Penhallow v. Doane's, 3 U.S. 54, 3 Dall. 54, 1 L.Ed. 507 (1795):
"The
great distinction between Monarchies and Republics (at least our Republics)
in general is, that in the former the monarch is considered as the sovereign,
and each individual of his nation a subject to him, though in some countries
with many important special limitations: This, I say, is generally the
case, for it has not been so universally. But in a Republic,
all the citizens, as such, are equal, and no citizen can rightfully
exercise any authority over another, but in virtue of a power constitutionally
given by the whole community, and such authority when exercised, is
in effect an act of the whole community which forms such body politic.
In such governments, therefore, the sovereignty resides in the great
body of the people, but it resides in them not as so many distinct individuals,
but in their politic capacity only."
[Penhallow
v. Doane's, 3 U.S. 54, 3 Dall. 54, 1 L.Ed. 507 (1795)]
Adderley v. State of Fla., 385 U.S. 39, 87 S.Ct. 242 (U.S.Fla. 1966)
Mr. Justice DOUGLAS, with whom THE CHIEF
JUSTICE, Mr. Justice BRENNAN, and Mr. Justice FORTAS concur, dissenting.
The First Amendment, applicable to the States by reason of the Fourteenth
(Edwards
v. South Carolina, 372 U.S. 229, 235, 83 S.Ct. 680, 683), provides
that ‘Congress shall make no law * * * abridging * * * the right
of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government
for a redress of grievances.’ These rights, along with religion,
speech, and press, are preferred rights of the Constitution, made
so by reason of that explicit guarantee and
*49
what Edmond Cahn in Confronting Injustice (1966) referred to as
‘The Firstness of the First Amendment.'FN1
With all respect, therefore, the Court errs in treating the case
as if it were an ordinary trespass case or an ordinary picketing
case.
FN1.
‘Where would we really find the principal danger to civil
liberty in a republic? Not in the governors as governors, not
in the governed as governed, but in the governed unequipped
to function as governors. The chief enemies of republican freedom
are mental sloth, conformity, bigotry, superstition, credulity,
monopoly in the market of ideas, and utter, benighted ignorance.
Relying as it does on the consent of the governed, representative
government cannot succeed unless the community receives enough
information to grasp public issues and make sensible decisions.
As lights which may have been enough for the past do not meet
the needs of the present, so present lights will not suffice
for the more extensive and complex problems of the future. Heretofore
public enlightenment may have been only a manifest desideratum;
today it constitutes an imperative necessity. The First
Amendment, says Justice Black, ‘reflects the faith that a good
society is not static but advancing, and that the fullest possible
interchange of ideas and beliefs is essential to attainment
of this goal.’ (From
Feldman v. United States, 322 U.S. 487, 501, 64 S.Ct. 1082,
1088, 88 L.Ed. 1408 (dissenting opinion).)' Cahn, supra,
p. 102.
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