Our government, unfortunately, at the outbreak of the rebellion did not claim the power to suppress such treasonable publications, but actually left them free to publish what they pleased. The consequence _was_, and _is_, that that portion of the press is as hostile to the administration now as it was in the beginning, _silence giving them consent to commit crime_. Nor was this all: our very postal department assisted in disseminating their papers by allowing them to go and come with impunity. Thus the mails established by the United States Government were and, we are afraid, are still used for its own destruction. Is there any principle of law or of justice to sanction such leniency on our part? Judge Story, of the Supreme Court, on one occasion, commenting on that clause of the Constitution securing the freedom of the press, says,— “That this amendment was intended to secure to every citizen an absolute right to speak or write or print whatsoever he might please, without any responsibility, public or private, therefor, is a supposition too wild to be indulged in by any rational man. This would be to allow to every citizen the right to destroy at his pleasure the reputation, the peace, the property, and even the personal safety of every other citizen. A man might, out of mere malice or revenge, accuse another of the most infamous crimes, might excite against him the indignation of all his fellow-citizens by the most atrocious calumnies, might disturb, nay, overturn all his domestic peace, and embitter his parental affections, might inflict the most distressing punishments upon the weak, the timid, and the innocent, might prejudice all a man’s civil and political and private rights, and might stir up sedition, rebellion, and treason, even against the government itself, in the wantonness of his passions or the corruption of his heart. Civil society could not go on under such circumstances. Men would then be obliged to resort to private vengeance to make up the deficiency of the law; and assassinations and savage cruelties would be perpetrated with all the frequency belonging to barbarous and cruel communities. It is plain, then, that the language of this amendment imports no more than that every man has a right to speak, write, and print his opinions upon any subject whatever, without any prior restraint, so always that he does not injure any other person in his rights, person, property, or reputation, _and so always that he does not thereby disturb the public peace or attempt to subvert the government_.” _POST-OFFICE CURIOSITIES._ There are many curious things daily occurring in the post-office under this head. In “Chambers’s Journal” we find the following:—