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The Continental Congress adopts the final draft of the Declaration of Independence on July 4.
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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.
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The U.S. House of Representatives adopts gag rules preventing discussion of antislavery proposals. The House repeals the rules in 1844.
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By order of President Lincoln, Gen. John A. Dix, a Union commander, suppresses the New York Journal of Commerce and the New York World and arrests the newspapers’ editors after both papers publish a forged presidential proclamation purporting to order another draft of 400,000 men. Lincoln withdraws the order to arrest the editors and the papers resume publication two days later.
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The 14th Amendment to the Constitution is ratified. The amendment, in part, requires that no state shall “deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.”
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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.”
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Congress passes the Sedition Act, which forbids spoken or printed criticism of the U.S. government, the Constitution or the flag.
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Roger Baldwin and others start up a new organization dedicated to preserving civil liberties called the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU).
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Congress repeals the Sedition Acts.
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H.L. Mencken is arrested for distributing copies of American Mercury.Censorship groups in Boston contend the periodical is obscene.
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President Franklin D. Roosevelt pardons those convicted under the Espionage and Sedition Acts.
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Congress passes the Communications Decency Act. The act is immediately challenged on First Amendment grounds.
