Freedom of Speech, Press and Assembly in the United States

Civil Rights and Civil Liberties in the United States: Freedom of Speech, Press, and Assembly

Civil liberties have been most endangered during periods of national emergency. In 1798 hostility toward revolutionary France led Congress to enact the Alien and Sedition Acts, which stripped aliens of nearly all civil rights and threatened freedom of speech and the press by prohibiting “false, scandalous and malicious writing” against the government, Congress, or the president. The constitutionality of these acts was never tested, but they soon expired, were not reenacted, and are now generally agreed to have been unconstitutional.

During the American Civil War (1861-1865), President Abraham Lincoln gave his principal military officers wide and unreviewed authority to arrest civilians for disloyal speech or acts. After World War I (1914-1918), fear of the newly established Communist government in the Soviet Union led to the harassment of suspected subversives by the U.S. Department of Justice.

The rise of National Socialism in Germany, the spread of communism, and the Great Depression of the 1930s all combined to arouse concern for the internal security of the United States. The federal legislative and executive power to deal with disloyal acts was enlarged. In 1940 Congress passed the Smith Act, which outlawed the advocacy of force and violence as a means of bringing about changes in government. In 1950 Congress adopted the Internal Security Act, which established a new federal agency for identifying and suppressing so-called subversive persons and organizations. Congress virtually outlawed the Communist Party in 1954, although membership in the party was not expressly made criminal. These statutes were upheld by the Supreme Court, but eventually were limited in scope and fell into disuse during the 1960s. In 1969 the Court adopted a constitutional standard that protects political speech unless “directed to inciting