Freedom of the Press by David Barton

In New York the universal toleration of all religious professions and sentiments is secured in the most ample manner. Notwithstanding this constitutional declaration carrying the doctrine of unlimited toleration as far as the peace and safety of any community will allow, the courts have decided that blasphemy was a crime at common law and was not abrogated by the constitution. The court finally addressed the arguments of “freedom of the press” and emphasized the responsibility which limited that freedom:

According to the argument every act, however injurious or criminal which can be committed by the use of language, may be committed if such language is printed. Not only therefore would the article in question become a general license for scandal, calumny slander and falsehood, all other crimes however atrocious, if conveyed in printed language, would be dispunishable. The Founders never intended the unlimited, unrestrained, and often unconscionable “freedom of the press” practiced today. In fact, Thomas Jefferson had declared:

While we deny that the federal Congress have a right to control the freedom of the press, we have ever asserted the right of the States, and their exclusive right, to do so. While many civil libertarians today cringe at the thought of “controlling” the press, the controls were actually those which common sense and reason dictated, and all were rooted within the concept of responsibility in fact, responsibility and the duty of stewardship is intrinsic to the preservation of every liberty.

Concerning the balance between the freedom of the press and the responsibility of the press, printer and publisher Benjamin Franklin explained: If by the liberty of the press were understood merely the liberty of discussing the propriety of public measures and political opinions, let us have as much of it as you please; but if it means the liberty of affronting, calumniating falsely accusing, and defaming one another, I, for my part am willing to part with my share of it whenever our legislators shall please so to alter the law, and shall cheerfully consent to exchange my liberty of abusing others for the privilege of not being abused myself. QV96686234S8

David Barton – I am sure that Eutychus did that because if you read on the Bible says that he fell out of the window and died from the fall.

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