Freedom for the Thought That We Hate: A Biography of the First Amendment

241 Pages·2008·0.76 MB·English

by  Anthony Lewis

HISTORY / LAW
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“Mr.Lewis does a remarkable job of presenting the history and scope of E
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freedom of thought. . . a concise and wise book.”—THE ECONOMIST
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ore than any other people on earth, Americans are free to say and write what they think.
This extraordinary freedom results from fourteen words in the constitution: “Congress
shall make no law. . . abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press.” In Freedom for the
Thought That We Hate, Pulitzer Prize–winning journalistAnthony Lewis describes how America’s
free-speech rights were created and how they continue to shape the nation’s history and identity.
“[Lewis] looks behind the printed page to scrutinize the experiences and values of the men and women
whose utterances are given the force of law. The result is a short history of the First Amendment that
is always illuminating and sometimes rollicking.” —LOS ANGELES TIMES
“Lewis blends a profound understanding of First Amendment jurisprudence and history with an
enjoyable writing style that his readers have long come to admire. In our war-torn era where
dissent and open-minded debate have become problematic, Lewis compels us to remember the
crucial function free speech serves in our democratic form of government.” “A heroic account of how courageous judges in the
—CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR twentiethcentury created the modern First Amendment.”
“It’s hard to imagine a book about legal history reading like a page-turner, but this one does. The FO —THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW M
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Supreme Court justices whose decisions have shaped our country emerge as conflicted and principled A B I O G R A P H Y D
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human beings. The questions that have yet to be settled press impatiently against the book’s pages, L
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reminding us that the First Amendment continues to shift under our feet even as we read.” TH OF THE 1
—PROVIDENCE JOURNAL 0
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F I R S T A M E N D M E N T 0
ANTHONY LEWIS G 1
Two-time Pulitzer Prize winner was a columnist for the New York H 1
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from1983to 2008, the James Madison Visiting Professor at Columbia University. His previous books T Y
are Gideon’s Trumpet, Portrait of a Decade, and Make No Law: The Sullivan Case and the First Amendment. W AN
He lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts. $15.95 US / $20.00 CAN E H Author of Gideon’s Trumpet MA
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Cover design by Anita van de Ven ISBN 978-0-465-01819-2 T ANTHONY LEWIS Y
51595 E E
Cover photograph © Ken Cedeno / CORBIS L
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INNER OF THE ULITZER RIZE L
A Member of the Perseus Books Group A
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www.basicbooks.com 9 780465 018192 K
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Freedom for the
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Freedom for the
Thought That We Hate
✧ ✧ ✧
A Biography of the First Amendment
ANTHONY LEWIS
A Member of the Perseus Books Group
New York
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Copyright © 2007 by Anthony Lewis
Hardcover first published in 2007 by Basic Books,
A Member of the Perseus Books Group
Paperback first published in 2009 by Basic Books
All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. No part
of this book may be reproduced in any manner whatsoever without
written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied
in critical articles and reviews. For information, address Basic Books,
387 Park Avenue South, New York, NY 10016–8810.
Books published by Basic Books are available at special discounts
or bulk purchases in the United States by corporations, institutions,
and other organizations. For more information, please contact the
Special Markets Department at the Perseus Books Group, 2300
Chestnut St., Philadelphia, PA 19103, or call [phone],
ext. 5000, or e-mail [email protected].
Designed by Brent Wilcox
The Library of Congress has cataloged the hardcover as follows:
Lewis, Anthony, 1927-
Freedom for the thought that we hate : a biography of the First
Amendment / Anthony Lewis.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN-13: 978-0-465-03917-3 (alk. paper)
ISBN-10: 0-465-03917-0 (alk. paper)
1. Freedom of speech--United States. 2. Freedom of the press--
United States. I. Title.
KF4770.L49 2007
342.7308'53--dc22
2007040249
Paperback ISBN: 978-0-465-01819-2
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To Margie
Who makes everything possible
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CONTENTS
Introduction ix
1 Beginnings 1
2 “Odious or Contemptible” 11
3 “As All Life Is an Experiment” 23
4 Defining Freedom 39
5 Freedom and Privacy 59
6 A Press Privilege? 81
7 Fear Itself 101
8 “Another’s Lyric” 131
9 “Vagabonds and Outlaws” 143
10 Thoughts That We Hate 157
11 Balancing Interests 169
12 Freedom of Thought 183
Acknowledgments 191
Table of Cases 193
Notes 197
Index 209
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INTRODUCTION
Ours is the most outspoken society on earth. Americans are
freer to think what we will and say what we think than any
other people, and freer today than in the past. We can bare
the secrets of government and the secrets of the bedroom. We
can denounce our rulers, and each other, with little fear of the
consequences. There is almost no chance that a court will
stop us from publishing what we wish: in print, on the air, or
on the Web. Hateful and shocking expression, political or
artistic, is almost all free to enter the marketplace of ideas.
Other countries that we think of as like our own—Britain,
for example—have many more restrictions on what can be
said. Why are we different? Where does our extraordinary
freedom come from? The answer commonly given is “the
First Amendment.” That amendment to the United States
Constitution provides, among other things, that “Congress
shall make no law ... abridging the freedom of speech, or of
the press. ...”
But those fourteen words cannot in themselves account for
our great freedom, because over many decades they did not
protect critical expression. In 1798, just seven years after the
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