A turning point occurred a few months later in Abrams v. U.S., the Court unanimously upheld the conviction of a Socialist Party member for mailing anti-anti-war leaflets to draft-age men.
#DOM OF PRESS AMENDMENT FREE#
THE SUPREME COURT AND THE FIRST AMENDMENTĭuring our nation’s early era, the courts were almost universally hostile to political minorities’ First Amendment rights free speech issues did not even reach the Supreme Court until 1919 when, in Schenck v. Should flag burning be a crime? What about government or private censorship of works of art that touch on sensitive issues like religion or sexuality? Should the Internet be subject to any form of government control? What about punishing college students who espouse racist or sexist opinions? In answering these questions, the history and the core values of the First Amendment should be our guide. It was in response to the excesses of this period that the ACLU was founded in 1920.įree speech rights still need constant, vigilant protection. Many people were arrested merely for membership in groups regarded as “radical” by the government. In 1923, author Upton Sinclair was arrested for trying to read the text of the First Amendment at a union rally. In the early 1920s, many states outlawed the display of red or black flags, symbols of communism and anarchism. entry into World War I were jailed for expressing their opinions. Trade union meetings were banned and courts routinely granted injunctions prohibiting strikes and other labor protests. In 1912, feminist Margaret Sanger was arrested for giving a lecture on birth control. The early 20th century was not much better. In Virginia prior to the Civil War, for example, anyone who “by speaking or writing maintains that owners have no right of property in slaves” was subject to a one-year prison sentence. Throughout the 19th century, sedition, criminal anarchy and criminal conspiracy laws were used to suppress the speech of abolitionists, religious minorities, suffragists, labor organizers, and pacifists. It was used by the then-dominant Federalist Party to prosecute prominent Republican newspaper editors during the late 18th century. In 1798, during the French-Indian War, Congress passed the Alien and Sedition Act, which made it a crime for anyone to publish “any false, scandalous and malicious writing” against the government. Nevertheless, once in power, even the Constitution’s framers were guilty of overstepping the First Amendment they had so recently adopted. (see box)Įarly Americans enjoyed great freedom compared to citizens of other nations. Debs, who was sentenced to 10 years in prison under the Espionage Act just for telling a rally of peaceful workers to realize they were “fit for something better than slavery and cannon fodder.” Or Sidney Street, jailed in 1969 for burning an American flag on a Harlem street corner to protest the shooting of civil rights figure James Meredith. Many people suffered along the way, such as labor leader Eugene V. It took nearly 200 years to establish firm constitutional limits on the government’s power to punish “seditious” and “subversive” speech. The path to freedom was long and arduous. Many struggles and many cases later, ours is the most speech-protective country in the world. Out of those early cases, modern First Amendment law evolved.
It was during WWI - hardly ancient history - that a person could be jailed just for giving out anti-war leaflets. Those with unpopular political ideas have always borne the brunt of government repression. Especially during times of national stress, like war abroad or social upheaval at home, people exercising their First Amendment rights have been censored, fined, even jailed. The Supreme Court has written that this freedom is “the matrix, the indispensable condition of nearly every other form of freedom.” Without it, other fundamental rights, like the right to vote, would wither and die.īut in spite of its “preferred position” in our constitutional hierarchy, the nation’s commitment to freedom of expression has been tested over and over again.
Freedom of speech, of the press, of association, of assembly and petition - this set of guarantees, protected by the First Amendment, comprises what we refer to as freedom of expression.
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