Hostname: page-component-7479d7b7d-767nl Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-07-11T17:30:28.672Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Freedom of Speech1: During and Since the Civil war

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 August 2014

Extract

Of all the clauses in the Bill of Rights, the free speech guaranty stands foremost in the significance of the political principle it defends, and in the enduring vitality of the problems it puts before us. In an age of toleration bordering on indifference, the phrase protecting the free exercise of religion has been reverently consigned to a life of honored retirement; in the days of conscription “the right of the people to keep and bear arms” finds a place in constitutional structure similar to that of the vermiform appendix in the human body; and the good old search and seizure clause now is roused from a senile contemplation of other days only at rarest intervals, relapsing soon into a customary desuetude. But no such fate will ever befall the free speech clause. The human interest it defends is in a very real sense the most fundamental and permanent in the Bill of Rights, and no changes brought by the onward movement of civilization are ever likely to make the need for its protection less necessary.

For as long as human beings have tongues and minds they will say what they think, and they will think differently. Where the question is important and the issues vital or seemingly vital, such hatred and bitterness is likely to develop as will require a very strong constitutional guaranty and a reverential respect for the written word if oppression is to be prevented. In fact, all the rancor and bitterness attached to actual physical conflict are frequently found in scarcely diminished intensity to have gathered about mere polemics.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © American Political Science Association 1924

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

1

This paper was awarded the first prize in the Harris Political Science prize essay contest in 1923.

References

2 Cf. Tighe, Ambrose, “Legal Theory of the Minnesota Safety Commission Act,” 3 Minnesota Law Review, 1.Google Scholar

3 Cf. Hall, James Parker, “Free Speech in Wartime,” 7 University Record 77 (University of Chicago, 1921).Google Scholar

4 Congressional Globe, App. pt. 2, 37th cong. p. 90.

5 Ex parte Milligan, 2 Wallace, 125.

6 Mayer v. Peabody, 212 U. S. 78 (85) (1908).

7 62 Literary Digest, 45, July 5, 1919.

8 Cf. Chafee, , Freedom of Speech, p. 7.Google Scholar

9 Fletcher, Henry J., “The Civilian and the War Power,” 2 Minnesota Law Review, 113 (1918).Google Scholar

10 Chafee, , “Freedom of Speech in Wartime,” 17 New Republic 66 (1918).Google Scholar

11 Report of the Attorney General (1918) 20, quoted in Chafee, , Freedom of Speech, p. 7.Google Scholar

12 Quoted in Chafee, op. cit. p. 8.

13 Patterson v. Colorado, 205 U. S. 454 (1906).

14 Story, , Commentaries on the Constitution, sec. 1880Google Scholar; see also Schofield, , 9 Publications American Sociological Society 69.Google Scholar

15 Chafee, op. cit., p. 10.

16 Cooley, , Constitutional Limitations, 6th ed., pp. 517, 518.Google Scholar

17 Ibid., p. 517.

18 Ibid., p. 518.

19 Chafee, op. cit. p. 20.

20 Cf. Schofield, op. cit. p. 68.

21 Robertson v. Baldwin, 165 U. S. 275 (1897); see also Black, H. C., Constitutional Law, 3rd ed., p. 651.Google Scholar

22 Abrams v. U. S. 250 U: S. 616 (1919).

23 Schofield, op. cit. p. 76.

24 Chafee, op. cit. p. 23.

25 State v. McKee, 73 Conn. 18 (1900); see also Toledo Newspaper Co. v. U. S., 247 U. S. 402 (1918).

26 Cf. Roe, Gilbert E., 9 Publications American Sociological Society 38.Google Scholar

27 Goldman v. Reyburn et. al. 28 Penn Dist Reporta 88; quoted by Roe.

28 See for instance Schenk v. U. S. 249 U. S. 47 (1918).

29 Chafee, op. cit. p. 61.

30 Loc. cit.

31 Cf. Chafec, op. cit. p. 58. quoting Judge Van Valkenburgh in U. S. v. Rose Pastor Stokes.

32 Cf. Chafee, , “Free Speech and States Rights,” New Republic, Jan. 26, 1921, p. 25.Google Scholar

33 Freund, E., “Freedom of Speech and Press,” 25 New Republic 344.Google Scholar

34 Cf. Chafee, op. cil. p. 86.

35 Cf. Chafee, op. cit. p. 31.

36 Palmer, Hearing before the committee on the Judiciary, H. R. 66th Cong; 2nd Sess, p. 21.

37 Chafee, , “Free Speech in Wartime,” 32 Harvard Law Review 932.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

38 Pound, , “Interests of Personality,” 28 Harvard Law Review.Google Scholar

39 Poindexter, , “Your Right to Speak Freely,” 60 Forum 670.Google Scholar

40 Chafee, op. cit. p. 158.

41 U. S. v. Abrams, 250 U. S. 616 (1919).

42 U. S. v. Schenk, 249 U. S. 47 (1919).

43 Chafee, op. cit. p. 53.

44 U. S. v. Schenk, 249 U. S. 47 (1919).

45 U. S. v. Abrams, 250 U. S. 616 (1919).

Submit a response

Comments

No Comments have been published for this article.