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This is the brief moment, in which Freedom pleads on her knees: we will join her pleadings, ere yet she rises terrible to wrench the sword from the hand of her merciless enemy! We will join the still small voice of reason, ere yet it be overwhelmed in the great and strong wind, in the earthquake, and in the fire! These detestable Bills I shall examine in their undiminished proportions, as they first dared shew themselves to the light, disregarding and despising all subsequent palliatives and modifications. From, their first state it is made evident beyond all power of doubt, what are the wishes and intentions of the present Ministers; and their wishes and intentions having been so evidenced, if the legislature authorize, if the people endure one sentence of such Bills from such manifest conspirators against the Constitution, that legislature will by degrees authorize the whole, and the people endure the whole—yea, that legislature will be capable of authorising even worse, and the people will be unworthy of better.
The first of these Bills is an attempt to assassinate the Liberty of the Press: the second, to smother the Liberty of Speech. And first of the first, which we shall examine clause by clause.—The outrageoffered
