whatever fine declarations may be inserted in any Constitution respecting it, must altogether depend on public opinion, and on the general spirit of the People and of the Government.[1] And here, after all, as is intimated upon another occasion, must we seek for the only solid basis of all our rights.
There remains but one other view of this matter to conclude the point. The truth is, after all the declamation we have heard, that the Constitution is itself, in every rational sense, and to every useful purpose, a Bill of Rights. The several Bills of Rights in Great Britain form its Constitution, and conversely the Constitution of each State is its Bill of Rights. And the proposed Constitution, if adopted, will be the Bill of Rights of the Union. Is it one object of a Bill of Rights to declare and specify the political privileges of the citizens in the structure and administration of the Government? This is done in the most ample and precise manner in the plan of the Convention; comprehending various precautions for the public security, which are not to be found in any of the State Constitutions. Is another object of a Bill of Rights to define certain immunities and
- ↑ To show that there is a power in the Constitution, by which the liberty of the press may be affected, recourse has been had to the power of taxation. It is said, that duties may be laid upon publications so high as to amount to a prohibition. I know not by what logic it could be maintained, that the declarations in the State Constitutions, in favor of the freedom of the press, would be a constitutional impediment to the imposition of duties upon publications by the State Legislatures. It cannot certainly be pretended that any degree of duties, however low, would be an abridgment of the liberty of the press. We know that newspapers are taxed in Great Britain, and yet it is notorious that the press nowhere enjoys greater liberty than in that country. And if duties of any kind may be laid without a violation of that liberty, it is evident that the extent must depend on Legislative discretion, regulated by public opinion; so that, after all, general declarations respecting the liberty of the press, will give it no greater security than it will have without them. The same invasions of it may be effected under the State Constitutions which contain those declarations through the means of taxation, as under the proposed Constitution, which has nothing of the kind. It would be quite as significant to declare, that Government ought to be free, that taxes ought not to be excessive, &c., as that the liberty of the press ought not to be restrained.—Publius.
