It seems almost cruel to recall the names of those who spoke of the purposes of men who proposed to appeal to public opinion against a monstrous public wrong, and of the men themselves, as "the folly, madness, and mischief of these bold and dangerous men," and as "persons who owe what notoriety they have to their love of meddling with agitating subjects." This was the way in which those who thought themselves to be in the van of freedom and of civilization spoke of the beginning of one of the great historic movements in the progress of the race, and of men who took up the work of the fathers of the country only to carry it further and logically forward. It was with this stupid and insolent contempt that the press, which prided itself upon its liberty, and in a country which guaranteed the right of free peaceful assembly and free speech, struck at both of them as fatal to the common welfare. Had Philip II. and the sanguinary Alva controlled a press in the Netherlands three centuries ago, they would have denounced the beginning of the great contest with the black despotism of the Inquisition in the same tone of vindictive hatred and disdain with which that little meeting at the Chatham Street chapel was assailed by the press of New York in 1833. It is no wonder that the pioneers of that famous evening wished to come together upon its fiftieth anniversary to rejoice that they had entered into the promised land. The fact that their meeting excited no general interest, and was almost unobserved, was the evidence of the completeness of their triumph. Their "folly, madness, and mischief" have become patriotic wisdom. The "bold and dangerous men" have grown into a mighty nation. And for the brethren of the press that anniversary has some very significant suggestions. First and chief is the consideration that the spirit of the newspapers, and not of the meeting in Chatham Street chapel, was the dangerous spirit. There is no blacker traitor to popular institutions than the man who incites an angry mob against peaceful meetings and free speech. Free speech is precious not for popular but for unpopular opinions. It is to secure in the land of the Inquisition a voice against the inquisition; in the land of slavery, a voice for liberty. That freedom has overthrown those two tyrants by developing a public opinion which has made them impossible. The first duty of a free press is to defend the right of the free assertion of unpopular opinions, however dangerous they may seem to government or to society; and it is but just to record that the only paper in New York which, "when this old coat was new," stated clearly and conclusively the true principle upon this subject was the _Journal of Commerce_.