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Freedom of Expression and Political Speech

Freedom of Expression and Political Speech in the 1950s

This paper will examine the status of the First Amendment right of freedom of expression as it existed in the 1950s. Specifically, the discussion will focus upon the standard used by the United States Supreme Court to protect freedom of expression with regards to political speech from governmental intrusion and how it changed during the 1950s as a result of the international and domestic political situations. Items discussed will include the background of the political speech standards up to the 1950s, how this standard changed during the 1950s, the domestic and world events which may have influenced this change, and the return to the strict protection standard in the 1960s.

The first time the Supreme Court addressed the issue of protection of political speech was immediately after the First World War. The cases involved prosecutions for agitation against the war and the draft, brought chiefly under the Espionage Act of 1917. It was in these early cases that Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes first articulated the "clear and present danger" standard for differentiating between legal advocacy and the incitement of criminal acts. The first case where Holmes applied this test was Schenck v. United States;1 involving the prosecution of persons who distributed pamphlets to recent draftees, urging them to not show up for service. In the majority opinion, Holmes said that the question in such cases is "whether the words used are used in such circumstances and are of such a nature as to create a clear and present danger that they will bring about the substantive evils that Congress has a right to prevent." In addition, Holmes said that this question is one of "proximity and degree." Holding that the defendants' speech was not protected, Holmes reasoned that, in wartime, some utterances normally protected in peacetime cannot be "endured" because they are "such a hindrance" to th...

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Freedom of Expression and Political Speech. (1969, December 31). In LotsofEssays.com. Retrieved 10:07, March 29, 2024, from https://www.lotsofessays.com/viewpaper/1709222.html