Effects caused by the First Amendment

  • What happened when the First Amendment got published?

    What happened when the First Amendment got published?
    Eighteen Baptists are jailed in Massachusetts for refusing to pay taxes that support the Congregational church
  • What happened when the 1st Amendment was published?

    What happened when the 1st Amendment was published?
    Congress lets the Sedition Act of 1798 expire, and President Thomas Jefferson pardons all person convicted under the Act. The act had punished those who uttered or published “false, scandalous, and malicious” writings against the government.
  • What happened when the 1st Amendment was published?

    What happened when the 1st Amendment was published?
    Congress passes the Espionage Act, making it a crime “to willfully cause or attempt to cause insubordination, disloyalty, mutiny, or refusal of duty, in the military or naval forces of the United States,” or to “willfully obstruct the recruiting or enlistment service of the United States.”
  • What happened when the 1st Amendment was published?

    What happened when the 1st Amendment was published?
    The US Supreme Court upholds the convictions of five individuals charged with violating the Espionage Act in Abrams v. United States. The individuals had circulated pamphlets critical of the U.S. government and its involvement in World War I. In a opinion, Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes writes that “the ultimate good desired is better reached by free trade in ideas; that the best test of truth is the power of the thought to get itself accepted in the competition of the market.”
  • What happened when the 1st Amendment was published?

    What happened when the 1st Amendment was published?
    The “Scopes Monkey Trial” occurs in Dayton, Tenn. School-teacher John Thomas Scopes is found guilty of violating a Tennessee law which prohibits teaching the theory of evolution in public schools. The case pits famed orator William Jennings Bryan against defense attorney Clarence Darrow.
  • What happened when the 1st Amendment was published?

    What happened when the 1st Amendment was published?
    H.L. Mencken is arrested for distributing copies of American Mercury.Censorship groups in Boston contend the periodical is obscene.
  • What happened when the 1st Amendment was published?

    What happened when the 1st Amendment was published?
    In Sheppard v. Maxwell, the U.S. Supreme Court reverses the murder conviction of Dr. Sam Sheppard because the trial judge failed to quell publicity surrounding the trial. In its opinion, the Court recognizes gag orders as a legitimate means of controlling pretrial and trial publicity.
  • What happened when the 1st Amendment was published?

    What happened when the 1st Amendment was published?
    In Brandenburg v. Ohio, a leader of a Ku Klux Klan group is convicted under Ohio law and sentenced to prison primarily on the basis of a speech he made at a Klan rally. The U.S. Supreme Court unanimously rules that speech advocating the use of force or crime is not protected if (1) the advocacy is “directed to inciting or producing imminent lawless action” and (2) the advocacy is also “likely to incite or produce such action.”
  • What happened when the 1st Amendment was published?

    What happened when the 1st Amendment was published?
    In Lloyd Corp. v. Tanner, the U.S. Supreme Court rules that owners of a shopping center may bar anti-war activists from distributing leaflets at the center. The Court finds that citizens do not have a First Amendment right to express themselves on privately owned property.
  • What happened when the 1st Amendment was published?

    What happened when the 1st Amendment was published?
    In Central Hudson Gas & Electric Corporation v. Public Service Commission. The test states that: (1) the commercial speech must not be misleading or involve illegal activity; (2) the government interest advanced by the regulation must be substantial; (3) the regulation must directly advance the asserted government interest; and (4) the government regulation must not be more extensive than is necessary to serve the government interest at stake.
  • What happened when the 1st Amendment was published?

    What happened when the 1st Amendment was published?
    Congress passes the Flag Protection Act. The act punishes anyone who “knowingly mutilates, defaces, physically defiles, burns, maintains on the floor or ground, or tramples upon any U.S. flag …”
  • What happened when the 1st Amendment was published?

    What happened when the 1st Amendment was published?
    The U.S. Supreme rules in Bartnicki v. Vopper that a federal law prohibiting the publication of illegally intercepted wire communications violates the First Amendment rights of those who published the communications, though they were not the ones who intercepted them. The Court reasoned that application of the law to the defendants in this case.