free speech -- essays research papers

FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION--SPEECH AND PRESS Adoption and the Common Law circumstance Madisons version of the speech and crush out clauses, introduced in the House of Representatives on June 8, 1789, provided The volume shall not be deprived or abridged of their right to speak, to write, or to publish their sentiments and the license of the crowd, as one of the great bulwarks of liberty, shall be inviolable.1 The special(prenominal) committee rewrote the language to some extent, adding other provisions from Madisons draft, to make it direct The license of speech and of the press, and the right of the people peaceably to assemble and natter for their frequent good, and to apply to the Government for redress of grievances, shall not be infringed.2 In this form it went to the Senate, which rewrote it to read That Congress shall make no equity abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press, or the right of the people peaceably to assemble and chitchat for their common good, an d to petition the government for a redress of grievances.3 Subsequently, the religion clauses and these clauses were feature by the Senate.4 The final language was agreed upon in conference. Debate in the House is unenlightening with regard to the meaning the Members ascribed to the speech and press clause and there is no record of debate in the Senate.5 In the trend of debate, Madison warned against the dangers which would arise from discussing and proposing abstract propositions, of which the judgment may not be convinced. I venture to say, that if we confine ourselves to an enumeration of simple, acknowledged principles, the ratification entrust meet with nevertheless little difficulty.6 That the simple, acknowledged principles embodied in the frontmost Amendment kick in occasioned controversy without end both in the courts and out should insomniac one to the difficulties latent in such spare language. Insofar as there is likely to have been a consensus, it was no doubt th e common law view as expressed by Blackstone. The liberty of the press is indeed essential to the nature of a free state but this consists in degradeing no previous restraints upon publications, and not in freedom from censure for criminal matter when published. Every freeman has an undoubted right to lay what sentiments he pleases before the public to forbid this, is to destroy the freedom of the press but if he publishes what is im... ... of the First Amendment preclude the notion that its purpose was to maintain unqualified immunity to every expression that touched on matters indoors the range of political interest. . . . The law is perfectly well settled, this Court utter over fifty years ago, that the first ten amendments to the Constitution, commonly cognise as the Bill of Rights, were not intended to lay down all novel principles of government, but simply to embody certain guaranties and immunities which we had inherited from our English ancestors, and which had from time immemorial been subject to certain well- recognize exceptions arising from the necessities of the case. In incorporating these principles into the fundamental law there was no intention of disregarding the exceptions, which continued to be recognized as if they had been formally expressed. That this represents the authentic view of the Bill of Rights and the spirit in which it must be construed has been recognized again and again in cases that have come here within the last fifty years. Dennis v. United States, 341 U.S. 494, 521-522, 524 (1951) (concurring opinion). The inside quotation is from Robertson v. Baldwin, 165 U.S. 275, 281 (1897).