For the same reason, too, all secret societies are deemed dangerous to the community, and our people will not endure them because they are foreign to the character of our government. And how are they foreign, it is asked? Each voter being a part of the government, he wants all the facts of the country before him in order to form his opinion, which he cannot have if secret societies exist. In a despotism the power being in one head, that head alone has need of the facts we refer to; the governed have no interest except to obey, no duty but to submit. To refer to an almost forgotten question, the rights of Free Masons, the opposition and abuse they received was far less against them as Masons, than as asking for protection and privilege, without being willing to yield any thing to that public sentiment which they were opposing by their very existence as a secret society. Let us draw here one other inference from what has been said, and then to work: a free and untrammeled press is as essential to a free government as air is to life. If the art of printing had been known by the ancient republics they might still have existed. And, moreover, we may demand, as a right, to know any and all of the affairs of others which may, by possibility, act upon this public trust, of which each man is part keeper. And the advantage of this supervision is mutual, for it is well for every one to know that the whole country has an interest in what he does, in his acts, his habits, and especially in his opinions. Rufus Gilbert courted this scrutiny, and took pains to open his views to all who visited him; but he became unpopular at first with the church in his neighborhood, because he did not come under its wing and ask its influence--an influence always to be obtained by paying for it. Both political parties called him a fool and fanatic, because he did not immediately set down his political opinions and promise his vote for or against men he had never seen or heard of before. To the Whig committee-man who called to ask his support for that party, he propounded first the question, 'Is your candidate a temperance man?' 'Really, Sir, we have little to do with such narrow questions; I can't answer you.' 'Is he for or against slavery?' next proposed Rufus. 'That, too, is beyond my instructions.' 'What then, may I ask,' said Rufus, 'are the grounds upon which you ask my vote for your candidate?' 'Grounds, Sir!--zounds!' said the emissary, looking about for a convenient stump, 'grounds, did you say? Sir, he is a Whig; he was born a Whig; he has lived a Whig, and will die a Whig. What more can you ask? He never opposes his party; he is a man we can rely upon; we know where to find him; he is a man to stick to the party, if the party go to the d--l; and that's what I call being a patriot.'