Every ballot cast in the absence of liberty of the press is void _ab initio_.

Liberty of the press involves, as necessary corollaries, liberty of meeting, liberty of publishing, liberty of distributing information, all the liberties engendered by the right--antedating all other rights--of informing one's self before voting.

To vote is to steer; to vote is to judge.

Can one imagine a blind pilot at the helm?
Can one imagine a judge with his ears stuffed and his eyes put out?
Liberty, then,--liberty to inform one's self by every means, by inquiry, by the press, by speech, by discussion,--this is the express guarantee, the condition of being, of universal suffrage.

In order that a thing may be done validly, it must be done knowingly.