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Craig R. Smith (Ed.), SILENCING THE OPPOSITION: GOVERNMENT STRATEGIES OF SUPPRESSION OF FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1996; pp. 284; $23.95 (paper), $65.50 (hard).
As Smith correctly argues, the First Amendment right to free speech has not been uniformly applied to all Americans since it was ratified in 1790. In one context after another, the historical evidence is clear: there has never been an absolute right to free speech.
Free speech has been balanced against other interests of society since the since the beginning of the republic. Through the passage of the Alien and Sedition Acts, Federalists were able to silence their opposition, the Democratic-Republicans, in violation of the First Amendment rights to free speech. Similarly, Abraham Lincoln suspended habeas corpus for critics of his policies during the Civil War. Other contexts when legal maneuvering restricted free speech include: the era of Reconstruction, negotiations with Native Americans, the organizing of the labor movement, and Vietnam War protests.
The six contributors in this edited collection use historical case studies to emphasize their point that free speech has taken myriad interpretations over the years. The collection begins with the founding of the Republic and the abridgment of free speech in the debate determining how centralized the federal government would be. Under the leadership of George Washington, John Adams, and Alexander Hamilton, the Federalist Party advocated a strong centralized national government. The French Revolution intensified fears that separate colonies would be vulnerable to radical Jacobin revolutionaries.
In this conflict over the structure of the U.S. government, new immigrants almost unanimously sided with the Democratic-Republican Party of Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and James Monroe. To monitor this trend, Federalists leaders held secret meetings and carefully followed press coverage of political events. They also formed their own advocacy jourualism to promote their approach to the role government should play in the emerging country. By July 1798 they had mustered enough support to pass the Alien and Sedition Acts. While these acts were never reviewed by the Supreme Court, they clearly -violated the free speech provision of the First Amendment, as Smith explains in the first chapter.
The "Sedition Act" prohibited, among other things; writing, printing, uttering, cn- publishing false, scandalous, and malicious writings against...