Press and Speech under Assault
Subtitle: The Early Supreme Court Justices, the Sedition Act of 1798, and the Campaign Against Dissent
Publisher: Oxford University Press, Incorporated
Published: 2016
Language: eng
Number of pages: 528
ISBN-13: 9780190461621
Subjects: Alien and sedition laws, 1798; United states, history; Sedition; Civil rights
Description: The early Supreme Court justices wrestled with how much press and speech is protected by freedoms of press and speech, before and under the First Amendment, and with whether the Sedition Act of 1798 violated those freedoms. This book discusses the 12 Supreme Court justices before John Marshall, their views of liberties of press and speech, and the Sedition Act prosecutions over which some of them presided. The book begins with the views of the pre-Marshall justices about freedoms of press and speech, before the struggle over the Sedition Act. It finds that their understanding was strikingly more expansive than the narrow definition of Sir William Blackstone, which is usually assumed to have dominated the period. Not one justice of the Supreme Court adopted that narrow definition before 1798, and all expressed strong commitments to those freedoms.