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Eighteen Baptists are jailed in Massachusetts for refusing to pay taxes that support the Congregational church.
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Congress passes the Northwest Ordinance. Though primarily a law establishing government guidelines for colonization of new territory, it also provides that “religion, morality and knowledge being necessary also to good government and the happiness of mankind, schools and the means of education shall forever be encouraged.” The U.S. Constitution is adopted into law on Sept. 17 by the Federal Constitutional Convention and later ratified by the states on June 21, 1788.
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On Dec. 15, Virginia becomes the 11th state to approve the first 10 amendments to the Constitution, thereby ratifying the Bill of Rights.
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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 Civil Liberties Bureau, a forerunner of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), is formed in response to passage of the Espionage Act.
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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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In Texas v. Johnson, the U.S. Supreme Court rules that burning the American flag is a constitutionally protected form of free speech.
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The U.S. Supreme Court in Mitchell v. Helms finds that a federal program allowing states to lend educational material and equipment to both public and private schools does not violate the establishment clause.
