Free Speech, "the People's Darling Privilege"

"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

Michael Kent Curtis is Professor of Law at Wake Forest University.

IntroductionThe English and colonial backgroundThe debate over the Sedition Act of 1798Sedition in the courts - enforcement and the free speech traditionSedition: Reflections and transitionsThe Declaration, the Constitution, Slavery and AbolitionShall Abolitionists be silenced?Congress confronts the Abolitionists: The Post Office and petitionsThe demand for Northern legal action against AbolitionistsLegal theories of suppression and the defence of free speechElijah Lovejoy: Mobs, free speech and the privileges of American citizensAfter Lovejoy: TransformationsThe free speech battle over Helper's Impending crisisDaniel worth: The struggle for free speech in North Carolina on the eve of the Civil WarLincoln, Vallandigham and suppression: Free speech in the Civil WarThe free speech tradition confronts the war powerA new birth of freedom? The Fourteenth Amendment and the First AmendmentWhere are they now? Suppression theories in the twentieth centuryConclusion