In reflecting on the reality that certain news outlets have been barred from the White House, articles by Dr. Joseph Warren, which were printed in the Boston Gazette in 1769, came to mind.
The governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony from 1760-1771, was Francis Bernard, a British administrator and Tory. His adamant policies and oppressive tactics in Massachusetts were not well received by those who believed their rights as Englishmen were being violated. Bernard as governor was supportive of the harsh acts of Parliament against the American Colonists.
Bernard was responsible for having 1,200 British troops come to Boston to police the street in time of peace – a violation of English Law. This set the stage for the “Boston Massacre” in 1770, when English soldiers killed and maimed English citizens!
How does Joseph Warren come into this story? Warren dared to submit letters to the local newspaper which challenged Bernard’s harsh tactics and expose his misrepresentations of factual accounts in Boston. Bostonians, barely removed from the era of Puritanism, were still a strongly religious people and highly knowledgeable of Scripture. In a rhyming couplet that concluded one of the letters Warren boldly wrote, “If such men are by God appointed, the devil may be the Lord’s anointed.” This brought an outcry from Governor Bernard, the Governor’s Council, and Loyalists throughout MA, calling for the author of this letter and the newspaper’s owners to be brought before the General Court.
Warren’s response was to submit another letter stating: “My design was to compare wicked men, and especially wicked magistrates, to those enemies of mankind, the devils; and to intimate that the devils themselves might boast of divine authority to seduce and ruin mankind. with as much reason and justice as wicked rulers can pretend to derive from God or from His Word a right to oppress, harass, and enslave their fellow creatures. The beneficent Lord of the universe delights in viewing the happiness of all men. And so far as civil government is of divine institution, it was calculated for the greatest good of the whole community; and whenever it ceases to be of general advantage, it ceases to be of divine appoinment, and the magistrates in such a community have no claim to that honor which the Divine Legilator has assigned to magistrates of His election.
“I shall at all times, writie my sentiments with freedom, and with decency, too–the rules of which I am not altogether unacquainted with. While the press is open, I shall publish whatever I think conducive to general emolument; when it is suppressed, I shall look upon my country as lost and with a steady fortitude, expct to feel the general shock.” Warren signed the letter — A True Patriot.
Bernard and the Governor’s Council continued to insist Warren and the owners of the Boston Gazette, Benjamin Edes and John Gill be punished. The Massachusetts House of Representatives disagreed and declared that the LIBERTY OF THE PRESS WAS A GREAT BULWARK OF THE LIBERTY OF THE PEOPLE!
Our Founding Fathers determined in the US Constitution that the liberty of the press is protected. This includes the Associated Press, CNN, Politico, MS Now, etc. — as well as Fox, Newsmax, The Federalist, etc.
When the liberty of the press is no longer protected there will be no liberty of the people. Perhaps Joseph Warren’s words about Francis Bernard should be considered in regard to today’s Magistrates. “If such men are by God appointed, the devil may be the Lord’s anointed.”
(Pictures: Governor Francis Bernard; Dr. Joseph Warren; The Boston Gazette)
