The Online Library of Liberty

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• Associate Editors
• Editorial
• Bibliographical Essay: Ellen Frankel Paul, Laissez Faire In Nineteenth-century Britain: Fact Or Myth?
• I: Legal Philosophy
• The Minos: What Is Law?
• Obedience to Law
• Moral and Legal Justification
• Early First Amendment Theory
• The First Amendment & Freedom of Expression
• The First Amendment and Religion
• The First Amendment Vs. the Cpi
• The Economics of Strict Liability
• The Rule of Law In American Politics
• II: Political Analysis
• Society, State, and Right In Proudhon
• Human Rights and Political Change
• Carter's Human Rights Policy
• Locke's Tolerance: Prudence Or Right?
• Political Intolerance
• Hayek: Reason, Relativism, and Liberty
• Hayek On Coercion and Freedom
• “advanced Liberalism” As Managed Capitalism
• Common Good & Public Interest
• Uncrowding the “commons”
• Milgram: Obedience, Authority, & Legitimacy
• Syndicalism & “the Servile State”
• The Parisian League
• Conservatism In Spain
• Soviet Intellectual Orthodoxy
• The Clergy & the American Revolution
• Russian & American Defenses of Servitude
• Croce's Hegemony: How to Win Minds
• III: War and the State
• Just War and Rights
• Just Wars Vs. No Wars
• Walzer & Just War
• Wartime Propaganda Tactics
• Iran, Oil, and the Cold War
• The State and Oil Policy
• San Francisco & the Military Complex
• Protectionist Assaults On Developing Countries
• Government Military Behavior
• IV: Political Economy and Theory
• Three Kinds of “capitalism”
• Adam Smith: Economic Utilitarian
• Roepke: Laissez Faire and Social Order
• Government-induced Boom & Bust
• Austrian Vs. Neoclassical Methodology
• Professor Friedman's Instrumentalism
• Milton Friedman's Critics
• Entrepreneurship and Justice
• Externalities & Government Intervention

The First Amendment & Freedom of Expression

John Lofton

“Freedom of Expression Since World War II,” The Press as Guardian of the First Amendment. Columbia, South Carolina: University of Carolina Press, 1980, pp. 231–278.

Using a classification developed by Professor Franklyn S. Haiman of Northwestern University, Lofton surveys the First Amendment case law decided after World War II. According to Professor Haiman, most major twentieth-century cases fall into one of three categories: (1) “expression involving provocation to anger and the problem of preserving the peace (fighting words),” (2) “expression involving political heresy and the problem of national survival (national security),” and (3) “artistic expression and the problem of public morality.” Lofton, however, identifies another area in which the courts in recent years have been very active: prosecution of journalists for refusing to divulge their sources in the context of criminal proceedings.

Lofton approaches his subject through research on editorial reaction to important First Amendment cases. For example, Lofton notes that in reviewing editorial responses to a “political heresy” case (Dennis v. United States.), of the twenty-three papers from virtually every section of the country, he found that nineteen supported the Supreme Court's decision upholding the Constitutionality of the Smith Act and the convictions based on it, two papers opposed to the decision, and two papers that had taken ambiguous positions. Strikingly, the liberal New York Times and the Washington Post were among the papers that gave editorial support both to the Act and to the convictions, whereas the St. Louis Post Dispatch and the Louisville Courier-Journal were critical.