National+History+Day


 * 5 Possible Topics For NHD? 9/20/10**

HOLOCAUST RISE OF HITLER ALEXANDER THE GREAT NAPOLEON BONAPARTE SUN TZU

**Schenck v. United States, 249 U.S. 47, 39 S.Ct. 247, 63 L.Ed.2d. (1919)**
Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes stated in this case his famous aphorism about "falsely shouting fire in a theatre" and set forth a "clear and present danger test" to judge whether speech is protected by the First Amendment. "The question," he wrote, "is whether the words are used in such circumstances and are of such a nature as to create a clear and present danger that they will bring about the substantive evils that Congress has the right to prevent. It is a question of proximity and degree." The Supreme Court affirmed the convictions of the defendants for conspiring to violate certain federal statutes by attempting to incite subordination in the armed forces and interfere with recruitment and enlistment. During wartime, the defendants mailed to new recruits and enlisted men leaflets that compared military conscription to involuntary servitude and urged them to assert constitutional rights.

- Which case was it that Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes first use his "famous aphorism" and "clear and present danger test?" I think it would matter if that case was shortly before this one because that innovative idea was new and groundbreaking in controversy.

- The quote within the summary above is very intresting. Justice Holmes said it as if everyone had the same interpretation of clear and present danger and substantive evils. The only problem that I had with this is that Holmes assumed that everyone would interpret the situation the same; he even stated that he knew what Congress had the right to prevent and all knows that no one individual in the world does.

- There is absolutely two views from this. The Supreme Court did vote in favor for one of them. For the side that lost, how did they see military conscprition like involuntary servitude? If so, Congress has to listen and act on so for involuntary servitude, or slavery, was something that Congress abolished and worked to keep so.

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 * Insight to the Case**

Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr., writing for a unanimous Court, stated that speech could be punished if "the words are used in such circumstances and of such a nature as to create a clear and present danger that they will bring about the substantive evils that Congress has a right to prevent." According to Holmes, the leaflets in Schenck were printed during wartime with the intent to obstruct induction efforts, an intent that was prohibited by federal law, and thus constituted such a clear and present danger. "When a nation is at war," he wrote, "… things that might be said in time of peace that are such a hindrance to its effort … will not be endured so long as men fight and … no Court could regard them as protected by any constitutional right."

- I feel that there is a sense of hypocrisy here. In our present day, about 91 years after, there are many people protesting the Iraq War while soldiers are there and many that condemn the Bush Administration for it. Why is it that, with a precedent made 91 years back, people can openly protest and condemn without suffering the penalties?

- How is preserving life bring upon substantive evils to Congress that it has the power to act against it? Isn't the "three unalienable rights" even more important than the Constitution itself? Didn't the packets practically promote life instead of needlessly throwing it away in a war that wasn't their problem?

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 * Abrams v. United States 250 U.S. 616, 1180, 40 S. Ct. 17, 63 L. Ed 1173 (1919)**

Five Russian-born immigrants had been convicted of distributing allegedly seditious pamphlets that were critical of the U.S. government for sending troops into Russia. A seven-justice majority of the Court upheld the convictions. In his majority opinion, Justice JOHN H. CLARKE followed Holmes's reasoning in Schenck, noting that the pamphlets had been distributed "at the supreme crisis of the war" and that they were "an attempt to defeat the war plans of the Government." Thus, Clarke concluded, the leaflets presented a clear and present danger. Holmes dissented from the majority decision and modified his earlier statement of the clear-and-present-danger test. Concerned about a rising tide of hysteria that could potentially impinge on free expression, Holmes argued for a broader interpretation of the clear-and-present-danger standard, writing that speech could be punished only if it "produces or is intended to produce a clear and imminent danger that will bring about … certain substantive evils that the United States … may seek to prevent." All opinions, he argued, must be protected "unless they imminently threaten immediate interference with the lawful and pressing purposes of the law." Holmes believed that in Abrams, the "surreptitious publishing of a silly leaflet" did not create such a danger.

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 * First Amendment Cartoon 12/21/10**