Here again remember, when you are thinking of what you owe to your country, that this declaration of the Constitution was the first in all the history of the world by which a Nation guaranteed to all the people the right freely to express their thoughts in words or in writing. This was the first time the chains were taken from the human intellect. No one will ever be able to number the men and women who, throughout the history of the world, were condemned to death, because they dared to express their sentiments. If [pg 077] Patrick Henry had delivered his famous speech in which he said, “Give me liberty, or give me death”, in England rather than America, he would have been promptly punished. Hundreds of the colonists would have been hanged by the British government if they had expressed themselves in the mother country instead of in the new world. Kings to hold their power in the old world, to keep the people so terrorized that they would submit to their will, made the practice of hanging or beheading those who freely spoke their sentiments against the government.[55]
Of course under the old laws those who expressed their religious convictions in opposition to the state church by speech or writing were usually promptly imprisoned, hanged, or burned.
Now do not have any misunderstanding about this guaranty of freedom of speech and of the press. We often hear complaints of certain people about certain laws punishing those who abuse the privilege of free speech; but there is no law of State or Nation which prohibits the speaking or writing of anything in this country. Men may speak and write what they will; but there are some laws punishing those who abuse this great privilege to the injury of another person, or to the injury of the Nation. Of course no one would feel that it was right to allow another to write libelous articles about your neighbors. You would not feel that it would be right to permit some vile person to write false and vicious articles about your mother or your father; and yet any one may do so. They cannot be prohibited or enjoined from doing so, but they may be punished after doing so, after they have been tried in a court and found guilty of libel by a jury of their fellowmen.[56]
So if one writes a threatening letter to your father, telling him that he will kidnap his child unless he pays ten thousand dollars by a certain time, such person is exercising his [pg 078] constitutional right to freedom of expression, but no one would think that it was right to permit him thus to abuse his constitutional right without being punished for it; and consequently such person may be arrested and tried, and if found guilty, punished.
So in these later days it has been found wise, not to prohibit persons from giving expression to their views about our government, but to punish those who show by their words or writing that they are rebels against our government, endeavoring by their words to cause a revolution, to incite people to use force, bombs, or the torch to destroy our government.
No one can ever be punished for criticising our government, or any of the officers of our government, so long as he does not undertake to destroy our government, and I am sure that you would not think it right to permit any one to destroy the government controlled by ourselves which has brought to us so many blessings. Nearly every one agrees that if a person should use bombs or the torch in an effort to cause revolution and destroy our form of government, such a person should be punished; but there are a few who think that they should not be punished until they actually begin destruction. Of course we cannot agree with them. The man who goes out on the street corner and advocates the use of the bomb and the torch to destroy our government, who arouses passions willfully with the purpose of destroying the government, is doing just as much wrong as is done by the person who follows his advice and uses the bomb and the torch. In fact the man who advocates revolution and destruction, who preaches the use of the bomb and the torch, who plants the poison in the hearts of his fellowmen, and incites them to revolutionary action is more guilty of wrong than are those who, stirred by his appeals, carry out his wishes.
In punishing those who thus violate every principle of loyalty, patriotism, and right the constitutional provision is in no manner modified. The worst revolutionist has the freedom of speech and of the press guaranteed to him. The law which punishes him does so only because under the protection of the Constitution, he commits a crime against his country and against humanity.
America has done more than any other nation in the world in the cause of educating the common people. It should exercise care that the people should be educated in the true spirit of America, that their minds should not be poisoned by the vicious teachings of those, not Americans at heart, who seek to poison souls and rob the people of their patriotism and of their loyalty.
In the olden days so tyrannical was the king that in many instances when the people complained of their burdens and sought rights and privileges they were punished for daring to seek relief. The king would usually give them what he thought they ought to have and would not listen to complaints. One of the rights which the people always hoped for was the privilege of assembling, meeting together, talking over their troubles, drawing up a petition, signing, and presenting it, praying “a redress of grievance”. When the representatives of the people met in the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia they had before their minds the things that the people had suffered under old forms of government and it was their earnest effort to provide constitutional guaranties which would prevent the abuses to which the people were compelled to submit in the old world. Therefore one of the provisions of the Constitution of the United States is the following:
“Congress shall make no law ... abridging ... the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”[57]