Unit thirty-three
The Liberty of Press

The proposition which I mean to maintain as the basis of the liberty of the press, and without which it is an empty sound, is this: that every man, not intending to mislead, but seeking to enlighten others with what his own reason and conscience, however erroneously, have dictated¹ to him as truth, may address himself to the universal reason of a whole nation, either upon the subject of government in general, or upon that of our own particular country; that he may analyse the principles of its constitution, point out its errors and defects, examine and publish its corruptions⁴, warn his fellow-citizens against their ruinous consequences, and exert his whole faculties⁵ in pointing out the most advantageous⁶ changes in establishments which he considers to be radically⁷ defective⁸, or sliding from their object by abuse. All his every subject of his country has right to do, if he contemplates¹⁰ only what he thinks would be for its advantage, but seeks to change the public mind by the conviction which flows from reasonings dictated by conscience.
　　If, indeed, he writes what he does not think; if, contemplating¹¹ the misery¹² of others, he wickedly condemns¹³ what his own understanding approves; or, even admitting his real disgust against the government or its corruptions if he calumniates¹⁵ living magistrates¹⁷, or holds out to individuals that they have a right to run before the public mind in their conduct; that they may oppose by contumacy or force what private reason only disapproves¹⁸; that they may disobey the law, because their judgment¹⁹ condemns it; or resist the public will, because they honestly wish to change it – he is then a criminal upon every principle of rational policy, as well as upon the immemorial precedents²¹ of English justice; because such a person seeks to disunite individuals from their duty to the whole, and excites to overt²² acts of endeavouring to change, by the impulse of reason, that universal assent²³ which, in this and every country, constitutes the law for all.