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Charles Evans Hughes on Independence Day

1862–1948

← All quotes by Charles Evans Hughes

5 quotes

When we lose the right to be different, we lose the privilege to be free.

Freedom of expression gives the essential democratic opportunity, but self-restraint is the essential civic discipline.

Charles Evans Hughes (1951)

The liberty of the press is not confined to newspapers and periodicals. It necessarily embraces pamphlets and leaflets. … the press in its historic connotation comprehends every sort of publication which affords a vehicle of information and opinion.

It is no longer open to doubt that the liberty of the press, and of speech, is within the liberty safeguarded by the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment from invasion by state action. It was found impossible to conclude that this essential personal liberty of the citizen was left unprotected by the general guaranty of fundamental rights of person and property.

The exceptional nature of its limitations places in a strong light the general conception that liberty of the press, historically considered and taken up by the Federal Constitution, has meant, principally, although not exclusively, immunity from previous restraints or censorship.

Attribution

Quotes and notes from Wikiquote: Charles Evans Hughes (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0.