Proposed Military censorship
--We are sorry to learn that a project has been introduced into Congress for establishing a military censorship of the press in the Southern States The arguments by which so pernicious a measure is supported are of course, the same that have been employed by arbitrary power in its resistance of liberal principles through all ages. It seems that these arguments have been sufficient for accomplishing the purposes of despotism in the North--the same North where freedom of speech, of the pen, the person are alike overthrown, and the Chief Justice himself is as powerless to vindicate the liberties by the Constitution as a It too, that there are a few in the South with whom these same arguments have prevailed.It would insult the intelligence of the Southern people to examine and to expose them is detail. They are too shallow and flimsy to deserve such pains. The presence is that the press gives information of the movements of our armies and the schemes of our Generals, and that, therefore, this bulwark of popular liberty, this terror to evil doers, this gorgon dire to military martinets and despots, must be put under the collar, and that the chain must be handed to those very military officials from whom the greatest corruptions abuses, and the greatest danger to liberty to this juncture, are naturally to be apprehended. When all authority, all power, and all control of the persons and the treasure of the people are in the hands of the military class, is this the time to strike down the only protection the people have left against their authority, and the only weapon of assault they possess against the abases which are so apt sooner or later, to creep into their transactions?
The public ear is already full of rumored impending the frugality, if not the integrity, of officers connected with military departments of the Government. We believe that these rumors are in most of the cases exaggerated, and that a full knowledge of facts would show as upright an administration of affairs as the history of any war affords; but much of the integrity that marks the conduce of the war is due to the fact that the people's press is free and at liberty to speak out on there suspicion of peculation of abuse.
The only circumstance that has staggered our belief in the purity prevailing in the management of this war, is this recent effort from the outside to prevail upon Congress, under the specious pretense of military expediency, to establish a military censorship of the press. To deny to the press its right of speaking on army movements, on the number of troops in this and that quarter, and on the strategic policy or designed of the military authorities, is to strike down at one blow its liberty to speak of army affairs at all. The particular time at which this proposition is made constitutes a very strong objection to the measure; for when the people are beginning to inquire into the numerous allegations of abuse that beset their ears, it is not meet to deprive them of their month piece and organ.
Better that the enemy should know all our military movements and plans than that the wholesome dread of exposure through the public journals should cease to keep in the paths of integrity and purity the business agents of our armies. The South could much better afford the loss of many battles than a loss of confidence in the honesty of her public servants, in a great straggle like the present.
The clamor of a few military persons against the press for its outspeakings on the movements and transactions of our is quite puerile and senseless. The enemy's general would be very weak indeed if they shaped their measures by the revelations of the Southern press. They have sources of information abundantly more expeditions and accurate than our newspapers. Mr. Seward has a corps of hired spice dogging at the heels of our citizens even in Europe. Can any one believe that the South is not also filled with his emissaries? Northern journals seem to derive information from the departments of our Government in Richmond which our own press have no means of obtaining. Are we to be fined and imprisoned for copying complete lists of our military personal from the New York Herald? At a time when one or two hundred persons are going off to the North every week, (many bearing passports,) after exercising the largest liberty of observation while here, is it to be charged to the Southern press that the enemy is in full possession of all that occurs amongst us? The practices and expedients of despotism might indeed be wholesomely applied, at this time, to the real conveyors of information to the enemy; but it would be as unwise to lay the hand of despotism upon the sacred person of the press, as it would be unjust to make of it a scapegrace for the sins of a much more reprehensible set of men.
The press have exhibited a commendable prudence throughout the war on this very subject of publishing intelligence to the enemy. No man can point to a single catastrophe that has resulted from its revelations. It has often been unjustly accused; but the sequel has shown in every case the injustice, and has vindicated it from the aspersions of its critics. It was charged that the arrest of our Ministers on the ‘"Treat"’ was in consequence of newspaper revelations of their debarkation; yet it is a fact that, though the press of Richmond knew of the departure of these gentlemen on the day they left this city, and, by request put out the decoy information that they were expected to go by way of Mexico, their real exit from Charleston was not divulged by it until they had reached Havana. On arriving in that neutral city, they, themselves, very properly threw off all disguise, and chose to go about openly in their true characters, rather than skulk, as if they had been infamous outlaws, in holes and corners. The day of their intended sailing was known to everybody in Havana, including the United States Consul and the Federal naval officers in those waters. The Southern press did not know of their departure from Havana until they were brought into Hampton Roads prisoners of Wilkes. So much for this aspersion upon the press.
We were censured, by some persons ignorant of facts, the other day, for declaring that the enemy would burn New river bridge, and blow up the Allegheny tunnel, if the Virginia and Tennessee railroad were left longer without protection. A dozen Yankees have been passing over that bridge, and through that tunnel, every week since the war commenced; and it is no news, to them at least, that such a bridge and such a tunnel exist. So far from our paragraph having conveyed to the enemy in Fayette county the knowledge that there was such a railroad, having such a bridge and such a tunnel, we have reason to believe that they were much vexed and chagrined that we informed our military authorities down here of the danger, before they were ready to strike the blow. In this case, at least, we conveyed valuable information against the schemes of the enemy, and not in their favor. The country, in which the enemy of which we spoke are, is full of Unionists, fully possessed of all such from whom he his intelligence more and of Richmond.
