This essay analyzes the decisions of the Supreme Court in the area of freedom of speech with respect to selected cases and examines critically the proposition advanced in the cited statement. The premise of the statement, namely, that the First
Amendment was intended to cover only political speech, is inaccurate. Complications have arisen in areas such as obscenity where the Court has performed a proper role. However, the protection afforded to certain types of speech, especially libellous speech and hate speech, by the Supreme Court has been excessive because the Court in some cases has failed to give sufficient weight to the other societal interests involved.
Intended Coverage of the First Amendment
The statement that the First Amendment's protection of freedom of speech and the press was intended to protect "only political speech," is belied by the language of the First Amendment itself which reads in part: "Congress shall make no law . . . abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press" U.S. Const., Amendment I (1791). As Zechariah Chafee, Jr. puts it, "the framers had no very clear idea as to what they meant by freedom of speech or of the press . . . but [they] used the phrase to embrace the whole realm of thought" William B. Lockhart, Yale Kamisar, Jesse H. Choper & Steven H. Shiffrin, Constitutional Law, (1991), p. 702-703). The opposing or strict constructionist view was expressed by Alexander Meiklejohn: "The guarantee given by the First Amendment . . . is assured only to speech which bears . . . upon . . . matters of public interest" (Supra, p. 701). The difficulty with the strict constructionist view was identified by Chafee when he said that it fails to take into account that "the First Amendment has the power of growing to meet new needs" (Supra, p. 703).
The Court has given the broadest protection under the First Amendment to speech which is of a political nature, but even that protection has not been un...