User:Anythingyouwant/Speech and Press Clauses

The Speech and Press Clauses, also known separately as the Free Speech Clause and the Free Press Clause, are part of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution. These clauses are closely related to each other, and are sometimes considered to be a single clause.

Enacted in 1791 together with the rest of the Bill of Rights, this part of the Constitution generally bars the federal government from silencing people. That bar is not absolute, and the exceptions include longstanding laws against using untruths to harm other people (i.e. libel and slander). These clauses, along with the rest of the First Amendment, apply against the state governments as well, having been "incorporated" into the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution.

Over the years, the United States Supreme Court has developed a doctrine for protecting freedom of speech and a doctrine for protecting press freedom, based upon these fourteen words of the Constitution. According to the Court, "the central purpose of the Speech and Press Clauses was to assure a society in which uninhibited, robust, and wide-open public debate concerning matters of public interest would thrive, for only in such a society can a healthy representative democracy flourish."

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The Speech and Press Clauses are as follows: "Congress shall make no law ... abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press...."