Mr. President, an open attempt to secure the aid and friendship of the public press, by bestowing the emoluments of office on its active conductors, seems to me, of every thing we have witnessed, to be the most reprehensible.  It degrades both the government and the press.  As far as its natural effect extends, it turns the palladium of liberty into an engine of party.  It brings the agency, activity, energy, and patronage of government all to bear, with united force, on the means of general intelligence, and on the adoption or rejection of political opinions.  It so completely perverts the true object of government, it so entirely revolutionizes our whole system, that the chief business of those in power is directed rather to the propagation of opinions favorable to themselves, than to the execution of the laws.  This propagation of opinions, through the press, becomes the main administrative duty.  Some fifty or sixty editors of leading journals have been appointed to office by the present executive.  A stand has been made against this proceeding, in the Senate, with partial success; but, by means of appointments which do not come before the Senate, or other means, the number has been carried to the extent I have mentioned.  Certainly, Sir, the editors of the public journals are not to be disfranchised.  Certainly they are fair candidates, either for popular elections, or a just participation in office.  Certainly they reckon in their number some of the first geniuses, the best scholars, and the most honest and well-principled men in the country.  But the complaint is against the system, against the practice, against the undisguised attempt to secure the favor of the press by means addressed to its pecuniary interest, and these means, too, drawn from the public treasury, being no other than the appointed compensations for the performance of official duties.  Sir, the press itself should resent this.  Its own character for purity and independence is at stake.  It should resist a connection rendering it obnoxious to so many imputations.  It should point to its honorable denomination in our constitutions of government, and it should maintain the character, there ascribed to it, of a FREE PRESS.

There can, Sir, be no objection to the appointment of an editor to office, if he is the fittest man.  There can be no objection to considering the services which, in that or in any other capacity, he may have rendered his country.  He may have done much to maintain her rights against foreign aggression, and her character against insult.  He may have honored, as well as defended her; and may, therefore, be justly regarded and selected, in the choice of faithful public agents.  But the ground of complaint is, that the aiding, by the press, of the election of an individual, is rewarded, by that same individual, with the gift of moneyed offices.  Men are turned out of office, and others put in, and receive salaries from the public treasury, on the ground, either openly avowed or falsely