an account of the scene in Baltimore on
the arrival of the Confederate prisoners taken at Kernstown, near
Winchester, March 23d last; also, an article from the “New York
Express” on the “Freedom of the press:”
“FREEDOM” OF THE PRESS.
The New York Express of yesterday afternoon indulges in some
courageous comments on the new rescript of the Secretary of War,
putting further and more onerous restraints upon the publication of
intelligence in the newspapers. We subjoin a few extracts:
“What the personal risk is remains to be seen before a court martial
selected and created by the party that arrests. It is clear to see,
that under such ‘Law,’ or rather suspension of all Law, the business
of newspaper publishing, or Journalising, is as perilous as any
on earth. Both the Property and the Life of the Journalist are in
peril—if he chances to err, in the judgment of the War Department—from
which judgment, in the matter of Property, there is no appeal, and
from which court martial selected by this War Department, there is
no judicial relief, if death be the sentence. Prudence, of course,
forbids all comment upon these very extraordinary proceedings, beyond
saying that Journalism in this country, under such martial law, must
run down to what it is in Constantinople, Rome, or Vienna—that is into
mere criticisms upon the opera, or the fine arts, or puffs of court
movements.
“What deserves especial reprehension, is—if we may be allowed thus to
criticise, with a halter around our necks,—the indulgence given such
men as Wendell Phillips, to roam the country, teaching the subversion
of the Constitution and the Laws,—while other men, of opposite
politics, for exactly the same thing, are incarcerated in Fort Warren,
Fort Lafayette, or other prisons, therefor. The partiality, the
inequality, the injustice of this mode of treatment are so signal,
that we marvel the common sense of the President does not see this
wrong of his ministers, and arrest it. Upon all such partialities, and
injustice, he should remember, History is making up its record,—and
that the stern Muse, which records facts, will hold him responsible
for these repeated inequalities of his Ministers.”
* * * * *
The army news,—what there is—the reader cannot be half as well
informed of as are the Confederates in Richmond, who now know much
better what our army is doing, than the true and loyal people of the
United States. Hence, our streets are full of all sorts of gossip, and
of all sorts of lies.
“It was yesterday currently reported in Wall street (says the
Tribune,) that a dispatch had been received at the Navy Yard,
Brooklyn, stating that the Confederate steam battery Merrimac had
left Norfolk, and was seen from our vessels in Hampton Roads, just
off Craney Island. We learn that the report was wholly unfounded.
Doubtless it was set afloat for stock jobbing purposes.”
The reports from the battle about Winchester, on Sunday, and of the
skirmishes, the days preceding and succeeding, are yet so obscure as
but to increase the anxiety of parties having friends and relatives on
that arena. It leaks out through Harrisburg, that the Colonel killed
was Colonel Murray, of the 84th Pennsylvania, in consequence of which
the Legislature of that State adjourned on Monday—but who are the 14
captains and lieutenants, and the 100 soldiers, none in this quarter
know.
Under the new rescript from Washington, or the practical translation
of it, that copying army news is as criminal as the original
publication of it—it is next to impossible to know what to publish,
or what not to publish. For example, we are not exactly sure—that the
publication we make of the death of the Pennsylvania Colonel is not
a criminal publication of army news—as it does not reach us by the
Government wire.
The newspapers in this country are to be printed, it would seem by
a fresh rescript from the War Department, on rather more ticklish
conditions than exist in any other country, viz:—that of “warning,”
“suppression,” or “imprisonment”—because here, the summary court
martial is to try offenders, and the execution of a drum-head court is
threatened.
Well, when any of our craft come down town in the morning, it would be
well to say “adieu” to wife and family,—for it is not at all certain,
under this rescript, that one may not be shot under drum-head law
before night.
The proper way to put a stop to the publication of war news, is to
cut off the mails for a few days—and shut up all the channels of
intelligence. But under this rescript, a journalist is completely in
the power of what, or what not, may be set down as the publication of
army news.
This sort of departmental fulmination, is, to say the least, as much
without decorum as without precedent. The offenders should be named,
and dealt with—while this is but a fulmination _in terrorem_.
The above is all very good and sensible, but our cotemporary is really
silly enough to quote an obsolete instrument called the Constitution
of the United States, about “free speech,” abridging the press,
redress of grievances, etc., etc. We must, however, do it the justice
to say that it adds:
“But _cui bono_? Why thus vainly parade Constitutions and the
Civil Law? We are struggling—(are we not?—answer, Free Speech
Abolitionists!) for the emancipation of four million of Blacks,—but at
what cost, Abolitionists? THE ENSLAVEMENT OF 20,000,000 OF WHITES, are
we not?”
It is scarcely invidious, in this connection, to remind our friends
of the Express that the independent journals of this city have long
since become used to this “gag” business; and we think, so far as the
Constitution and personal liberty are concerned, they went out of use
about the time of the Merryman habeas corpus case? Did not the Express
approve and sanction the action of the President in that case? We do
not remember that it ever condemned the suppression of the press in
this city. If, therefore, it has itself fallen into the same coils,
may we not enjoy its “wry faces” with something of the relish we
should those of a physician who is forced to take his own medicine?
We find the following, pertinent to the same subject, in the Boston
Post.
The Washington correspondent of the New York Evening Post says:
“Free speech and free press is something which is not yet fully
understood by pro-slavery men in this vicinity.”
We should think they might understand “something” about them after
reading the report of the Judiciary Committee on the censorship of the
Press, as practiced by the Post’s political friends, or by conversing
with editors whose papers were denied transportation in the mails,
or by conversing with men _suspected_ of having said “something” not
agreeable to certain officials, and who have been imprisoned without
accusation or trial.
ARRIVAL OF CONFEDERATE PRISONERS—THEY ARE CONSIGNED TO
THE CITY JAIL.