Liberties of Press and Speech: 'Evidence Does Not Exist To Contradict the ... Blackstonian Sense' in Late 18th Century England?
Blackstone, in the last volume of his Commentaries in 1769, defined freedom of the press as merely 'laying no previous restraints upon publications, and not in freedom from censure for criminal matter [seditious libel] when published'. That 'criminal matter' included most criticism of government and...
| Publicado en: | Oxford Journal of Legal Studies Vol. 36; no. 1; pp. 1 - 26 |
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| Formato: | Artículo |
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Oxford University Press / USA
Spring2016
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| Acceso en línea: | Ver este registro en EBSCOhost |
| fields | @attributes: recordID: 1 pdfLink: plink: https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=hlh&AN=113472392&site=ehost-live header: @attributes: shortDbName: hlh uiTerm: 113472392 longDbName: Humanities International Complete uiTag: AN controlInfo: bkinfo: jinfo: jid: 01436503 BJ4 jtl: Oxford Journal of Legal Studies issn: 01436503 maglogo: N pubinfo: dt: Spring2016 vid: 36 iid: 1 pid: 622 pub: Oxford University Press / USA artinfo: ui: 113472392 10.1093/ojls/gqv010 ppf: 1 ppct: 25 formats: fmt: @attributes: type: P size: 545KB tig: atl: Liberties of Press and Speech: 'Evidence Does Not Exist To Contradict the ... Blackstonian Sense' in Late 18th Century England? aug: au: Bird, Wendell affil: Visiting Scholar, Emory University School of Law su: Freedom of the press Freedom of speech Blackstone, William, Sir, 1723-1780 Commentaries on the Laws of England (Book) History of liberty Seditious libel United States. Constitution. 1st Amendment Common law Eighteenth century History Political attitudes United Kingdom England sug: subj: United Kingdom England Freedom of the press Freedom of speech Blackstone, William, Sir, 1723-1780 Commentaries on the Laws of England (Book) History of liberty Seditious libel United States. Constitution. 1st Amendment Common law Eighteenth century History Political attitudes keyword: First Amendment Fox's Libel Act freedom of press freedom of speech ab: Blackstone, in the last volume of his Commentaries in 1769, defined freedom of the press as merely 'laying no previous restraints upon publications, and not in freedom from censure for criminal matter [seditious libel] when published'. That 'criminal matter' included most criticism of government and its officials. Many neo-Blackstonians, most prominently the late Leonard Levy along with numerous other British and American scholars, argue that at the time of America's First Amendment and Fox's Libel Act '[e]vidence does not exist to contradict the assertion that [freedom of press] was used in its prevailing common law or Blackstonian sense to mean a guarantee against previous restraints' while allowing 'subjection to subsequent restraints for licentious or seditious abuse' (Leonard W Levy, Emergence of a Free Press 191 (OUP 1985). Levy and others assert that 'not even [Blackstone's] critics had questioned his narrow definition of a free press' and that '[n]ot one of the [British] libertarians' even discussed that 'seditious libel . . . was a crime', but instead 'accepted in substance the Blackstone--Mansfield definition'. Levy contended that belief that criminalisation of seditious libel conflicted with protection of freedoms of press and speech did not appear in Britain or America until the debates over each country's sedition laws in the last few years of the 1790s, long after the First Amendment and Fox's Libel Act.). This article reevaluates the understanding of freedoms of press and speech that existed when Blackstone claimed to summarise the common law. It describes the broad liberties articulated in English books and tracts at that time--not only those cited by Levy but ten times as many not noted by him--as well as in English newspaper essays and articles not considered by him. The conclusion is that the dominant understanding of liberties of press and speech in preserved publications, from the 1770s to the early 1790s, was an expansive meaning of those liberties and a belief that they conflicted with criminalising seditious libel. Only a declining minority, led by Crown judges, viewed those liberties in the narrow way Blackstone purported to summarise and that Levy ascribed to the supporters of Fox's Libel Act and to the framers of the First Amendment. pubtype: Academic Journal doctype: Article src: R language: English refInfo: copyright: @attributes: flag: Y custom: © 2019 Oxford University Press. item: Oxford Journal of Legal Studies holder: Oxford University Press / USA dt: @attributes: year: 2016 holdings: @attributes: islocal: N |
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