When state conventions ratified the Constitution of the United
States, the price exacted of Congress was a Bill of Rights for
all citizens. ¹ Such a bill was hammered out by Congress in its first
session, and the result was the first Ten Amendments to the Constitu-
tion, which went into effect 15 December 1791. This Bill of Rights was
led, then as now, by an amendment central to the individual's freedom
to think, believe, associate, and communicate. Specifically, the First
Amendment stated: "Congress shall make no law respecting an estab-
lishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridg-
ing the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people
peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of
grievances." ² The words were quite clear. Obviously, however, there
was no uniform clarity, then as now, as to what "freedom of speech, or
of the press" actually meant. Further, it quickly became evident that
members of Congress felt that a free press was responsible for what
was published and that a law could be passed to punish libels. Within
seven years after the First Amendment stated "no law" could be passed
restricting press freedom, Congress adopted the Sedition Law of 1798,
which made it a crime to libel the government, the president, or Con-
gress.

The law was passed at a time when many felt that there should be
no libel against government, that United States independence had
killed the old English common law of seditious libel that had been
enforced in the colonies. ³ And there was basis for the belief. The
few attempts in the states to prosecute for the crime of libel had
been dropped by authorities or soundly rejected by juries. ⁴ And
some of the early state constitutions had stipulated that citizens
were free to investigate public officials in their public capacities and

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