Freedom of Press Quotes
Two decades later Jefferson, after his Presidency, had developed a different attitude towards the press. See {585116}.
Note the language used to describe the American government at the time. To the founders, it was an EXPERIMENT. Nothing like that had ever been tried before. And none of them were sure it would work. After defeating the British, they could have chosen for their new independent nation any one of dozens of well-established forms of government. But these were all flawed. So they risked the new nation on a form that had little or no precedent and might or might not survive. Centuries later many national leaders and legislators were fearful to try anything that they were not highly certain would be effective. Experiments were rare until there were crises so great that none of the orthodox solutions would be sufficient, and even then the innovators were criticized such as with Lincoln and Franklin Delano Roosevelt. They were candid enough to admit that they were experimenting. FDR in particular announced experimentation as a policy with rapid change for the experiments that did not work out of which there were several.
Note how the second paragraph nullifies the first of the government declares an emergency. This is a trick that is very common in constitutions.
The Adams administration had passed the Alien and Sedition Acts which severely curtailed freedom of speech and of the press despite the First Amendment which clearly prohibited that.
This quotation was used ten years later by Virginia which, in convention, passed a resolution objecting to the Alien & Sedition Acts. The drafter of the original resolution was James Madison.
This language is from the earlier version of the Constitution passed in the middle of the 19th century.
Samuel Langhorne Clemens, 1835-1910. Grant was the victim of more journalistic errors than most politicians as a number of his appointees turned out to abuse their position for their own gain. Often, Democratic leaning newspapers would claim the Grant was aware of the corruption, sharing in it or both, When there was later proof of Grant’s non involvement, most newspapers would never publish a retraction of correction.
Commenting on a Supreme Court decision striking down a Lakewood, Ohio ordinance allowing local politicians to control newsracks placed on municipal sidewalks:
