Remember the assertion of the editor of the Missouri Argus: "Abolition editors in the slave States will not dare to avow their opinions: it would be INSTANT DEATH to them.
Lewis Tappan
The Public Record
Lewis Tappan was an American abolitionist who in 1841 helped to secure freedom for the enslaved Africans aboard the Amistad. He was born in Northampton, Massachusetts, into a Calvinist household.
gutenberg.org
Surely, fellow-citizens, you will not accuse us of slander, when we say that the slaveholders have abolished among you the liberty of the press.
Not only is this espionage exercised over the mail, but measures are taken to keep the community in ignorance of what is passing abroad in relation to slavery, and what opinions are elsewhere held respecting it.
If the postmaster must select, under a heavy penalty, for a public bonfire, all papers bearing on slavery, why may he not be hereafter required to select, for the same fate, all papers hostile to Popery?
In some of the slave States laws have been passed establishing a censorship of the press, for the exclusive and special benefit of the slaveholders.
Hence the insane efforts constantly made to expurgate the literature of the world of all recognition of the rights of black men.
Pains will be taken to prevent you from reading this address, and vast pains have been taken to keep slaveholders as well as others ignorant of every fact and argument that militates against the system.
The very instant the press ventures beyond its prescribed limits, the constitutional barriers erected for its protection sink into the dust, and a censorship, the more stern and vindictive from being illegal, crushes it into submission.
Every measure of policy may be advocated, except that of free labor; every question of right may be examined, except that of a man to himself; every dogma in theology may be propagated, except that of the sinfulness of the slave code.
Every abuse in Church or State may be ferreted out and exposed, except the cruelties practiced upon the slaves, unless when they happen to exceed the ordinary standard of cruelty established by general usage.
The characters of public, and even of private men, may be vilified at pleasure, provided no reproach is flung upon the slaveholder.
The attributes of the Deity may be discussed, but not the rights of the master.