Table of Contents

Introduction The English and colonial background The debate over the Sedition Act of 1798 Sedition in the courts - enforcement and the free speech tradition Sedition: Reflections and transitions The Declaration, the Constitution, Slavery and Abolition Shall Abolitionists be silenced? Congress confronts the Abolitionists: The Post Office and petitions The demand for Northern legal action against Abolitionists Legal theories of suppression and the defence of free speech Elijah Lovejoy: Mobs, free speech and the privileges of American citizens After Lovejoy: Transformations The free speech battle over Helper's Impending crisis Daniel worth: The struggle for free speech in North Carolina on the eve of the Civil War Lincoln, Vallandigham and suppression: Free speech in the Civil War The free speech tradition confronts the war power A new birth of freedom? The Fourteenth Amendment and the First Amendment Where are they now? Suppression theories in the twentieth century Conclusion

Promotional Information

Considers key struggles for free speech in early U.S. history, most of which were settled outside the judicial arena by legislatures following public opinion.

About the Author

Michael Kent Curtis is Professor of Law at Wake Forest University School of Law. He is the author of No State Shall Abridge: The Fourteenth Amendment and the Bill of Rights, also published by Duke University Press.

Reviews

"Curtis fills in a missing piece of our social history - the social history of political dissent and of agitative speech during nearly six decades, culminating in the Civil War and the adoption of the three Reconstruction Amendments." - William W. Van Alstyne, Duke University School of Law "This book is a major contribution to scholarship on the history of free speech in the United States from 1800 through the Civil War." - David Rabban, University of Texas School of Law.