CHAP. XIV.] AND RELIGION. 401 



418. The State of New York, ashamed that 

 there should any longer be room for such 

 miserable quibbling; ashamed to leave the 

 Liberty of the Press exposed to the changes 

 and chances of a doctrine so hostile to common 

 sense as well as to every principle of freedom, 

 passed an Act, which makes the truth of any 

 publication a justification of it, provided the 

 publisher can shew, that the publication was 

 made with good motives and justifiable ends ; 

 and who can possibly publish truth without 

 being able to shew good motives and justifiable 

 ends? To expose and censure tyranny, profli 

 gacy, fraud, hypocrisy, debauchery, drunken 

 ness : indeed, all sorts of wickedness and folly ; 

 and to do this in the words of truth, must tend, 

 cannot fail to tend, to check wickedness and 

 folly,. and to strengthen and promote virtue and 

 wisdom ; and these, and these only, are the uses 

 of the press. I know it has been said, for 1 

 have heard it said, that this is going too far ; 

 that it would tend to lay open the private affairs 

 of families. And what then ? Wickedness and 

 folly should meet their due measure of censure, 

 or ridicule, be they found where they may. If 

 the faults of private persons were too trifling to 

 deserve public notice, the mention of them 

 would give the parties no pain, and the pub 

 lisher would be despised for his tittle-tattle; 



2 F 2 



