His chief objection to the new constitution, when he first saw it, was the omission in it of a bill of rights providing for the 'eternal and unremitting force of the habeas corpus act'--and for the freedom of the press. When Colonel Burr was arrested, Jefferson, who, by the way, showed a want of dignity and self-respect throughout the affair, was eager to suspend the habeas corpus act, and got a bill to that effect passed by one branch of Congress; it was lost in the other. This was the first instance in the history of the United States. The many fine things he had said on the integrity and independence of judges did not prevent him from finding bitter fault with Chief-Justice Marshall for not convicting Burr. He accused Marshall and the whole tribe of Federalists of complicity in Burr's conspiracy. Poor old Paine, then near his end, who was one of Jefferson's jackals of the press, informed the Chief-Justice, through the _Public Advertiser_, that he was 'a suspected character.' When Jefferson had felt the pricking of the Federal quills, he began to think differently of the freedom of the press. Once, in the safety of private station, he had got off this antithesis: if he had to choose between a government without newspapers, and newspapers without a government, he should prefer the latter. But when in his turn he felt the stings that previously, under his management, had goaded even Washington out of his self-control, Jefferson could not help saying that 'a suspension of the press would not more completely deprive the nation of its benefits than is done by its abandoned prostitution to falsehood.'