Here, Madison writes that public opinion sets the bounds to free government. By this, public opinion is the sovereign.
Sometimes, public opinion is influenced by the government.
So, whatever influences public opinion, also influences government. The Bill of Rights (just ratified on Dec 15th) will affect public opinion, and thus affect government.
Large territories are not friendly to ascertainment of public opinion, and each individual sees his relative insignificance to it. This condition is not friendly to liberty.
Whatever facilitates communication of sentiments, such as good roads, commerce, and particularly a free press, a wide variety of newspapers throughout the body of the people, and representatives going to and from every part of them, is the equivalent of reducing the size of the nation, and is favorable to liberty.
End.
This column was published just days after the Bill of Rights was ratified. The National Gazette was a newspaper controlled by James Madison and Thomas Jefferson. Its purpose was to influence public opinion in opposition to the policies of the George Washington administration regarding payment of revolutionary war debt, funded debt, and a national bank. Madison's columns reflect a final, mature understanding of the constitution. They are all worth a read.
In this short piece, Madison touches on the first amendment's free press guarantee. Recognition of the importance of the press to a free society wasn't new, but I think it significant that free press was his first topic upon ratification of the BOR.
The grand American experiment in freedom had just started; there was no guarantee it would work. Millennia of republican theory, modified to suit the reality of pre-existing states, demanded an informed public. Madison and other philosophers believed an informed public would make the right decisions. Only when deceived by government did the people risk the loss of liberty.
Clearly, in 2015 much of the media are nothing more than tools of freedom's enemies. The national trend is full speed toward tyranny. At least we recognize it and know why.
Jacquerie, please find another site which has this same document. The link you gave doesn’t allow anyone to open it unless they download it. I tried other documents on that site, but again, it tries to download the file.
Please hit the abuse button when you have a working link to another site and we’ll replace your link with the new one.
Thanks.
Nothing was lost on the great men who founded this amazing country.
Did a certain constitutional scholar read this? ;-)
That's a problem when the public opinion is so largely uninformed.