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Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom
The Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom was drafted in 1777. On January 16, 1786, the Assembly enacted the statute into the state's law. The statute disestablished the Church of England in Virginia and guaranteed freedom of religion to people of all religious faiths, including Christians of all denominations, Jews, Muslims, and Hindus. -
Constitution Ratified
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Alien and Sedition Acts
Four bills passed by the Federalist-dominated 5th United States Congress and signed into law by President John Adams in 1798. Made it harder for an immigrant to become a citizen (Naturalization Act), allowed the president to imprison and deport non-citizens who were deemed dangerous (Alien Friends Act of 1798) or who were from a hostile nation (Alien Enemy Act of 1798), and criminalized making false statements that were critical of the federal government (Sedition Act of 1798). -
Sedition Act Expires
Everyone put in jail or convicted was not that anymore because of Thomas Jefferson. -
New York papers shut down for publishing false draft rumors
Ordered by President Lincoln he ordered a union solider to suppresses the New York Journal of Commerce and the New York World and arrests the newspapers’ editors after a false claim they made where they stated Lincoln was going to order a draft of 400,000 more men. -
Patterson v. Colorado
the U.S. Supreme Court determines it does not have jurisdiction to review the “contempt” conviction of U.S. senator and Denver newspaper publisher Thomas Patterson for articles and a cartoon that criticized the state supreme court. This case establishes the "Bad Tendency" principal. -
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World War 1
This event passed the Espionage Act of 1917, which has been described as an "overt assault upon First Amendment freedoms" (79), and an amendment to the Espionage Act—called the Sedition Act of 1918—which further regulated speech. -
Gitlow v. New York
Supreme Court upholds Gitlow's conviction for writing and distributing "The Left-Wing Manifesto"; also the Court holds that freedom of speech and press apply to state governments as well as federal governments. -
Whitney v. California
Involves Justice Louis Brandeis writing his opionion which becomes a major first admendment princeaple:“If there be time to expose through discussion the falsehood and fallacies, to avert the evil by the processes of education, the remedy to be applied is more speech, not enforced silence.” -
Near v. Minnesota
The first major press case. The Court ruled in this that Minnesota's statute of granting state judges the power to prohibit any nuisance “malicious, scandalous and defamatory newspaper, magazine or other periodical” is “the essence of censorship.” -
Roosevelt pardons Espinonage and Sedition convicts
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World War 2
Congress passed the country's first peacetime sedition law, called the Alien Registration Act of 1940 which prohibited advocating or teaching the "propriety of overthrowing or destroying any government in the United States by force or violence" and the printing or publishing of any material advocating or teaching the violent overthrow of the country. -
Chaplinsky v. New Hampshire
Supreme Court determines "fighting words" are not protected by the First Amendment. -
Terminiello v. Chicago ("fighting words" reinterpreted)
In Terminiello v. Chicago, the U.S. Supreme Court limits the scope of the “fighting word." Justice William O. Douglas says that the “function of free speech … is to invite dispute. It may indeed best serve its high purpose when it induces a condition of unrest, creates dissatisfaction with conditions as they are, or even stirs people to anger.” -
Brown v. Entertainment Merchants Association
Video games are a form of speech protected by the first admendment.
