I need no concession for the liberty of the press, do not need the people’s consent to it, do not need the “right” to it, nor any “justification.” The liberty of the press too, like every liberty, I must “take”; the people, “as being the sole judge,” cannot give it to me. It can put up with me the liberty that I take, or defend itself against it; give, bestow, grant it it cannot. I exercise it despite the people, purely as an individual; I get it by fighting the people, my—enemy, and obtain it only when I really get it by such fighting, take it. But I take it because it is my property.
