Repressive Jurisprudence in the Early American Republic: The First Amendment and the Legacy of English Law

This volume seeks to explain how American society, which had been capable of noble aspirations such as those in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, was capable of adopting one of the most widely deplored statutes of our history, the Sedition Act of 1798. It examines how the political ideals of the American Revolution were undermined by the adoption of repressive doctrines of the English monarchial system – the criminalization of criticism against the king, the Parliament, ...