Recep Tayyip Erdogan Quotes
We have never done anything to stop freedom of expression or freedom of press.
Weymouth, Lally. "Lally Weymouth Interviews Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan." The Washington Post, 12 Sept. 2011.
The evils of the time were even worse than in modern times. Most newspapers, journals, and periodicals were in 1835 actually owned and operated by political parties or people totally identified with political parties. In modern times, there are publications and blogs which are controlled by political forces, but most are not.
Jefferson was visited by a famous German scientist who read a newspaper in the President's study which viciously attacked Jefferson. The scientist asked why this was allowed in America:
This was a decade before the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia. You can imagine the distress of Vermonters when the U. S. Constitution was written with no provision for absolute freedom of speech which they had had for a over a decade. They would not ratify the U, S, Constitution without the understanding that there would be a Bill of Rights added with the First Amendment.
Arguing against explicit guarantees of press freedom in the Constitution Hamilton felt that the freedom could be maintained by public opinion and the good will of government:
Recep Tayyip Erdoğan is a Turkish politician serving as the current President of Turkey. He previously served as Prime Minister of Turkey from 2003 to 2014 and as Mayor of Istanbul from 1994 to 1998. He founded the Justice and Development Party (AKP) in 2001, leading it to election victories in 2002, 2007, and 2011 before being required to stand down upon his election as President in 2014. He later returned to the AKP leadership in 2017 following the constitutional referendum that year. Coming from an Islamist political background and self-describing as a conservative democrat, he has promoted socially conservative and populist policies during his administration.
