Sep 15, 2022
This Saturday, Sept. 17, is Constitution Day. It was on this day in 1787 that delegates to the Constitutional Convention signed America’s Constitution. And while the First Amendment was not ratified until 1791, discussions over the role of free speech and expression in a democratic society were alive long before then.
Pepperdine University professor
and author Gordon Lloyd joins the show this week to explore how the
American conception of free speech came to be, from the colonial
era to the ratification of the Bill of Rights.
Drawing from over 40 years of research, Lloyd
discusses examples of free speech and expression during the
founding, ranging from 1641, when the Massachusetts Body of
Liberties — the earliest known protection of free speech in the
colonies — was published; to 1776, when free speech aided the
decision to declare independence from Great Britain; to the late
1780s, when federalist and anti-federalist publications sparked, in Lloyd’s words, “the
greatest pamphlet war the world has ever seen.”
Show notes:
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