Freedom of the Newspaper Press

T HIS, the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, is the legal basis of freedom of the press in this country; for while the amendment is binding upon Congress alone, the same prohibition, in substantially the same language, is found in the constitutions of all the states. Most of the states add some such phrase as being responsible for the abuse of that liberty, 1 but the variation is in phraseology only, having never led to any difference of construction.2 The ambiguity of the guarantee of freedom of the press, as compared to that of freedom of religion, is striking; the freedom of religion is made absolute, but the press is guaranteed only the continuance of such liberties as it possessed when the Constitution was framed in 1787. These are nowhere defined; hence determination of the limits of freedom of the press has depended almost entirely upon judicial understanding of the freedom that then existed, and which, under the amendment, cannot be abridged. Chancellor Kent believed he had found a guide in the declaration of the First Continental Congress in 1774 that the importance of liberty of the press consists

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