There is doubtless a very wide difference between proving that one law is in itself better than another and proving that the former ought to be substituted for the latter.

But the imagination of the populace is very apt to overlook this difference, which is so apparent to the minds of thinking men.

It sometimes happens that a nation is divided into two nearly equal parties, each of which affects to represent the majority.

If, in immediate contiguity to the directing power, another power be established, which exercises almost as much moral authority as the former, it is not to be believed that it will long be content to speak without acting; or that it will always be restrained by the abstract consideration of the nature of associations which are meant to direct but not to enforce opinions, to suggest but not to make the laws.
The more we consider the independence of the press in its principal consequences, the more are we convinced that it is the chief and, so to speak, the constitutive element of freedom in the modern world.

A nation which is determined to remain free is therefore right in demanding the unrestrained exercise of this independence.