It is a Bible
which every man carries in his pocket, which lies on every table and
counter, and which the mail, and thousands of missionaries, are
continually dispersing. It is, in short, the only book which America
has printed and which America reads. So wide is its influence. The
editor is a preacher whom you voluntarily support. Your tax is
commonly one cent daily, and it costs nothing for pew hire. But how
many of these preachers preach the truth? I repeat the testimony of
many an intelligent foreigner, as well as my own convictions, when I
say, that probably no country was ever rubled by so mean a class of
tyrants as, with a few noble exceptions, are the editors of the
periodical press in this country. And as they live and rule only by
their servility, and appealing to the worse, and not the better,
nature of man, the people who read them are in the condition of the
dog that returns to his vomit.
The Liberator and the Commonwealth were the only papers in Boston,
as far as I know, which made themselves heard in condemnation of the
cowardice and meanness of the authorities of that city, as exhibited
in '51. The other journals, almost without exception, by their
manner of referring to and speaking of the Fugitive Slave Law, and the
carrying back of the slave Sims, insulted the common sense of the
country, at least. And, for the most part, they did this, one would
say, because they thought so to secure the approbation of their
patrons, not being aware that a sounder sentiment prevailed to any
extent in the heart of the Commonwealth.
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