Free Speech, "The People's Darling Privilege": Struggles for Freedom of Expression in American History

Curtis, Michael Kent

doi:10.2307/2700660

Cited by 7 publications

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“…In particular, they sought to outlaw the opposition party via the Sedition Act of 1798, which made it a federal crime to “write, print, utter or publish … any false, scandalous and malicious … writings against … the President of the United States.” 5 They then used this statute to target opposition writers and printers, including one sitting member of Congress. Representative Matthew Lyon, a Jeffersonian Republican from Vermont, was convicted and sentenced to 4 months in prison for public letters and speeches accusing President Adams of “a continual grasp for power … [and] unbounded thirst for ridiculous pomp” and suggesting that he be sent to “a mad house” (Curtis, 2000: 52–104; see also Mettler & Lieberman, 2020: 48–53). The modern notion of legitimate opposition had not yet taken full shape, but by any standard, jailing opposition legislators for published criticism of an incumbent executive who was then seeking reelection is a threat to free and fair elections.…”

Section: The Supreme Court's Performance During Democratic Crisesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…(Again, the latter concept had not yet taken firm root, but Jeffersonians denounced the judges' actions on both grounds.) To the contrary, the Federalist judges offered overt support for the Sedition Act, systematically eliminating Democratic‐Republicans from jury pools, barring Jeffersonian lawyers from challenging the Act's constitutionality in court, and sometimes delivering partisan tirades from the bench (Curtis, 2000: 68, 82, 90–91). Following the election, even while threatening to undermine the electoral college count, the lame‐duck Congress and President Adams enacted and signed the Judiciary Act of 1801, which substantially increased the size of the federal courts.…”

Section: The Supreme Court's Performance During Democratic Crisesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…White Southern elites repeatedly used their minority control of national political institutions to undermine key norms of constitutional democracy that threatened their control. For example, both state and federal government actors engaged in extensive and sometimes violent curtailment of abolitionist speech (Curtis, 2000: 131–299). In 1856, pro‐slavery violence famously reached the floor of the Senate, with South Carolina Representative Preston Brooks responding to an anti‐slavery speech from Massachusetts Senator Charles Sumner by beating him nearly to death (Mettler & Lieberman, 2020: 82–83; see also Freeman, 2018).…”

Section: The Supreme Court's Performance During Democratic Crisesmentioning

confidence: 99%

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The U.S. Supreme Court and democratic backsliding

Keck

2024

Law & Policy

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This paper assesses the performance of the Supreme Court as democratic guardrail during five prior periods of democratic crisis in the United States. It finds that most such periods witnessed efforts by the governing regime to entrench themselves in power, and that the Court has rarely provided an effective check on such democratic abuses. Rather than serving as a reliable democratic guardrail, the Court has regularly exercised what Dixon and Landau call “weak‐form abusive judicial review”; that is, it has declined to check attacks on democracy emerging from other centers of power. On one occasion, the Court has undermined democracy even more directly via “strong‐form abusive judicial review”; that is, the Court itself attacked key democratic guardrails. This historical record provides a helpful baseline for evaluating the Court's performance during the Trump era, when it has taken actions that both protect and undermine democratic health. Conflicting signs indicate that the Court is playing a more democracy‐protective role than most of its predecessors in some respects, but a more democracy‐undermining role in others. As such, it is too soon to say with confidence whether the contemporary Court will be remembered, on balance, for resolving or exacerbating a system‐threatening constitutional crisis.

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Section: The Supreme Court's Performance During Democratic Crisesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: The Supreme Court's Performance During Democratic Crisesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: The Supreme Court's Performance During Democratic Crisesmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

The U.S. Supreme Court and democratic backsliding

Keck

2024

Law & Policy

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Free Speech and Democracy in Ancient Athens

Saxonhouse

2005

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This book illuminates the distinctive character of our modern understanding of the basis and value of free speech by contrasting it with the very different form of free speech that was practised by the ancient Athenians in their democratic regime. Free speech in the ancient democracy was not a protected right but an expression of the freedom from hierarchy, awe, reverence and shame. It was thus an essential ingredient of the egalitarianism of that regime. That freedom was challenged by the consequences of the rejection of shame (aidos) which had served as a cohesive force within the polity. Through readings of Socrates's trial, Greek tragedy and comedy, Thucydides's History, and Plato's Protagoras this volume explores the paradoxical connections between free speech, democracy, shame, and Socratic philosophy and Thucydidean history as practices of uncovering.

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The Politics of Anxiety in Nineteenth-Century American Literature

Murison¹

2011

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For much of the nineteenth century, the nervous system was a medical mystery, inspiring scientific studies and exciting great public interest. Because of this widespread fascination, the nerves came to explain the means by which mind and body related to each other. By the 1830s, the nervous system helped Americans express the consequences on the body, and for society, of major historical changes. Literary writers, including Nathaniel Hawthorne and Harriet Beecher Stowe, used the nerves as a metaphor to re-imagine the role of the self amidst political, social and religious tumults, including debates about slavery and the revivals of the Second Great Awakening. Representing the 'romance' of the nervous system and its cultural impact thoughtfully and, at times, critically, the fictional experiments of this century helped construct and explore a neurological vision of the body and mind. Murison explains the impact of neurological medicine on nineteenth-century literature and culture.

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Free Speech, "The People's Darling Privilege": Struggles for Freedom of Expression in American History

Cited by 7 publications

References 0 publications

The U.S. Supreme Court and democratic backsliding

The U.S. Supreme Court and democratic backsliding

Free Speech and Democracy in Ancient Athens

The Politics of Anxiety in Nineteenth-Century American Literature

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