With the presence of such men in this House, I am amazed that in this Constitution a very glaring omission has taken place in the draft by leaving out the freedom of the press. I cannot imagine, why these draftsmen, so experienced and so seasoned, should have felt it desirable to leave out the freedom of the press, and leave it to the charity of the administrators of the Constitution when occasion arose to include it by convention or implication, and not by express provision. Freedom of the press, I repeat, is apt to be misunderstood, or, at any rate, apt to be regarded as license which you may want to curtail. There are many ways by which laws can be passed or laws can be administered whereby you can regard the liberty as verging upon license and as such to be curtailed. To omit it altogether, I repeat, and Ire peat with all the earnestness that I can command, would be a great blemish which you may maintain by the force of the majority, but which you will never succeed in telling the world is a progressive liberal constitution, if you insist on my amendment being rejected.
