Parties: Beauharnais v. Illinois
Date: 1952-04-28
Identifiers:
Opinions:
Segment Sets:
Paragraph: 15 - Every power may be abused, but the possibility of abuse is a poor reason for denying Illinois the power to adopt measures against criminal libels sanctioned by centuries of Anglo-American law. 'While this Court sits' it retains and exercises authority to nullify action which encroaches on freedom of utterance under the guise of punishing libel. Of course discussion cannot be denied and the right, as well as the duty, of criticism must not be stifled.
Notes:
Preferred Terms:
Phrase match: on freedom of utterance under the
Search time: 2017-10-13 13:47:37 Searcher: ars9ef Editor: ars9ef tcs9pk Segmenter: ars9ef tcs9pk
Paragraph: 25 - Americans stated as the first unequivocal command of their Bill of Rights: 'Congress shall make no law * * * abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.' Without distortion, this First Amendment could not possibly be read so as to hold that Congress has power to punish Beauharnais and others for petitioning Congress as they have here sought to petition the Chicago authorities.
Notes:
Preferred Terms:
Phrase match: the freedom of speech, or of
Search time: 2017-10-13 13:47:37 Searcher: ars9ef Editor: ars9ef tcs9pk Segmenter: ars9ef tcs9pk
Paragraph: 40 - New Hampshire had a state law making it an offense to direct insulting words at an individual on a public street. Chaplinsky had violated that law by calling a man vile names 'face-to-face'. We pointed out in that context that the use of such 'fighting' words was not an essential part of exposition of ideas. Whether the words used in their context here are 'fighting' words in the same sense is doubtful, but whether so or not they are not addressed to or about individuals. Moreover, the leaflet used here was also the means adopted by an assembled group to enlist interest in their efforts to have legislation enacted. And the fighting words were but a part of arguments on questions of wide public interest and importance. Freedom of petition, assembly, speech and press could be greatly abridged by a practice of meticulously scrutinizing every editorial, speech, sermon or other printed matter to extract two or three naughty words on which to hang charges of 'group libel.'
Notes:
Preferred Terms:
Phrase match: importance. Freedom of petition, assembly, speech
Search time: 2017-10-13 13:47:37 Searcher: ars9ef Editor: ars9ef tcs9pk Segmenter: ars9ef tcs9pk
Paragraph: 44 - No rationalization on a purely legal level can conceal the fact that state laws like this one present a constant overhanging threat to freedom of speech, press and religion. Today Beauharnais is punished for publicly expressing strong views in favor of segregation. Ironically enough, Beauharnais, convicted of crime in Chicago, would probably be given a hero's reception in many other localities, if not in some parts of Chicago itself. Moreover, the same kind of state law that makes Beauharnais a criminal for advocating segregation in Illinois can be utilized to send people to jail in other states for advocating equality and nonsegregation. What Beauharnais said in his leaflet is mild compared with usual arguments on both sides of racial controversies.
Notes:
Preferred Terms:
Phrase match: to freedom of speech, press and
Search time: 2017-10-13 13:47:37 Searcher: ars9ef Editor: ars9ef tcs9pk Segmenter: ars9ef tcs9pk
Paragraph: 45 - We are told that freedom of petition and discussion are in no danger 'while this Court sits.' This case raises considerable doubt. Since those who peacefully petition for changes in the law are not to be protected 'while this Court sits,' who is? I do not agree that the Constitution leaves freedom of petition, assembly, speech, press or worship at the mercy of a case-by-case, day-by-day majority of this Court. I had supposed that our people could rely for their freedom on the Constitution's commands, rather than on the grace of this Court on an individual case basis. To say that a legislative body can, with this Court's approval, make it a crime to petition for and publicly discuss proposed legislation seems as farfetched to me as it would be to say that a valid law could be enacted to punish a candidate for President for telling the people his views. I think the First Amendment, with the Fourteenth, 'absolutely' forbids such laws without any 'ifs' or 'buts' or 'whereases.' Whatever the danger, if any, in such public discussions, it is a danger the Founders deemed outweighed by the danger incident to the stifling of thought and speech. The Court does not act on this view of the Founders. It calculates what it deems to be the danger of public discussion, holds the scales are tipped on the side of state suppression, and upholds state censorship. This method of decision offers little protection to First Amendment liberties 'while this Court sits.'
Notes:
Preferred Terms:
Phrase match: that freedom of petition and discussion
Search time: 2017-10-13 13:47:37 Searcher: ars9ef Editor: ars9ef tcs9pk Segmenter: ars9ef tcs9pk
Paragraph: 69 - The First Amendment is conched in absolute terms—freedom of speech shall not be abridged. Speech has therefore a preferred position as contrasted to some other civil rights. For example, privacy, equally sacred to some, is protected by the Fourth Amendment only against unreasonable searches and seizures. There is room for regulation of the ways and means of invading privacy. No such leeway is granted the invasion of the right of free speech guaranteed by the First Amendment. Until recent years that had been the course and direction of constitutional law. Yet recently the Court in this and in other cases has engrafted the right of regulation onto the First Amendment by placing in the hands of the legislative branch the right to regulate 'within reasonable limits' the right of free speech. This to me is an ominous and alarming trend. The free trade in ideas which the Framers of the Constitution visualized disappears. In its place there is substituted a new orthodoxy—an orthodoxy that changes with the whims of the age or the day, an orthodoxy which the majority by solemn judgment proclaims to be essential to the safety, welfare, security, morality, or health of society. Free speech in the constitutional sense disappears. Limits are drawn—limits dictated by expediency, political opinion, prejudices or some other desideratum of legislative action.
Notes:
Preferred Terms:
Phrase match: terms—freedom of speech shall not
Search time: 2017-10-13 13:47:37 Searcher: ars9ef Editor: ars9ef tcs9pk Segmenter: ars9ef tcs9pk
Paragraph: 70 - The First Amendment says that freedom of speech, freedom of press, and the free exercise of religion shall not be abridged. That is a negation of power on the part of each and every department of government. Free speech, free press, free exercise of religion are placed separate and apart; they are above and beyond the police power; they are not subject to regulation in the manner of factories, slums, apartment houses, production of oil, and the like.
Notes:
Preferred Terms:
Phrase match: that freedom of speech, freedom of
Search time: 2017-10-13 13:47:37 Searcher: ars9ef Editor: ars9ef tcs9pk Segmenter: ars9ef tcs9pk
Paragraph: 75 - The assumption of other dissents is that the 'liberty' which the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment protects against denial by the States is the literal and identical 'freedom of speech, or of the press' which the First Amendment forbids only Congress to abridge. The history of criminal libel in America convinces me that the Fourteenth Amendment did not 'incorporate' the First, that the powers of Congress and of the States over this subject are not of the same dimensions, and that because Congress probably could not enact this law it does not follow that the States may not.
Notes:
Preferred Terms:
Phrase match: identical 'freedom of speech, or of
Search time: 2017-10-13 13:47:37 Searcher: ars9ef Editor: ars9ef tcs9pk Segmenter: ars9ef tcs9pk
Paragraph: 91 - criminal libel laws are consistent with the concept of ordered liberty only when applied with safeguards evolved to prevent their invasion of freedom of expression.
Notes:
Preferred Terms:
Phrase match: of freedom of expression
Search time: 2017-10-13 13:47:37 Searcher: ars9ef Editor: ars9ef tcs9pk Segmenter: ars9ef tcs9pk
Paragraph: 69 - \ Yet recently the Court in this and in other cases has engrafted the right of regulation onto the First Amendment by placing in the hands of the legislative branch the right to regulate 'within reasonable limits' the right of free speech. This to me is an ominous and alarming trend. The free trade in ideas which the Framers of the Constitution visualized disappears. In its place there is substituted a new orthodoxy—an orthodoxy that changes with the whims of the age or the day, an orthodoxy which the majority by solemn judgment proclaims to be essential to the safety, welfare, security, morality, or health of society. Free speech in the constitutional sense disappears. Limits are drawn—limits dictated by expediency, political opinion, prejudices or some other desideratum of legislative action.
Notes:
Preferred Terms:
Phrase match: the right of regulation onto the
Search time: 2018-03-15 12:38:56 Searcher: clm6u Editor: ars9ef Segmenter: ars9ef
Paragraph: 103 - While I support the right of a State to place decent bounds upon it, I am not ready to hold that group purposes, characteristics and histories are to be immunized from comment or may be discussed only at the risk of prosecution free of all usual safeguards.
Notes:
Preferred Terms:
Phrase match: the right of a State to
Search time: 2018-03-15 12:38:56 Searcher: clm6u Editor: ars9ef Segmenter: ars9ef
Paragraph: 56 - So important to a constitutional democracy is the right of discussion that any challenge to legislative abridgment of those privileges of a free people calls for careful judicial appraisal. It is when speech becomes an incitement to crime that the right freely to exhort may be abridged.
Notes:
Preferred Terms:
Phrase match: the right of discussion that any
Search time: 2018-03-15 12:38:56 Searcher: clm6u Editor: ars9ef Segmenter: ars9ef
Paragraph: 27 - N39* The right of a State to regulate, for example, a public utility may well include, so far as the due process test is concerned, power to impose all of the restrictions which a legislature may have a 'rational basis' for adopting. But freedoms of speech and of press, of assembly, and of worship may not be infringed on such slender grounds.'
Notes:
Preferred Terms:
Phrase match: The right of a State to
Search time: 2018-03-15 12:38:56 Searcher: clm6u Editor: ars9ef Segmenter: ars9ef
Paragraph: 69 - Yet recently the Court in this and in other cases has engrafted the right of regulation onto the First Amendment by placing in the hands of the legislative branch the right to regulate 'within reasonable limits' the right of free speech. This to me is an ominous and alarming trend. The free trade in ideas which the Framers of the Constitution visualized disappears. In its place there is substituted a new orthodoxy—an orthodoxy that changes with the whims of the age or the day, an orthodoxy which the majority by solemn judgment proclaims to be essential to the safety, welfare, security, morality, or health of society. Free speech in the constitutional sense disappears. Limits are drawn—limits dictated by expediency, political opinion, prejudices or some other desideratum of legislative action.
Notes:
Preferred Terms:
Phrase match: the right to regulate 'within reasonable
Search time: 2018-01-12 14:48:12 Searcher: ars9ef Editor: ars9ef tcs9pk Segmenter: ars9ef tcs9pk
Paragraph: 11 - In the face of this history and its frequent obligato of extreme racial and religious propaganda, we would deny experience to say that the Illinois legislature was without reason in seeking ways to curb false or malicious defamation of racial and religious groups, made in public places and by means calculated to have a powerful emotional impact on those to whom it was presented.N48* 'There are limits to the exercise of these liberties (of speech and of the press). The danger in these times from the coercive activities of those who in the delusion of racial or religious conceit would incite violence and breaches of the peace in order to deprive others of their equal right to the exercise of their liberties, is emphasized by events familiar to all. These and other transgressions of those limits the states appropriately may punish.'
Notes:
Preferred Terms:
Phrase match: equal right to the exercise of
Search time: 2018-01-12 14:48:12 Searcher: ars9ef Editor: ars9ef tcs9pk Segmenter: ars9ef tcs9pk
Paragraph: 95 - N49* 'Every citizen may freely speak, write, and publish his sentiments on all subjects, being responsible for the abuse of that right; and no law shall be passed to restrain or abridge the liberty to speech, or of the press. In all prosecutions or indictments for libels, the truth may be given in evidence to the jury; and if it shall appear to the jury that the matter charged as libellous is true, and was published with good motives and for justifiable ends, the party shall be acquitted; and the jury shall have the right to determine the law and the fact.'
Notes:
Preferred Terms:
Phrase match: the right to determine the law
Search time: 2018-01-12 14:48:12 Searcher: ars9ef Editor: ars9ef tcs9pk Segmenter: ars9ef tcs9pk
Paragraph: 98 - clear and present danger of those substantive evils which the legislature has a right to prevent. The evils at which Congress may aim, and in so doing come into conflict with free speech, will be relatively few since it is a government of limited powers. Because the States may reach more evils, they will have wider range to punish speech which presents clear and present danger of bringing about those evils.
Notes:
Preferred Terms:
Phrase match: a right to prevent. The evils
Search time: 2018-01-12 14:48:12 Searcher: ars9ef Editor: ars9ef tcs9pk Segmenter: ars9ef tcs9pk
Paragraph: 103 - N50* The same may be said of the right to comment upon matters of public interest insofar as the statement includes matters of opinion, a point, however, which the defense may have inadequately raised. When any naturally cohesive or artificially organized group possesses a racial or sectarian solidarity which is or may be exploited to influence public affairs, that group becomes a legitimate subject for public comment. Of course, one can only deplore the habitual intemperance and bitter disparagement which characterizes most such comment. While I support the right of a State to place decent bounds upon it, I am not ready to hold that group purposes, characteristics and histories are to be immunized from comment or may be discussed only at the risk of prosecution free of all usual safeguards.
Notes:
Preferred Terms:
Phrase match: the right to comment upon matters
Search time: 2018-01-12 14:48:12 Searcher: ars9ef Editor: ars9ef tcs9pk Segmenter: ars9ef tcs9pk
Paragraph: 20 - Libelous utterances not being within the area of constitutionally protected speech, it is unnecessary, either for us or for the State courts, to consider the issues behind the phrase 'clear and present danger.' Certainly no one would contend that obscene speech, for example, may be punished only upon a showing of such circumstances. Libel, as we have seen, is in the same class.
Notes:
Preferred Terms:
Phrase match: constitutionally protected speech, it is unnecessary
Search time: 2017-11-10 14:59:38 Searcher: clm6u Editor: ars9ef tcs9pk Segmenter: ars9ef tcs9pk
Paragraph: 70 - In matters relating to business, finance, industrial and labor conditions, health and the public welfare, great leeway is now granted the legislature, for there is no guarantee in the Constitution that the status quo will be preserved against regulation by government. Freedom of speech, however, rests on a different constitutional basis. The First Amendment says that freedom of speech, freedom of press, and the free exercise of religion shall not be abridged. That is a negation of power on the part of each and every department of government. Free speech, free press, free exercise of religion are placed separate and apart; they are above and beyond the police power; they are not subject to regulation in the manner of factories, slums, apartment houses, production of oil, and the like.
Notes:
Preferred Terms:
Phrase match: Freedom of speech, however, rests on
Search time: 2017-11-10 14:59:38 Searcher: clm6u Editor: ars9ef tcs9pk Segmenter: ars9ef tcs9pk
Paragraph: 71 - individual liberty Today a white man stands convicted for protesting in unseemly language against our decisions invalidating restrictive covenants. Tomorrow a negro will be haliled before a court for denouncing lynch law in heated terms. Farm laborers in the west who compete with field hands drifting up from Mexico; whites who feel the pressure of orientals; a minority which finds employment going to members of the dominant religious group—all of these are caught in the mesh of today's decision. Debate and argument even in the courtroom are not always calm and dispassionate. Emotions sway speakers and audiences alike. Intemperate speech is a distinctive characteristic of man. Hot-heads blow off and release destructive energy in the process. They shout and rave, exaggerating weaknesses, magnifying error, viewing with alarm. So it has been from the beginning; and so it will be throughout time. The Framers of the Constitution knew human nature as well as we do. They too had lived in dangerous days; they too knew the suffocating influence of orthodoxy and standardized thought. They weighed the compulsions for retrained speech and thought against the abuses of liberty. They chose liberty. That should be our choice today no matter how distasteful to us the pamphlet of Beauharnais may be.
Notes:
Preferred Terms:
Phrase match: alike. Intemperate speech is a distinctive
Search time: 2017-11-10 14:59:38 Searcher: clm6u Editor: ars9ef tcs9pk Segmenter: ars9ef tcs9pk
Paragraph: 40 - Whether the words used in their context here are 'fighting' words in the same sense is doubtful, but whether so or not they are not addressed to or about individuals. Moreover, the leaflet used here was also the means adopted by an assembled group to enlist interest in their efforts to have legislation enacted. And the fighting words were but a part of arguments on questions of wide public interest and importance. Freedom of petition, assembly, speech and press could be greatly abridged by a practice of meticulously scrutinizing every editorial, speech, sermon or other printed matter to extract two or three naughty words on which to hang charges of 'group libel.'
Notes:
Preferred Terms:
Phrase match: could be greatly abridged by a practice of
Search time: 2018-03-15 11:58:04 Searcher: clm6u Editor: tcs9pk Segmenter: tcs9pk
Paragraph: 38 - N19* The Court condones this expansive state censorship by painstakingly analogizing it to the law of criminal libel. As a result of this refined analysis, the Illinois statute emerges labeled a 'group libel law.' This label may make the Court's holding more palatable for those who sustain it, but the sugar-coating does not make the censorship less deadly. However tagged, the Illinois law is not that criminal libel which has been 'defined, limited and constitutionally recognized time out of mind'. For as 'CONSTITUTIONALLY RECOGNIZED' THAT CRIME has provided for punishment of false, malicious, scurrilous charges against individuals, not against huge groups. This limited scope of the law of criminal libel is of no small importance. It has confined state punishment of speech and expression to the narrowest of areas involving nothing more than purely private feuds. Every expansion of the law of criminal libel so as to punish discussions of matters of public concern means a corresponding invasion of the area dedicated to free expression by the First Amendment.
Notes:
Preferred Terms:
Phrase match: this expansive state censorship by painstakingly analogizing
Search time: 2018-03-29 14:11:32 Searcher: clm6u Editor: ars9ef tcs9pk Segmenter: ars9ef tcs9pk
Paragraph: 45 - It N20* calculates what it deems to be the danger of public discussion, holds the scales are tipped on the side of state suppression, and upholds state censorship. This method of decision offers little protection to First Amendment liberties 'while this Court sits.'
Notes:
Preferred Terms:
Phrase match: and upholds state censorship. This method of
Search time: 2018-03-29 14:11:32 Searcher: clm6u Editor: ars9ef tcs9pk Segmenter: ars9ef tcs9pk
Paragraph: 40 - N1* New Hampshire had a state law making it an offense to direct insulting words at an individual on a public street. Chaplinsky had violated that law by calling a man vile names 'face-to-face'. We pointed out in that context that the use of such 'fighting' words was not an essential part of exposition of ideas. Whether the words used in their context here are 'fighting' words in the same sense is doubtful, but whether so or not they are not addressed to or about individuals. Moreover, the leaflet used here was also the means adopted by an assembled group to enlist interest in their efforts to have legislation enacted. And the fighting words were but a part of arguments on questions of wide public interest and importance. Freedom of petition, assembly, speech and press could be greatly abridged by a practice of meticulously scrutinizing every editorial, speech, sermon or other printed matter to extract two or three naughty words on which to hang charges of 'group libel.' The Chaplinsky case makes no such broad inroads on First Amendment freedoms.
Notes:
Preferred Terms:
Phrase match: and press could be greatly abridged by a practice
Search time: 2018-03-15 11:53:17 Searcher: clm6u Editor: ars9ef Segmenter: ars9ef
Paragraph: 69 - The First Amendment is conched in absolute terms—freedom of speech shall not be abridged. Speech has therefore a preferred position as contrasted to some other civil rights.
Notes:
Preferred Terms:
Phrase match:
Search time: 2018-04-02 15:38:12 Searcher: clm6u Editor: tcs9pk Segmenter: tcs9pk
Paragraph: 45 - We are told that freedom of petition and discussion are in no danger 'while this Court sits.' This case raises considerable doubt. Since those who peacefully petition for changes in the law are not to be protected 'while this Court sits,' who is? I do not agree that the Constitution leaves freedom of petition, assembly, speech, press or worship at the mercy of a case-by-case, day-by-day majority of this Court.
Notes:
Preferred Terms:
Phrase match:
Search time: 2018-04-12 08:37:53 Searcher: clm6u Editor: ars9ef tcs9pk Segmenter: ars9ef tcs9pk
Paragraph: 16 - The scope of the statute before us, as construed by the Illinois court, disposes of the contention that the conduct prohibited by the law is so ill-defined that judges and juries in applying the statute and men in acting cannot draw from it adequate standards to guide them. The clarifying construction and fixed usage which govern the meaning of the enactment before us were not present, so the Court found, in the New York law held invalid in Winters v. People of State of New York, 333 U.S. 507, 68 S.Ct. 665, 92 L.Ed. 840. Nor, thus construed and limited, is the act so broad that the general verdict of guilty on an indictment drawn in the statutory language might have been predicated on constitutionally protected conduct. On this score, the conviction here reviewed differs from those upset in Stromberg v. People of State of California, 283 U.S. 359, 51 S.Ct. 532, 75 L.Ed. 1117; Thornhill v. State of Alabama, 310 U.S. 88, 60 S.Ct. 736, 84 L.Ed. 1093; and Terminiello v. City of Chicago, 337 U.S. 1, 69 S.Ct. 894, 93 L.Ed. 1131. Even the latter case did not hold that the unconstitutionality of a statute is established because the speech prohibited by it raises a ruckus.
Notes:
Preferred Terms:
Phrase match:
Search time: 2018-04-12 08:37:53 Searcher: clm6u Editor: ars9ef tcs9pk Segmenter: ars9ef tcs9pk
Paragraph: 20 - Libelous utterances not being within the area of constitutionally protected speech, it is unnecessary, either for us or for the State courts, to consider the issues behind the phrase 'clear and present danger.' Certainly no one would contend that obscene speech, for example, may be punished only upon a showing of such circumstances. Libel, as we have seen, is in the same class.
Notes:
Preferred Terms:
Phrase match:
Search time: 2018-04-12 08:37:53 Searcher: clm6u Editor: ars9ef tcs9pk Segmenter: ars9ef tcs9pk
Paragraph: 56 - In carrying out its obligation to conform state legal administration to the 'fundamental principles of liberty and justice' imposed on the states by the Fourteenth Amendment, this Court has steadily affirmed that the general principle against abridgment of free speech, protected by the First Amendment, is included in the command of the Fourteenth. So important to a constitutional democracy is the right of discussion that any challenge to legislative abridgment of those privileges of a free people calls for careful judicial appraisal. It is when speech becomes an incitement to crime that the right freely to exhort may be abridged.
Notes:
Preferred Terms:
Phrase match:
Search time: 2018-04-12 08:37:53 Searcher: clm6u Editor: ars9ef tcs9pk Segmenter: ars9ef tcs9pk
Paragraph: 69 - Speech has therefore a preferred position as contrasted to some other civil rights. For example, privacy, equally sacred to some, is protected by the Fourth Amendment only against unreasonable searches and seizures. There is room for regulation of the ways and means of invading privacy. No such leeway is granted the invasion of the right of free speech guaranteed by the First Amendment. Until recent years that had been the course and direction of constitutional law. Yet recently the Court in this and in other cases has engrafted the right of regulation onto the First Amendment by placing in the hands of the legislative branch the right to regulate 'within reasonable limits' the right of free speech. This to me is an ominous and alarming trend. The free trade in ideas which the Framers of the Constitution visualized disappears.
Notes:
Preferred Terms:
Phrase match:
Search time: 2018-04-12 08:37:53 Searcher: clm6u Editor: ars9ef tcs9pk Segmenter: ars9ef tcs9pk