Bill of Rights Was Made Applicable to the States

choi

Daniel Shuchman, A Fundamental Liberty; Abrams made enemies on the left after changing his mind on campaign spending and helping Citizens United win its Supreme Court case. Wall Street Journal, May 1, 2017
https://www.wsj.com/articles/a-v ... e-speech-1493583491
(book review on Floyd Abrams, The Soul of the First Amendment. Yale University Press, 2017)

The first three paragraphs:

"To early-20th-century Americans, censorship was nothing unusual. Editors were jailed for criticizing judges; newspapers were penalized for reporting on executions. In 1909 municipal authorities in Spokane, Wash, burned 'every copy' of a publication they deemed objectionable. The previous year, New York City police arrested a theatrical performer for giving a mock speech that, in the eyes of a police captain, constituted the crime of 'impersonating a German.' Pennsylvania law in 1916 banned cinematic 'thrillers' with 'heroines tied to [rail] tracks,' and in 1921 two women were fined for serializing the 'improper' James Joyce novel 'Ulysses' in their literary magazine.

"One century and several landmark Supreme Court cases later

In "The book * * * Mr Abrams, the eminent constitutional lawyer, focuses on nine of the First Amendment's 45 words -- those  that prohibit Congress from 'abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press.' His central theme is 'anti-censorial' -- meant to protect Americans from government regulation that attempts, in the words of Supreme Court Justice Robert H Jackson, to seize 'guardianship of the public mind.' At its core is the principle that human beings can achieve individual fulfilment only when freedom of thought is absolute.

My comment:
(a) The book review is locked behind paywall. In any event, the quotation is the most important portion.

(b)
(i) Floyd Abrams
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Floyd_Abrams

He is Jewish.
(ii) Floyd is a variant of Lloyd, both being Welsh surnames. The latter is from Modern Welsh adjective llwyd gray.
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/llwyd

(c) America today is very different from that before 1961. Take Labor Day for example, which falls on the first Monday in United States and Canada. All other nations observe International Workers' Day on May 1. Though they had nothing to do with the unknown bomber that triggered the deaths, four persons were quickly hanged after conviction at state court. At the time, freedom of speech in the First Amendment does not apply to the states (including its judiciary).  See Haymarket affair
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haymarket_affair
(May 4, 1886)

See also Palko v. Connecticut (1937) 302 US 319.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palko_v._Connecticut

Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution was adopted in 1868, during Reconstruction.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fo ... States_Constitution
(section 1 Text)

Pay attention to its own section 1. (Unlike European nations which may revoke citizenship of native borns under antiterror law, US can not do it thanks to this section.)  

On its face, Bill of Rights (the first ten amendments) applies only to the federal government, and Supreme Court said so, until Mapp v Ohio (1961) 367 US 643
https://scholar.google.com/schol ... amp;as_sdt=40000006
(read only introduction about fact of the case)
, when the Court for the first time used the Due Process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to reach Bill of Rights. In other words, Bill of Rights started applying to the states.