Reflections on Freedom of Speech and the First Amendment

by George Anastaplo

Overview

The guarantee of free speech enshrined in the U.S. Bill of Rights draws upon two millennia of Western thought about the value and necessity of free inquiry. Acclaimed legal scholar George Anastaplo traces the philosophical development of the idea of free inquiry from Plato's Apology to Socrates to John Milton's Areopagitica. He describes how these seminal texts and others by such diverse thinkers as St. Paul, Thomas More, and John Stuart Mill influenced the formation and the earliest applications of the First Amendment. Anastaplo also focuses on the critical free speech implications of a dozen Supreme Court cases and shows how First Amendment interpretations have evolved in response to modern events. Reflections on Freedom of Speech and the First Amendment grounds its vision of America's most basic freedoms in the intellectual traditions of Western political philosophy, providing crucial insight into the legal challenges of the future through the lens of the past.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780813191737
Publisher:	University Press of Kentucky
Publication date:	02/16/2007
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	336
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x (d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

George Anastaplo, professor of law at Loyola University in Chicago and lecturer in the liberal arts at the University of Chicago, is the author of numerous books, including Reflections on Constitutional Law and The Constitutionalist.

Table of Contents

Preface     xi
Part 1
Plato's Apology of Socrates     3
The Ministry of St. Paul     9
Thomas More and Parliamentary Immunity (1521)     14
John Milton's Areopagitica (1644)     20
William Blackstone, Patrick Henry, and Edmund Burke on Liberty (1765-1790)     26
The Declaration of Independence (1776); the Northwest Ordinance (1787)     36
Constitutionalism and the Workings of Freedom of Speech     43
The Virginia Statute of Religious Freedom (1786)     49
The Emergence of a National Bill of Rights (1789-1791)     57
The Organization of the First Amendment     64
The Sedition Act of 1798     71
John Stuart Mill's On Liberty (1859)     78
Freedom of Speech and the Coming of the Civil War     85
Part 2
The Naive Folly of Realists: A Defense of Justice Black (1937-1971)     95
Schenck v. United States (1919); Abrams v. United States (1919)     101
Debs v. United States (1919); Gitlow v. New York (1925)     108
Winston S. Churchill and the Cause of Freedom     116
Dennis v. United States (1951); the Rosenberg Case (1950-1953)     123
Cohen v. California (1971); Texas v. Johnson (1989)     133
The Pentagon Papers Case (1971)     140
Obscenity and the Law     148
Private Property and Public Freedom     155
Buckley v. Valeo (1976)     162
The Regulation of Commercial Speech     170
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948)     177
The Future of the First Amendment?     183
Appendixes
The Declaration of Independence (1776)     189
The United States Constitution (1787)     193
The Amendments to the United States Constitution (1791-1992)     205
Thomas More, Petition to Henry VIII on Parliamentary Freedom of Speech (1521)     215
The Virginia Statute of Religious Liberty (1786)     218
Some Stages of the Religion/Speech/Press/Assembly/Petition Provisions in the First Congress (1789)     221
The Sedition Act (1798)     224
The Virginia Resolutions (1798)     226
Report of a House of Delegates Minority on the Virginia Resolutions (1799)     229
Thomas Jefferson, the First Inaugural Address (1801)     236
Schenck v. United States Leaflet (1917)     241
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948)     246
George Anastaplo, On the Alcatraz Imprisonment of a Convicted Soviet Spy (1954)     253
George Anastaplo, An Obscenity-Related Case from Dallas (1989-1990)      269
Cases and Other Materials Drawn On     300
Index     305
About the Author     321

Editorial Reviews

"Distinctive, self-assured, audaciously unconventional, and challenging. Those within Anastaplo's circles will want to look at this book for its skilled and precise rendition of established fare. And those outside those circles, who are less familiar with Anastaplo's concerns, or even those ill-disposed toward those circles, should yet find the book worth careful reading and deliberation."

Ira L. Strauber

"Drawing on the Socratic tradition in political philosophy as well as on British and American traditions of constitutional law, Anastaplo shows why freedom of speech is essential to republican government."

University of Georgia Eugene F. Miller

"Drawing on the Socratic tradition in political philosophy as well as on British and American traditions of constitutional law, Anastaplo shows why freedom of speech is essential to republican government." — Eugene F. Miller, University of Georgia

"Anastaplo's understanding of the importance of thoughtful speech for good government allows him to offer chapters on individuals and books or documents that standard treatments of the first amendment do not cover." — Murray Dry, author of Civil Peace and the Quest for Truth: The First Amendment

"Distinctive, self-assured, audaciously unconventional, and challenging. Those within Anastaplo's circles will want to look at this book for its skilled and precise rendition of established fare. And those outside those circles, who are less familiar with Anastaplo's concerns, or even those ill-disposed toward those circles, should yet find the book worth careful reading and deliberation." — Ira L. Strauber, Grinnell College, Law & Politics

From the Publisher

"Anastaplo's understanding of the importance of thoughtful speech for good government allows him to offer chapters on individuals and books or documents that standard treatments of the first amendment do not cover."

author of Civil Peace and the Quest for Truth: Murray Dry