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The Lessons Of 1919, Lackland H. Bloom
The Lessons Of 1919, Lackland H. Bloom
SMU Law Review
One hundred years ago, the Supreme Court embarked on its first serious consideration of the First Amendment’s guarantee of freedom of speech. In 1919, the Court upheld four federal criminal convictions over First Amendment defenses. Three of the majority opinions were written by Justice Holmes. In the fourth, he offered a classic dissent. Two of the cases, Frohwerk v. United States and Debs v. United States, are of middling significance. The other two, Schenck v. United States and Abrams v. United States, are iconic. From these cases have sprung an expansive and complex jurisprudence of free speech. The …