A long one, but a good one;


Persecution for the expression of
opinions seems to me perfectly
logical. If you have no doubt of
your premises or your power, and
want a certain result with all your
heart, you naturally express your
wishes in law, and sweep away all
opposition. To allow opposition by
speech seems to indicate that you
think the speech impotent, as when
a man says that he has squared
the circle, or that you do not care
wholeheartedly for the result, or
that you doubt either your power or
your premises.

But when men have realized that
time has upset many fighting faiths,
they may come to believe even
more than they believe the very
foundations of their own conduct
that the ultimate good desired is
better reached by free trade in
ideas -- that the best test of truth
is the power of the thought to get
itself accepted in the competition
of the market, and that truth is the
only ground upon which their
wishes safely can be carried out.

That, at any rate, is the theory of
our Constitution. It is an
experiment, as all life is an
experiment. Every year, if not every
day, we have to wager our
salvation upon some prophecy
based upon imperfect knowledge.
While that experiment is part of our
system, I think that we should be
eternally vigilant against attempts
to check the expression of opinions
that we loathe and believe to be
fraught with death, unless they so
imminently threaten immediate
interference with the lawful and
pressing purposes of the law that
an immediate check is required to
save the country.

United States Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes in his dissent in Abrams v.
United States, 1919. You can read the full dissent at http://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/htm...0_0616_ZD.html