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Chapter 6: The Right to Freedom of Speech

The free communication of thoughts and opinions is one of the invaluable rights of man; and every citizen may freely speak, write and print on any subject, being responsible for the abuse of that liberty.

Free speech is our most fundamental—and our most contested—right. It is an essential freedom because it is how we protect all of our other rights and liberties. If we could not speak openly about the policies and actions of government, then we would have no effective way to participate in the democratic process or protest when we believed governmental behavior threatened our security or our freedom. Although Americans agree that free speech is central to democratic government, we disagree sharply about what we mean by speech and about where the right begins and ends. Speech clearly includes words, but does it also include conduct or symbols? Certainly, we have the right to criticize the government, but can we also advocate its overthrow? Does the right to free speech allow us to incite hate or use foul language in public?

The framers of the Bill of Rights understood the importance of free expression and protected it under the First Amendment: “Congress shall make no law. . . abridging the freedom of speech.” Both English history and their own colonial past had taught them to value this right, but their definition of free speech was much more limited than ours. Less than a decade after the amendment’s ratification, Congress passed the Sedition Act of 1798, making it a crime to criticize the government. Many citizens believed government could forbid speech that threatened public order, as witnessed by numerous early nineteenth-century laws restricting speech against slavery. During the Civil War, thousands of antiwar protestors were arrested on the theory that the First Amendment did not protect disloyal speech. Labor unrest in the 1800s and 1890s brought similar restraints on the right of politically unpopular groups, such as socialists, to criticize government’s failure to protect working people from the ills of industrialization and economic depression.

Freedom of speech did not become a subject of important court cases until the twentieth century when the Supreme Court announced one of the most famous principles in constitutional law, the clear and present danger test. The test was straightforward: government could not restrict speech unless it posed a known, immediate threat to public safety. The standard sought to balance the need for order with the right to speak freely. At its heart was the question of proximity, or closeness, and degree. If speech brought about an action that was dangerous under the immediate circumstances, such as falsely yelling “fire” in a crowded theater, then it did not enjoy First Amendment protection. With this case, Schenck v. United States (1919), the Court began a decades-long process of seeking the right balance between free speech and public safety.

The balance, at first, was almost always on the side of order and security. Another case decided in 1919, Debs v. United States , illustrates how restrictive the test could be. Eugene Debs was a labor leader from Indiana who had run for President four times as the candidate of the Socialist Party of America, once polling more than one million votes. At a June 1918 rally in Chicago, while U.S. troops were fighting in World War I, he told the working-class crowd, “You need to know you are fit for something better than slavery and cannon fodder.”

The most stringent protection of free speech would not protect a man in falsely shouting fire in a theatre and causing a panic . . . The question in every case is whether the words used are used in such circumstances and are of such a nature as to create a clear and present danger that they will bring about the substantive evils that Congress has a right to prevent. It is a question of proximity and degree.

He was sentenced under an existing federal statute to twenty years in prison for inciting disloyalty and obstruction of military recruitment, which the Supreme Court upheld.

For the next five decades, the Court wrestled with the right balance between speech and order. Much of what defined freedom of speech emerged from challenges to the government’s ability to regulate or punish political protest. Each case brought a new set of circumstances that allowed the justices an opportunity to modify or extend the clear and present danger test. Many decisions recognized the abstract right of individuals to speak freely, but each one hedged this right in important ways. Always in the background were conditions that pointed to disorder, dissension, and danger—the Great Depression, World War II, and the Cold War, among them—so the justices were cautious in expanding a right that would expose America to greater threats. These cases, however, gradually introduced a new perspective on the value of free speech in a democracy, namely, the belief that truth is best reached by the free trade in ideas.

The belief that society is best served by a marketplace of ideas open to all opinions, no matter how radical, ultimately prevailed. In 1927, the Court had endorsed what came to be called the bad tendency test: if officials believed speech was likely to lead to a bad result, such as urging people to commit a violent act, it was not protected under the First Amendment even if no violence occurred. By 1969, however, similar facts produced a different outcome. Ku Klux Klan members in Ohio invited a television station to film their rally. Waving firearms, they shouted racist and anti-Semitic slurs and threatened to march on Congress before their leader was arrested and later convicted under a state law banning speech that had a tendency to incite violence. The Supreme Court overturned his conviction in Brandenburg v. Ohio and established the rule still in effect today: the First Amendment protects the right to advocate the use of force or violence, but it does not safeguard speech likely to incite or produce an immediate unlawful act. The Brandenburg test has allowed Nazis to march, Klan members to hold rallies, and other extremist groups to promote views far outside the mainstream of public opinion. With few exceptions—fighting words and obscenity, for example—government today cannot regulate the content of speech.

Even as society was coming to accept a wide range of political ideas, opposition to an unpopular war raised other questions about the limits and forms of free speech. By the mid- to late 1960s, the Vietnam War divided Americans. Although many citizens supported the use of U.S. troops to stop communism in Asia, a growing minority, including many draft-age young people, took to the streets to oppose the war. The protestors did not limit their efforts to antiwar speeches; they also wore shirts with obscene slogans, burned draft cards, and desecrated American flags. Using these symbols to protest, they argued, was a form of free speech. Soon, the Supreme Court faced the question squarely in a case involving a youthful protestor from the nation’s heartland: is symbolic speech—messages using symbols or signs, not words—protected by the First Amendment?

The first large-scale American demonstration against the Vietnam War occurred in November 1965 when more than 25,000 protestors converged on the nation’s capital. Fifty Iowans made the long bus ride, and on the way home they decided to make their opposition known locally by wearing black armbands to work and school. One member of the peace contingent was Lorena Tinker, the wife of a Des Moines Methodist minister and mother of five children. Mary Beth Tinker, a thirteen-year-old eighth grader, followed her mother’s suggestion and became one of a handful of local public school students who wore this symbol of protest to school. This act placed her in the middle of a national controversy about student rights and freedom of expression.

In many ways, Mary Beth was a normal eighth grader. She was a good student who enjoyed singing, spending time with her friends, and taking part in church activities. What made her different was a commitment to social justice, a passion encouraged by her parents, both of whom were known for their activism. Her parents wanted their children to share their moral and social values, and Mary Beth responded eagerly to their invitation to participate with them. By the time she became a teenager, she already had attended her first protest, accompanying her father to a rally about fair housing.

Mary Beth Tinker, her brother, John, and a handful of Des Moines students planned their demonstration for December 16, 1965. The students’ aim was not to protest the war but to mourn its casualties, Vietnamese and American, and to show support for proposed peace talks. School officials, however, promised to suspend anyone who came to school wearing the armbands, and the school principal suspended Mary Beth and sent her home. She was one of five students suspended that day for wearing the offending cloth. Significantly, the school ban applied only to armbands, in other words, to students who opposed the Vietnam War; a number of students that day wore an array of other symbols, including the Iron Cross, a Nazi medal.

When the school board upheld the suspensions, the Tinkers persuaded the Iowa Civil Liberties Union to take the case to federal court. Two lower federal courts agreed with the school’s action, rebuffing the argument that the policy violated the First Amendment guarantee of free speech. The Supreme Court decided otherwise. In its 7-to-2 decision, announced in February 1969, the justices held that the wearing of armbands is a symbolic act akin to “pure speech” and protected by the right to free expression. The protesting students posed no threat to the order required for effective instruction, nor did the wearing of armbands interfere with the school’s educational mission. In this instance, the balance between order and liberty was weighted on the side of the First Amendment. Students and teachers, the Court concluded, do not “shed their constitutional rights to freedom of speech or expression at the schoolhouse gate.”

Symbolic speech has been the focus of some of our greatest constitutional drama. Words may be powerful and provocative, but symbols are often more inflammatory because they are visual and evoke an emotional response. We live in an age when we use pictures and symbols to convey important messages, whether in politics or the marketplace. For these reasons, the Supreme Court’s recognition of symbolic speech as a right protected by the First Amendment has been a significant development. Twenty-five years after Mary Beth Tinker put on her armband in remembrance of the war dead, Life magazine featured a handful of civil liberties cases to celebrate the bicentennial of the Bill of Rights. Mary Beth’s case was included, even though the rights of students remained, and still are, more limited than those of adult citizens. But her actions as an eighth grader expanded our conception of constitutionally protected speech to include the symbols we use to express our convictions.

Restriction of free thought and free speech is the most dangerous of all subversions. It is the one un-American act that could most easily defeat us.

More than most other recent decisions, cases involving symbolic speech have revealed how contentious the right of free speech remains in our society. In 1989, the Supreme Court ruled that the First Amendment protected individuals who burned the American flag in protest. This decision was highly controversial, and it has resulted in numerous attempts to amend the Constitution to protect the flag and, in effect, limit speech in this circumstance. The outcome of this effort is uncertain, but the debate raises important questions: What role does this right play in our democracy? How does it contribute to our liberty as Americans?

The right to speak freely, without restraint, is essential to democratic government because it helps us develop better laws and policies through challenge, rebuttal, and debate. When we all have the ability to speak in the public forum, offensive opinions can be combated with an opposing argument, a more inclusive approach, a more effective idea. We tolerate offensive speech and protect the right to speak even for people who would deny it to us because we believe that exposing their thoughts and opinions to open debate will result in the discovery of truth. This principle is an old one in Western thought. U.S. Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes’s dissent in Abrams v. United States , a 1919 case suppressing free speech, is a classic statement of this view: “The best test of truth is the power of thought to get itself accepted in the competition of the market, and that truth is the only ground upon which [the public’s] wishes safely can be carried out.”

Governmental actions to deny differing points of view, even distasteful or unpopular opinions, rob us of the range of ideas that might serve the interests of society more effectively. In a case decided almost a decade before Tinker v. Des Moines , the Supreme Court found this rationale especially applicable to the classroom. “The Nation’s future,” the justices wrote, “depends upon leaders trained through wide exposure to that robust exchange of ideas which discovers truth out of a multitude of tongues.” As a nation, we are willing to live with the often bitter conflict over ideas because we believe it will lead to truth and to improved lives for all citizens. We recognize that freedom of speech is the first freedom of democracy, as the English poet John Milton argued during his own seventeenth-century struggle to gain this right: “Give me the liberty to know, to utter, and to argue freely according to conscience, above all liberties.” The ability to speak freely allows us to pursue truth, to challenge falsehoods, to correct mistakes—all are necessary for a healthy society.

Free speech also reflects a commitment to individual freedom and autonomy, the right to decide for ourselves and to pursue our own destiny. Throughout our history, we have been so committed to individual choice that many foreign observers believe it is our most characteristic trait. We see it reflected daily in everything from advertising slogans—“Have It Your Way”— to fashion statements, but fail to recognize how closely freedom is tied to the right to speak freely. Free speech guarantees us an individual voice, no matter how far removed our opinions and beliefs are from mainstream society. With this voice we are free to contribute as individuals to the marketplace of ideas or a marketplace of goods, as well as to decide how and under what circumstances we will join with others to decide social and governmental policies.

A commitment to free speech, of course, will not resolve all conflict, not if our history is any guide. The debate is most contentious during times of war or other moments when national security is at stake. Even then—perhaps especially then—we will continue to fight over words and symbols because they express our deepest hopes and our most worrisome fears. This contest over what speech is acceptable and what is not has been a constant theme of our past. Rarely do these struggles produce a neat consensus. More often, intemperate rhetoric and bitter division have been their legacy, and this angry clamor is one of the basic noises of our history. What makes the struggle to protect free speech worthwhile is its ability to serve as a lever for change. When we practice our right to speak openly, we are defining the contours of our democracy. It is messy work, but through it, we keep the Constitution alive and, with it, our dreams of a just society.

“Free Trade in Ideas”

Jacob Abrams was a Russian immigrant and anarchist convicted of violating the Sedition Act of 1918, which made it a crime to advocate anything that would impede the war effort during World War I. In 1917 Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., had written the Court’s opinion in Schenck v. United States , upholding similar convictions because Congress had a right to regulate speech that posed a “clear and present danger” to public safety. But by the time Abrams’s appeal reached the Court in 1919, Holmes had modified his views. Disturbed by anti-radical hysteria, he dissented from the majority’s decision upholding Abrams’s conviction in Abrams v. United States . His eloquent discussion of the connection between freedom of speech and the search for truth soon became the standard used by the Supreme Court to judge free speech cases until Brandenberg v. Ohio in 1972. The First Amendment, Holmes reasoned, protected the expression of all opinions “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.”

But as against dangers peculiar to war, as against others, the principle of the right to free speech is always the same. It is only the present danger of immediate evil or an intent to bring it about that warrants Congress in setting a limit to the expression of opinion where private rights are not concerned. Congress certainly cannot forbid all effort to change the mind of the country. Now nobody can suppose that the surreptitious publishing of a silly leaflet by an unknown man, without more, would present any immediate danger that its opinions would hinder the success of the government arms or have any appreciable tendency to do so . . .

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 whole heartedly 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 . . . Only the emergency that makes it immediately dangerous to leave the correction of evil counsels to time warrants making any exception to the sweeping command, “Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of speech.” Of course I am speaking only of expressions of opinion and exhortations, which were all that were uttered here, but I regret that I cannot put into more impressive words my belief that in their conviction upon this indictment the defendants were deprived of their rights under the Constitution of the United States.

“Malicious Words” versus “Free Communication”

In response to fears about imminent wars with France in 1798, the Federalist-controlled Congress passed a series of four acts known collectively as the Alien and Sedition Acts. Section 2 of the Sedition Act made it a crime to make defamatory statements about the government or President. (Sedition is an action inciting resistance to lawful authority and tending to lead to the overthrow of the government.) The act was designed to suppress political opposition. Its passage by Congress reveals how limited the definition of the right of free speech was for some Americans only a few years after the ratification of the First Amendment.

Sec. 2 . . . That if any person shall write, print, utter, or publish, or shall cause or procure to be written, printed, uttered or published, or shall knowingly and willingly assist or aid in writing, printing, uttering or publishing any false, scandalous and malicious writing or writings against the government of the United States, or either house of the Congress of the United States, or the President of the United States, with intent to defame the said government, or either house of the said Congress, or the said President, or to bring them, or either of them, into contempt or disrepute; or to excite against them, or either or any of them, the hatred of the good people of the United States, or to stir up sedition within the United States, or to excite any unlawful combinations therein, for opposing or resisting any law of the United Sates, or any act of the President of the United States, done in pursuance of any such law, or of the powers in him vested by the constitution of the United States, or to resist, oppose, or defeat any such law or act, or to aid, encourage or abet any hostile designs of any foreign nation against the United States, their people or government, then such person, being thereof convicted before any court of the United States having jurisdiction thereof, shall be punished by a fine not exceeding two thousand dollars, and by imprisonment not exceeding two years.

James Madison, congressman from Virginia, and Thomas Jefferson, the sitting Vice President, secretly drafted resolutions protesting the Sedition Act as unconstitutional. The Virginia and Kentucky legislatures passed these resolutions in 1798. Both resolutions especially pointed to the act’s violation of First Amendment protections, as seen in the Virginia Resolution here.

Resolved, . . . That the General Assembly doth particularly protest against the palpable and alarming infractions of the Constitution in the two late cases of the “Alien and Sedition Acts” passed at the last session of Congress; the first of which exercises a power no where delegated to the federal government, and which by uniting legislative and judicial powers to those of executive, subverts the general principles of free government; as well as the particular organization, and positive provisions of the federal constitution; and the other of which acts, exercises in like manner, a power not delegated by the constitution, but on the contrary, expressly and positively forbidden by one of the amendments thereto; a power, which more than any other, ought to produce universal alarm, because it is levelled against that right of freely examining public characters and measures, and of free communication among the people thereon, which has ever been justly deemed, the only effectual guardian of every other right.

That this state having by its Convention, which ratified the federal Constitution, expressly declared, that among other essential rights, “the Liberty of Conscience and of the Press cannot be cancelled, abridged, restrained, or modified by any authority of the United States,” and from its extreme anxiety to guard these rights from every possible attack of sophistry or ambition, having with other states, recommended an amendment for that purpose, which amendment was, in due time, annexed to the Constitution; it would mark a reproachable inconsistency, and criminal degeneracy, if an indifference were now shewn, to the most palpable violation of one of the Rights, thus declared and secured; and to the establishment of a precedent which may be fatal to the other.

The Sedition Act expired in 1801 but not until a number of the Federalists’ opponents, including Congressman Matthew Lyon of Vermont, had been convicted of violating the law. Today, historians consider the Sedition Act to have been a gross misuse of government power. In 1798, the Kentucky Resolutions focused on the rights of states to determine the limits of free speech.

Resolved, that it is true as a general principle, and is also expressly declared by one of the amendments to the Constitution, that “the powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people;” and that no power over the freedom of religion, freedom of speech, or freedom of the press being delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, all lawful powers respecting the same did of right remain, and were reserved to the States or the people: that thus was manifested their determination to retain to themselves the right of judging how far the licentiousness of speech and of the press may be abridged without lessening their useful freedom, and how far those abuses which cannot be separated from their use should be tolerated, rather than the use be destroyed.

Related Resources

• Timeline: First Amendment - Freedom of Speech
• Video: A Conversation on the Constitution with Justices Stephen Breyer, Anthony Kennedy and Sandra Day O'Connor: Freedom of Speech

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Freedom of Speech

[ Editor’s Note: The following new entry by Jeffrey W. Howard replaces the former entry on this topic by the previous author. ]

Human beings have significant interests in communicating what they think to others, and in listening to what others have to say. These interests make it difficult to justify coercive restrictions on people’s communications, plausibly grounding a moral right to speak (and listen) to others that is properly protected by law. That there ought to be such legal protections for speech is uncontroversial among political and legal philosophers. But disagreement arises when we turn to the details. What are the interests or values that justify this presumption against restricting speech? And what, if anything, counts as an adequate justification for overcoming the presumption? This entry is chiefly concerned with exploring the philosophical literature on these questions.

The entry begins by distinguishing different ideas to which the term “freedom of speech” can refer. It then reviews the variety of concerns taken to justify freedom of speech. Next, the entry considers the proper limits of freedom of speech, cataloging different views on when and why restrictions on communication can be morally justified, and what considerations are relevant when evaluating restrictions. Finally, it considers the role of speech intermediaries in a philosophical analysis of freedom of speech, with special attention to internet platforms.

1. What is Freedom of Speech?

2.1 listener theories, 2.2 speaker theories, 2.3 democracy theories, 2.4 thinker theories, 2.5 toleration theories, 2.6 instrumental theories: political abuse and slippery slopes, 2.7 free speech skepticism, 3.1 absoluteness, coverage, and protection, 3.2 the limits of free speech: external constraints, 3.3 the limits of free speech: internal constraints, 3.4 proportionality: chilling effects and political abuse, 3.5 necessity: the counter-speech alternative, 4. the future of free speech theory: platform ethics, other internet resources, related entries.

In the philosophical literature, the terms “freedom of speech”, “free speech”, “freedom of expression”, and “freedom of communication” are mostly used equivalently. This entry will follow that convention, notwithstanding the fact that these formulations evoke subtly different phenomena. For example, it is widely understood that artistic expressions, such as dancing and painting, fall within the ambit of this freedom, even though they don’t straightforwardly seem to qualify as speech , which intuitively connotes some kind of linguistic utterance (see Tushnet, Chen, & Blocher 2017 for discussion). Still, they plainly qualify as communicative activity, conveying some kind of message, however vague or open to interpretation it may be.

Yet the extension of “free speech” is not fruitfully specified through conceptual analysis alone. The quest to distinguish speech from conduct, for the purpose of excluding the latter from protection, is notoriously thorny (Fish 1994: 106), despite some notable attempts (such as Greenawalt 1989: 58ff). As John Hart Ely writes concerning Vietnam War protesters who incinerated their draft cards, such activity is “100% action and 100% expression” (1975: 1495). It is only once we understand why we should care about free speech in the first place—the values it instantiates or serves—that we can evaluate whether a law banning the burning of draft cards (or whatever else) violates free speech. It is the task of a normative conception of free speech to offer an account of the values at stake, which in turn can illuminate the kinds of activities wherein those values are realized, and the kinds of restrictions that manifest hostility to those values. For example, if free speech is justified by the value of respecting citizens’ prerogative to hear many points of view and to make up their own minds, then banning the burning of draft cards to limit the views to which citizens will be exposed is manifestly incompatible with that purpose. If, in contrast, such activity is banned as part of a generally applied ordinance restricting fires in public, it would likely raise no free-speech concerns. (For a recent analysis of this issue, see Kramer 2021: 25ff).

Accordingly, the next section discusses different conceptions of free speech that arise in the philosophical literature, each oriented to some underlying moral or political value. Before turning to the discussion of those conceptions, some further preliminary distinctions will be useful.

First, we can distinguish between the morality of free speech and the law of free speech. In political philosophy, one standard approach is to theorize free speech as a requirement of morality, tracing the implications of such a theory for law and policy. Note that while this is the order of justification, it need not be the order of investigation; it is perfectly sensible to begin by studying an existing legal protection for speech (such as the First Amendment in the U.S.) and then asking what could justify such a protection (or something like it).

But of course morality and law can diverge. The most obvious way they can diverge is when the law is unjust. Existing legal protections for speech, embodied in the positive law of particular jurisdictions, may be misguided in various ways. In other words, a justified legal right to free speech, and the actual legal right to free speech in the positive law of a particular jurisdiction, can come apart. In some cases, positive legal rights might protect too little speech. For example, some jurisdictions’ speech laws make exceptions for blasphemy, such that criminalizing blasphemy does not breach the legal right to free speech within that legal system. But clearly one could argue that a justified legal right to free speech would not include any such exception. In other cases, positive legal rights might perhaps protect too much speech. Consider the fact that, as a matter of U.S. constitutional precedent, the First Amendment broadly protects speech that expresses or incites racial or religious hatred. Plainly we could agree that this is so as a matter of positive law while disagreeing about whether it ought to be so. (This is most straightforwardly true if we are legal positivists. These distinctions are muddied by moralistic theories of constitutional interpretation, which enjoin us to interpret positive legal rights in a constitutional text partly through the prism of our favorite normative political theory; see Dworkin 1996.)

Second, we can distinguish rights-based theories of free speech from non-rights-based theories. For many liberals, the legal right to free speech is justified by appealing to an underlying moral right to free speech, understood as a natural right held by all persons. (Some use the term human right equivalently—e.g., Alexander 2005—though the appropriate usage of that term is contested.) The operative notion of a moral right here is that of a claim-right (to invoke the influential analysis of Hohfeld 1917); it thereby correlates to moral duties held by others (paradigmatically, the state) to respect or protect the right. Such a right is natural in that it exerts normative force independently of whether anyone thinks it does, and regardless of whether it is codified into the law. A tyrannical state that imprisons dissidents acts unjustly, violating moral rights, even if there is no legal right to freedom of expression in its legal system.

For others, the underlying moral justification for free speech law need not come in the form of a natural moral right. For example, consequentialists might favor a legal right to free speech (on, e.g., welfare-maximizing grounds) without thinking that it tracks any underlying natural right. Or consider democratic theorists who have defended legal protections for free speech as central to democracy. Such theorists may think there is an underlying natural moral right to free speech, but they need not (especially if they hold an instrumental justification for democracy). Or consider deontologists who have argued that free speech functions as a kind of side-constraint on legitimate state action, requiring that the state always justify its decisions in a manner that respects citizens’ autonomy (Scanlon 1972). This theory does not cast free speech as a right, but rather as a principle that forbids the creation of laws that restrict speech on certain grounds. In the Hohfeldian analysis (Hohfeld 1917), such a principle may be understood as an immunity rather than a claim-right (Scanlon 2013: 402). Finally, some “minimalists” (to use a designation in Cohen 1993) favor legal protection for speech principally in response to government malice, corruption, and incompetence (see Schauer 1982; Epstein 1992; Leiter 2016). Such theorists need not recognize any fundamental moral right, either.

Third, among those who do ground free speech in a natural moral right, there is scope for disagreement about how tightly the law should mirror that right (as with any right; see Buchanan 2013). It is an open question what the precise legal codification of the moral right to free speech should involve. A justified legal right to freedom of speech may not mirror the precise contours of the natural moral right to freedom of speech. A raft of instrumental concerns enters the downstream analysis of what any justified legal right should look like; hence a defensible legal right to free speech may protect more speech (or indeed less speech) than the underlying moral right that justifies it. For example, even if the moral right to free speech does not protect so-called hate speech, such speech may still merit legal protection in the final analysis (say, because it would be too risky to entrust states with the power to limit those communications).

2. Justifying Free Speech

I will now examine several of the morally significant considerations taken to justify freedom of expression. Note that while many theorists have built whole conceptions of free speech out of a single interest or value alone, pluralism in this domain remains an option. It may well be that a plurality of interests serves to justify freedom of expression, properly understood (see, influentially, Emerson 1970 and Cohen 1993).

Suppose a state bans certain books on the grounds that it does not want us to hear the messages or arguments contained within them. Such censorship seems to involve some kind of insult or disrespect to citizens—treating us like children instead of adults who have a right to make up our own minds. This insight is fundamental in the free speech tradition. On this view, the state wrongs citizens by arrogating to itself the authority to decide what messages they ought to hear. That is so even if the state thinks that the speech will cause harm. As one author puts it,

the government may not suppress speech on the ground that the speech is likely to persuade people to do something that the government considers harmful. (Strauss 1991: 335)

Why are restrictions on persuasive speech objectionable? For some scholars, the relevant wrong here is a form of disrespect for citizens’ basic capacities (Dworkin 1996: 200; Nagel 2002: 44). For others, the wrong here inheres in a violation of the kind of relationship the state should have with its people: namely, that it should always act from a view of them as autonomous, and so entitled to make up their own minds (Scanlon 1972). It would simply be incompatible with a view of ourselves as autonomous—as authors of our own lives and choices—to grant the state the authority to pre-screen which opinions, arguments, and perspectives we should be allowed to think through, allowing us access only to those of which it approves.

This position is especially well-suited to justify some central doctrines of First Amendment jurisprudence. First, it justifies the claim that freedom of expression especially implicates the purposes with which the state acts. There are all sorts of legitimate reasons why the state might restrict speech (so-called “time, place, and manner” restrictions)—for example, noise curfews in residential neighborhoods, which do not raise serious free speech concerns. Yet when the state restricts speech with the purpose of manipulating the communicative environment and controlling the views to which citizens are exposed, free speech is directly affronted (Rubenfeld 2001; Alexander 2005; Kramer 2021). To be sure, purposes are not all that matter for free speech theory. For example, the chilling effects of otherwise justified speech regulations (discussed below) are seldom intended. But they undoubtedly matter.

Second, this view justifies the related doctrines of content neutrality and viewpoint neutrality (see G. Stone 1983 and 1987) . Content neutrality is violated when the state bans discussion of certain topics (“no discussion of abortion”), whereas viewpoint neutrality is violated when the state bans advocacy of certain views (“no pro-choice views may be expressed”). Both affront free speech, though viewpoint-discrimination is especially egregious and so even harder to justify. While listener autonomy theories are not the only theories that can ground these commitments, they are in a strong position to account for their plausibility. Note that while these doctrines are central to the American approach to free speech, they are less central to other states’ jurisprudence (see A. Stone 2017).

Third, this approach helps us see that free speech is potentially implicated whenever the state seeks to control our thoughts and the processes through which we form beliefs. Consider an attempt to ban Marx’s Capital . As Marx is deceased, he is probably not wronged through such censorship. But even if one held idiosyncratic views about posthumous rights, such that Marx were wronged, it would be curious to think this was the central objection to such censorship. Those with the gravest complaint would be the living adults who have the prerogative to read the book and make up their own minds about it. Indeed free speech may even be implicated if the state banned watching sunsets or playing video games on the grounds that is disapproved of the thoughts to which such experiences might give rise (Alexander 2005: 8–9; Kramer 2021: 22).

These arguments emphasize the noninstrumental imperative of respecting listener autonomy. But there is an instrumental version of the view. Our autonomy interests are not merely respected by free speech; they are promoted by an environment in which we learn what others have to say. Our interests in access to information is served by exposure to a wide range of viewpoints about both empirical and normative issues (Cohen 1993: 229), which help us reflect on what goals to choose and how best to pursue them. These informational interests are monumental. As Raz suggests, if we had to choose whether to express our own views on some question, or listen to the rest of humanity’s views on that question, we would choose the latter; it is our interest as listeners in the public good of a vibrant public discourse that, he thinks, centrally justifies free speech (1991).

Such an interest in acquiring justified beliefs, or in accessing truth, can be defended as part of a fully consequentialist political philosophy. J.S. Mill famously defends free speech instrumentally, appealing to its epistemic benefits in On Liberty . Mill believes that, given our fallibility, we should routinely keep an open mind as to whether a seemingly false view may actually be true, or at least contain some valuable grain of truth. And even where a proposition is manifestly false, there is value in allowing its expression so that we can better apprehend why we take it to be false (1859: chapter 2), enabled through discursive conflict (cf. Simpson 2021). Mill’s argument focuses especially on the benefits to audiences:

It is is not on the impassioned partisan, it is on the calmer and more disinterested bystander, that this collision of opinions works its salutary effect. (1859: chapter 2, p. 94)

These views are sometimes associated with the idea of a “marketplace of ideas”, whereby the open clash of views inevitably leads to the correct ones winning out in debate. Few in the contemporary literature holds such a strong teleological thesis about the consequences of unrestricted debate (e.g., see Brietzke 1997; cf. Volokh 2011). Much evidence from behavioral economics and social psychology, as well as insights about epistemic injustice from feminist epistemology, strongly suggest that human beings’ rational powers are seriously limited. Smug confidence in the marketplace of ideas belies this. Yet it is doubtful that Mill held such a strong teleological thesis (Gordon 1997). Mill’s point was not that unrestricted discussion necessarily leads people to acquire the truth. Rather, it is simply the best mechanism available for ascertaining the truth, relative to alternatives in which some arbiter declares what he sees as true and suppresses what he sees as false (see also Leiter 2016).

Note that Mill’s views on free speech in chapter 2 in On Liberty are not simply the application of the general liberty principle defended in chapter 1 of that work; his view is not that speech is anodyne and therefore seldom runs afoul of the harm principle. The reason a separate argument is necessary in chapter 2 is precisely that he is carving out a partial qualification of the harm principle for speech (on this issue see Jacobson 2000, Schauer 2011b, and Turner 2014). On Mill’s view, plenty of harmful speech should still be allowed. Imminently dangerous speech, where there is no time for discussion before harm eventuates, may be restricted; but where there is time for discussion, it must be allowed. Hence Mill’s famous example that vociferous criticism of corn dealers as

starvers of the poor…ought to be unmolested when simply circulated through the press, but may justly incur punishment when delivered orally to an excited mob assembled before the house of a corn dealer. (1859: chapter 3, p. 100)

The point is not that such speech is harmless; it’s that the instrumental benefits of permitting its expressions—and exposing its falsehood through public argument—justify the (remaining) costs.

Many authors have unsurprisingly argued that free speech is justified by our interests as speakers . This family of arguments emphasizes the role of speech in the development and exercise of our personal autonomy—our capacity to be the reflective authors of our own lives (Baker 1989; Redish 1982; Rawls 2005). Here an emphasis on freedom of expression is apt; we have an “expressive interest” (Cohen 1993: 224) in declaring our views—about the good life, about justice, about our identity, and about other aspects of the truth as we see it.

Our interests in self-expression may not always depend on the availability of a willing audience; we may have interests simply in shouting from the rooftops to declare who we are and what we believe, regardless of who else hears us. Hence communications to oneself—for example, in a diary or journal—are plausibly protected from interference (Redish 1992: 30–1; Shiffrin 2014: 83, 93; Kramer 2021: 23).

Yet we also have distinctive interests in sharing what we think with others. Part of how we develop our conceptions of the good life, forming judgments about how to live, is precisely through talking through the matter with others. This “deliberative interest” in directly served through opportunities to tell others what we think, so that we can learn from their feedback (Cohen 1993). Such encounters also offer opportunities to persuade others to adopt our views, and indeed to learn through such discussions who else already shares our views (Raz 1991).

Speech also seems like a central way in which we develop our capacities. This, too, is central to J.S. Mill’s defense of free speech, enabling people to explore different perspectives and points of view (1859). Hence it seems that when children engage in speech, to figure out what they think and to use their imagination to try out different ways of being in the world, they are directly engaging this interest. That explains the intuition that children, and not just adults, merit at least some protection under a principle of freedom of speech.

Note that while it is common to refer to speaker autonomy , we could simply refer to speakers’ capacities. Some political liberals hold that an emphasis on autonomy is objectionably Kantian or otherwise perfectionist, valorizing autonomy as a comprehensive moral ideal in a manner that is inappropriate for a liberal state (Cohen 1993: 229; Quong 2011). For such theorists, an undue emphasis on autonomy is incompatible with ideals of liberal neutrality toward different comprehensive conceptions of the good life (though cf. Shiffrin 2014: 81).

If free speech is justified by the importance of our interests in expressing ourselves, this justifies negative duties to refrain from interfering with speakers without adequate justification. Just as with listener theories, a strong presumption against content-based restrictions, and especially against viewpoint discrimination, is a clear requirement of the view. For the state to restrict citizens’ speech on the grounds that it disfavors what they have to say would affront the equal freedom of citizens. Imagine the state were to disallow the expression of Muslim or Jewish views, but allow the expression of Christian views. This would plainly transgress the right to freedom of expression, by valuing certain speakers’ interests in expressing themselves over others.

Many arguments for the right to free speech center on its special significance for democracy (Cohen 1993; Heinze 2016: Heyman 2009; Sunstein 1993; Weinstein 2011; Post 1991, 2009, 2011). It is possible to defend free speech on the noninstrumental ground that it is necessary to respect agents as democratic citizens. To restrict citizens’ speech is to disrespect their status as free and equal moral agents, who have a moral right to debate and decide the law for themselves (Rawls 2005).

Alternatively (or additionally), one can defend free speech on the instrumental ground that free speech promotes democracy, or whatever values democracy is meant to serve. So, for example, suppose the purpose of democracy is the republican one of establishing a state of non-domination between relationally egalitarian citizens; free speech can be defended as promoting that relation (Whitten 2022; Bonotti & Seglow 2022). Or suppose that democracy is valuable because of its role in promoting just outcomes (Arneson 2009) or tending to track those outcomes in a manner than is publicly justifiable (Estlund 2008) or is otherwise epistemically valuable (Landemore 2013).

Perhaps free speech doesn’t merely respect or promote democracy; another framing is that it is constitutive of it (Meiklejohn 1948, 1960; Heinze 2016). As Rawls says: “to restrict or suppress free political speech…always implies at least a partial suspension of democracy” (2005: 254). On this view, to be committed to democracy just is , in part, to be committed to free speech. Deliberative democrats famously contend that voting merely punctuates a larger process defined by a commitment to open deliberation among free and equal citizens (Gutmann & Thompson 2008). Such an unrestricted discussion is marked not by considerations of instrumental rationality and market forces, but rather, as Habermas puts it, “the unforced force of the better argument” (1992 [1996: 37]). One crucial way in which free speech might be constitutive of democracy is if it serves as a legitimation condition . On this view, without a process of open public discourse, the outcomes of the democratic decision-making process lack legitimacy (Dworkin 2009, Brettschneider 2012: 75–78, Cohen 1997, and Heinze 2016).

Those who justify free speech on democratic grounds may view this as a special application of a more general insight. For example, Scanlon’s listener theory (discussed above) contends that the state must always respect its citizens as capable of making up their own minds (1972)—a position with clear democratic implications. Likewise, Baker is adamant that both free speech and democracy are justified by the same underlying value of autonomy (2009). And while Rawls sees the democratic role of free speech as worthy of emphasis, he is clear that free speech is one of several basic liberties that enable the development and exercise of our moral powers: our capacities for a sense of justice and for the rational pursuit a lifeplan (2005). In this way, many theorists see the continuity between free speech and our broader interests as moral agents as a virtue, not a drawback (e.g., Kendrick 2017).

Even so, some democracy theorists hold that democracy has a special role in a theory of free speech, such that political speech in particular merits special protection (for an overview, see Barendt 2005: 154ff). One consequence of such views is that contributions to public discourse on political questions merit greater protection under the law (Sunstein 1993; cf. Cohen 1993: 227; Alexander 2005: 137–8). For some scholars, this may reflect instrumental anxieties about the special danger that the state will restrict the political speech of opponents and dissenters. But for others, an emphasis on political speech seems to reflect a normative claim that such speech is genuinely of greater significance, meriting greater protection, than other kinds of speech.

While conventional in the free speech literature, it is artificial to separate out our interests as speakers, listeners, and democratic citizens. Communication, and the thinking that feeds into it and that it enables, invariably engages our interests and activities across all these capacities. This insight is central to Seana Shiffrin’s groundbreaking thinker-based theory of freedom of speech, which seeks to unify the range of considerations that have informed the traditional theories (2014). Like other theories (e.g., Scanlon 1978, Cohen 1993), Shiffrin’s theory is pluralist in the range of interests it appeals to. But it offers a unifying framework that explains why this range of interests merits protection together.

On Shiffrin’s view, freedom of speech is best understood as encompassing both freedom of communication and freedom of thought, which while logically distinct are mutually reinforcing and interdependent (Shiffrin 2014: 79). Shiffrin’s account involves several profound claims about the relation between communication and thought. A central contention is that “free speech is essential to the development, functioning, and operation of thinkers” (2014: 91). This is, in part, because we must often externalize our ideas to articulate them precisely and hold them at a distance where we can evaluate them (p. 89). It is also because we work out what we think largely by talking it through with others. Such communicative processes may be monological, but they are typically dialogical; speaker and listener interests are thereby mutually engaged in an ongoing manner that cannot be neatly disentangled, as ideas are ping-ponged back and forth. Moreover, such discussions may concern democratic politics—engaging our interests as democratic citizens—but of course they need not. Aesthetics, music, local sports, the existence of God—these all are encompassed (2014: 92–93). Pace prevailing democratic theories,

One’s thoughts about political affairs are intrinsically and ex ante no more and no less central to the human self than thoughts about one’s mortality or one’s friends. (Shiffrin 2014: 93)

The other central aspect of Shiffrin’s view appeals to the necessity of communication for successfully exercising our moral agency. Sincere communication enables us

to share needs, emotions, intentions, convictions, ambitions, desires, fantasies, disappointments, and judgments. Thereby, we are enabled to form and execute complex cooperative plans, to understand one another, to appreciate and negotiate around our differences. (2014: 1)

Without clear and precise communication of the sort that only speech can provide, we cannot cooperate to discharge our collective obligations. Nor can we exercise our normative powers (such as consenting, waiving, or promising). Our moral agency thus depends upon protected channels through which we can relay our sincere thoughts to one another. The central role of free speech is to protect those channels, by ensuring agents are free to share what they are thinking without fear of sanction.

The thinker-based view has wide-ranging normative implications. For example, by emphasizing the continuity of speech and thought (a connection also noted in Macklem 2006 and Gilmore 2011), Shiffrin’s view powerfully explains the First Amendment doctrine that compelled speech also constitutes a violation of freedom of expression. Traditional listener- and speaker-focused theories seemingly cannot explain what is fundamentally objectionable with forcing someone to declare a commitment to something, as with children compelled to pledge allegiance to the American flag ( West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette 1943). “What seems most troubling about the compelled pledge”, Shiffrin writes,

is that the motive behind the regulation, and its possible effect, is to interfere with the autonomous thought processes of the compelled speaker. (2014: 94)

Further, Shiffrin’s view explains why a concern for free speech does not merely correlate to negative duties not to interfere with expression; it also supports positive responsibilities on the part of the state to educate citizens, encouraging and supporting their development and exercise as thinking beings (2014: 107).

Consider briefly one final family of free speech theories, which appeal to the role of toleration or self-restraint. On one argument, freedom of speech is important because it develops our character as liberal citizens, helping us tame our illiberal impulses. The underlying idea of Lee Bollinger’s view is that liberalism is difficult; we recurrently face temptation to punish those who hold contrary views. Freedom of speech helps us to practice the general ethos of toleration in a manner than fortifies our liberal convictions (1986). Deeply offensive speech, like pro-Nazi speech, is protected precisely because toleration in these enormously difficult cases promotes “a general social ethic” of toleration more generally (1986: 248), thereby restraining unjust exercises of state power overall. This consequentialist argument treats the protection of offensive speech not as a tricky borderline case, but as “integral to the central functions of the principle of free speech” (1986: 133). It is precisely because tolerating evil speech involves “extraordinary self-restraint” (1986: 10) that it works its salutary effects on society generally.

The idea of self-restraint arises, too, in Matthew Kramer’s recent defense of free speech. Like listener theories, Kramer’s strongly deontological theory condemns censorship aimed at protecting audiences from exposure to misguided views. At the core of his theory is the thesis that the state’s paramount moral responsibility is to furnish the social conditions that serve the development and maintenance of citizens’ self-respect and respect for others. The achievement of such an ethically resilient citizenry, on Kramer’s view, has the effect of neutering the harmfulness of countless harmful communications. “Securely in a position of ethical strength”, the state “can treat the wares of pornographers and the maunderings of bigots as execrable chirps that are to be endured with contempt” (Kramer 2021: 147). In contrast, in a society where the state has failed to do its duty of inculcating a robust liberal-egalitarian ethos, the communication of illiberal creeds may well pose a substantial threat. Yet for the state then to react by banning such speech is

overweening because with them the system’s officials take control of communications that should have been defused (through the system’s fulfillment of its moral obligations) without prohibitory or preventative impositions. (2021: 147)

(One might agree with Kramer that this is so, but diverge by arguing that the state—having failed in its initial duty—ought to take measures to prevent the harms that flow from that failure.)

These theories are striking in that they assume that a chief task of free speech theory is to explain why harmful speech ought to be protected. This is in contrast to those who think that the chief task of free speech theory is to explain our interests in communicating with others, treating the further issue of whether (wrongfully) harmful communications should be protected as an open question, with different reasonable answers available (Kendrick 2017). In this way, toleration theories—alongside a lot of philosophical work on free speech—seem designed to vindicate the demanding American legal position on free speech, one unshared by virtually all other liberal democracies.

One final family of arguments for free speech appeals to the danger of granting the state powers it may abuse. On this view, we protect free speech chiefly because if we didn’t, it would be far easier for the state to silence its political opponents and enact unjust policies. On this view, a state with censorial powers is likely to abuse them. As Richard Epstein notes, focusing on the American case,

the entire structure of federalism, divided government, and the system of checks and balances at the federal level shows that the theme of distrust has worked itself into the warp and woof of our constitutional structure.

“The protection of speech”, he writes, “…should be read in light of these political concerns” (Epstein 1992: 49).

This view is not merely a restatement of the democracy theory; it does not affirm free speech as an element of valuable self-governance. Nor does it reduce to the uncontroversial thought that citizens need freedom of speech to check the behavior of fallible government agents (Blasi 1977). One need not imagine human beings to be particularly sinister to insist (as democracy theorists do) that the decisions of those entrusted with great power be subject to public discussion and scrutiny. The argument under consideration here is more pessimistic about human nature. It is an argument about the slippery slope that we create even when enacting (otherwise justified) speech restrictions; we set an unacceptable precedent for future conduct by the state (see Schauer 1985). While this argument is theoretical, there is clearly historical evidence for it, as in the manifold cases in which bans on dangerous sedition were used to suppress legitimate war protest. (For a sweeping canonical study of the uses and abuses of speech regulations during wartime, with a focus on U.S. history, see G. Stone 2004.)

These instrumental concerns could potentially justify the legal protection for free speech. But they do not to attempt to justify why we should care about free speech as a positive moral ideal (Shiffrin 2014: 83n); they are, in Cohen’s helpful terminology, “minimalist” rather than “maximalist” (Cohen 1993: 210). Accordingly, they cannot explain why free speech is something that even the most trustworthy, morally competent administrations, with little risk of corruption or degeneration, ought to respect. Of course, minimalists will deny that accounting for speech’s positive value is a requirement of a theory of free speech, and that critiquing them for this omission begs the question.

Pluralists may see instrumental concerns as valuably supplementing or qualifying noninstrumental views. For example, instrumental concerns may play a role in justifying deviations between the moral right to free communication, on the one hand, and a properly specified legal right to free communication, on the other. Suppose that there is no moral right to engage in certain forms of harmful expression (such as hate speech), and that there is in fact a moral duty to refrain from such expression. Even so, it does not follow automatically that such a right ought to be legally enforced. Concerns about the dangers of granting the state such power plausibly militate against the enforcement of at least some of our communicative duties—at least in those jurisdictions that lack robust and competently administered liberal-democratic safeguards.

This entry has canvassed a range of views about what justifies freedom of expression, with particular attention to theories that conceive free speech as a natural moral right. Clearly, the proponents of such views believe that they succeed in this justificatory effort. But others dissent, doubting that the case for a bona fide moral right to free speech comes through. Let us briefly note the nature of this challenge from free speech skeptics , exploring a prominent line of reply.

The challenge from skeptics is generally understood as that of showing that free speech is a special right . As Leslie Kendrick notes,

the term “special right” generally requires that a special right be entirely distinct from other rights and activities and that it receive a very high degree of protection. (2017: 90)

(Note that this usage is not to be confused from the alternative usage of “special right”, referring to conditional rights arising out of particular relationships; see Hart 1955.)

Take each aspect in turn. First, to vindicate free speech as a special right, it must serve some distinctive value or interest (Schauer 2015). Suppose free speech were just an implication of a general principle not to interfere in people’s liberty without justification. As Joel Feinberg puts it, “Liberty should be the norm; coercion always needs some special justification” (1984: 9). In such a case, then while there still might be contingent, historical reasons to single speech out in law as worthy of protection (Alexander 2005: 186), such reasons would not track anything especially distinctive about speech as an underlying moral matter. Second, to count as a special right, free speech must be robust in what it protects, such that only a compelling justification can override it (Dworkin 2013: 131). This captures the conviction, prominent among American constitutional theorists, that “any robust free speech principle must protect at least some harmful speech despite the harm it may cause” (Schauer 2011b: 81; see also Schauer 1982).

If the task of justifying a moral right to free speech requires surmounting both hurdles, it is a tall order. Skeptics about a special right to free speech doubt that the order can be met, and so deny that a natural moral right to freedom of expression can be justified (Schauer 2015; Alexander & Horton 1983; Alexander 2005; Husak 1985). But these theorists may be demanding too much (Kendrick 2017). Start with the claim that free speech must be distinctive. We can accept that free speech be more than simply one implication of a general presumption of liberty. But need it be wholly distinctive? Consider the thesis that free speech is justified by our autonomy interests—interests that justify other rights such as freedom of religion and association. Is it a problem if free speech is justified by interests that are continuous with, or overlap with, interests that justify other rights? Pace the free speech skeptics, maybe not. So long as such claims deserve special recognition, and are worth distinguishing by name, this may be enough (Kendrick 2017: 101). Many of the views canvassed above share normative bases with other important rights. For example, Rawls is clear that he thinks all the basic liberties constitute

essential social conditions for the adequate development and full exercise of the two powers of moral personality over a complete life. (Rawls 2005: 293)

The debate, then, is whether such a shared basis is a theoretical virtue (or at least theoretically unproblematic) or whether it is a theoretical vice, as the skeptics avow.

As for the claim that free speech must be robust, protecting harmful speech, “it is not necessary for a free speech right to protect harmful speech in order for it to be called a free speech right” (Kendrick 2017: 102). We do not tend to think that religious liberty must protect harmful religious activities for it to count as a special right. So it would be strange to insist that the right to free speech must meet this burden to count as a special right. Most of the theorists mentioned above take themselves to be offering views that protect quite a lot of harmful speech. Yet we can question whether this feature is a necessary component of their views, or whether we could imagine variations without this result.

3. Justifying Speech Restrictions

When, and why, can restrictions on speech be justified? It is common in public debate on free speech to hear the provocative claim that free speech is absolute . But the plausibility of such a claim depends on what is exactly meant by it. If understood to mean that no communications between humans can ever be restricted, such a view is held by no one in the philosophical debate. When I threaten to kill you unless you hand me your money; when I offer to bribe the security guard to let me access the bank vault; when I disclose insider information that the company in which you’re heavily invested is about to go bust; when I defame you by falsely posting online that you’re a child abuser; when I endanger you by labeling a drug as safe despite its potentially fatal side-effects; when I reveal your whereabouts to assist a murderer intent on killing you—across all these cases, communications may be uncontroversially restricted. But there are different views as to why.

To help organize such views, consider a set of distinctions influentially defended by Schauer (from 1982 onward). The first category involves uncovered speech : speech that does not even presumptively fall within the scope of a principle of free expression. Many of the speech-acts just canvassed, such as the speech involved in making a threat or insider training, plausibly count as uncovered speech. As the U.S. Supreme Court has said of fighting words (e.g., insults calculated to provoke a street fight),

such utterances are no essential part of any exposition of ideas, and are of such slight social value as a step to truth that any benefit that may be derived from them is clearly outweighed by the social interest in order and morality. ( Chaplinsky v. New Hampshire 1942)

The general idea here is that some speech simply has negligible—and often no —value as free speech, in light of its utter disconnection from the values that justify free speech in the first place. (For discussion of so-called “low-value speech” in the U.S. context, see Sunstein 1989 and Lakier 2015.) Accordingly, when such low-value speech is harmful, it is particularly easy to justify its curtailment. Hence the Court’s view that “the prevention and punishment of [this speech] have never been thought to raise any Constitutional problem”. For legislation restricting such speech, the U.S. Supreme Court applies a “rational basis” test, which is very easy to meet, as it simply asks whether the law is rationally related to a legitimate state interest. (Note that it is widely held that it would still be impermissible to selectively ban low-value speech on a viewpoint-discriminatory basis—e.g., if a state only banned fighting words from left-wing activists while allowing them from right-wing activists.)

Schauer’s next category concerns speech that is covered but unprotected . This is speech that engages the values that underpin free speech; yet the countervailing harm of the speech justifies its restriction. In such cases, while there is real value in such expression as free speech, that value is outweighed by competing normative concerns (or even, as we will see below, on behalf of the very values that underpin free speech). In U.S. constitutional jurisprudence, this category encompasses those extremely rare cases in which restrictions on political speech pass the “strict scrutiny” test, whereby narrow restrictions on high-value speech can be justified due to the compelling state interests thereby served. Consider Holder v. Humanitarian Law Project 2010, in which the Court held that an NGO’s legal advice to a terrorist organization on how to pursue peaceful legal channels were legitimately criminalized under a counter-terrorism statute. While such speech had value as free speech (at least on one interpretation of this contested ruling), the imperative of counter-terrorism justified its restriction. (Arguably, commercial speech, while sometimes called low-value speech by scholars, falls into the covered but unprotected category. Under U.S. law, legislation restricting it receives “intermediate scrutiny” by courts—requiring restrictions to be narrowly drawn to advance a substantial government interest. Such a test suggests that commercial speech has bona fide free-speech value, making it harder to justify regulations on it than regulations on genuinely low-value speech like fighting words. It simply doesn’t have as much free-speech value as categories like political speech, religious speech, or press speech, all of which trigger the strict scrutiny test when restricted.)

As a philosophical matter, we can reasonably disagree about what speech qualifies as covered but unprotected (and need not treat the verdicts of the U.S. Supreme Court as philosophically decisive). For example, consider politically-inflected hate speech, which advances repugnant ideas about the inferior status of certain groups. One could concur that there is substantial free-speech value in such expression, just because it involves the sincere expression of views about central questions of politics and justice (however misguided the views doubtlessly are). Yet one could nevertheless hold that such speech should not be protected in virtue of the substantial harms to which it can lead. In such cases, the free-speech value is outweighed. Many scholars who defend the permissibility of legal restrictions on hate speech hold such a view (e.g., Parekh 2012; Waldron 2012). (More radically, one could hold that such speech’s value is corrupted by its evil, such that it qualifies as genuinely low-value; Howard 2019a.)

The final category of speech encompasses expression that is covered and protected . To declare that speech is protected just is to conclude that it is immune from restriction. A preponderance of human communications fall into this category. This does not mean that such speech can never be regulated ; content-neutral time, place, and manner regulations (e.g., prohibiting loud nighttime protests) can certainly be justified (G. Stone 1987). But such regulations must not be viewpoint discriminatory; they must apply even-handedly across all forms of protected speech.

Schauer’s taxonomy offers a useful organizing framework for how we should think about different forms of speech. Where does it leave the claim that free speech is absolute? The possibility of speech that is covered but unprotected suggests that free speech should sometimes be restricted on account of rival normative concerns. Of course, one could contend that such a category, while logically possible, is substantively an empty set; such a position would involve some kind of absoluteness about free speech (holding that where free-speech values are engaged by expression, no countervailing values can ever be weighty enough to override them). Such a position would be absolutist in a certain sense while granting the permissibility of restrictions on speech that do not engage the free-speech values. (For a recent critique of Schauer’s framework, arguing that governmental designation of some speech as low-value is incompatible with the very ideal of free speech, see Kramer 2021: 31.)

In what follows, this entry will focus on Schauer’s second category: speech that is covered by a free speech principle, but is nevertheless unprotected because of the harms it causes. How do we determine what speech falls into this category? How, in other words, do we determine the limits of free speech? Unsurprisingly, this is where most of the controversy lies.

Most legal systems that protect free speech recognize that the right has limits. Consider, for example, international human rights law, which emphatically protects the freedom of speech as a fundamental human right while also affirming specific restrictions on certain seriously harmful speech. Article 19 of the International Covenant of Civil and Political Rights declares that “[e]veryone shall have the right to freedom of expression; this right shall include freedom to seek, receive and impart information and ideas of all kinds”—but then immediately notes that this right “carries with it special duties and responsibilities”. The subsequent ICCPR article proceeds to endorse legal restrictions on “advocacy of national, racial or religious hatred that constitutes incitement to discrimination, hostility or violence”, as well as speech constituting “propaganda for war” (ICCPR). While such restrictions would plainly be struck down as unconstitutional affronts to free speech in the U.S., this more restrictive approach prevails in most liberal democracies’ treatment of harmful speech.

Set aside the legal issue for now. How should we think about how to determine the limits of the moral right free speech? Those seeking to justify limits on speech tend to appeal to one of two strategies (Howard and Simpson forthcoming). The first strategy appeals to the importance of balancing free speech against other moral values when they come into conflict. This strategy involves external limits on free speech. (The next strategy, discussed below, invokes free speech itself, or the values that justify it, as limit-setting rationales; it thus involves internal limits on free speech.)

A balancing approach recognizes a moral conflict between unfettered communication and external values. Consider again the case of hate speech, understood as expression that attacks members of socially vulnerable groups as inferior or dangerous. On all of the theories canvassed above, there are grounds for thinking that restrictions on hate speech are prima facie in violation of the moral right to free speech. Banning hate speech to prevent people from hearing ideas that might incline them to bigotry plainly seems to disrespect listener autonomy. Further, even when speakers are expressing prejudiced views, they are still engaging their autonomous faculties. Certainly, they are expressing views on questions of public political concern, even false ones. And as thinkers they are engaged in the communication of sincere testimony to others. On many of the leading theories, the values underpinning free speech seem to be militate against bans on hate speech.

Even so, other values matter. Consider, for example, the value of upholding the equal dignity of all citizens. A central insight of critical race theory is that public expressions of white supremacy, for example, attack and undermine that equal dignity (Matsuda, Lawrence, Delgado, & Crenshaw 1993). On Jeremy Waldron’s view (2012), hate speech is best understood as a form of group defamation, launching spurious attacks on others’ reputations and thereby undermining their standing as respected equals in their own community (relatedly, see Beauharnais v. Illinois 1952).

Countries that ban hate speech, accordingly, are plausibly understood not as opposed to free speech, but as recognizing the importance that it be balanced when conflicting with other values. Such balancing can be understood in different ways. In European human rights law, for example, the relevant idea is that the right to free speech is balanced against other rights ; the relevant task, accordingly, is to specify what counts as a proportionate balance between these rights (see Alexy 2003; J. Greene 2021).

For others, the very idea of balancing rights undermines their deontic character. This alternative framing holds that the balancing occurs before we specify what rights are; on this view, we balance interests against each other, and only once we’ve undertaken that balancing do we proceed to define what our rights protect. As Scanlon puts it,

The only balancing is balancing of interests. Rights are not balanced, but are defined, or redefined, in the light of the balance of interests and of empirical facts about how these interests can best be protected. (2008: 78)

This balancing need not come in the form of some crude consequentialism; otherwise it would be acceptable to limit the rights of the few to secure trivial benefits for the many. On a contractualist moral theory such as Scanlon’s, the test is to assess the strength of any given individual’s reason to engage in (or access) the speech, against the strength of any given individual’s reason to oppose it.

Note that those who engage in balancing need not give up on the idea of viewpoint neutrality; they can accept that, as a general principle, the state should not restrict speech on the grounds that it disapproves of its message and dislikes that others will hear it. The point, instead, is that this commitment is defeasible; it is possible to be overridden.

One final comment is apt. Those who are keen to balance free speech against other values tend to be motivated by the concern that speech can cause harm, either directly or indirectly (on this distinction, see Schauer 1993). But to justify restrictions on speech, it is not sufficient (and perhaps not even necessary) to show that such speech imposes or risks imposing harm. The crucial point is that the speech is wrongful (or, perhaps, wrongfully harmful or risky) , breaching a moral duty that speakers owe to others. Yet very few in the free speech literature think that the mere offensiveness of speech is sufficient to justify restrictions on it. Even Joel Feinberg, who thinks offensiveness can sometimes be grounds for restricting conduct, makes a sweeping exception for

[e]xpressions of opinion, especially about matters of public policy, but also about matters of empirical fact, and about historical, scientific, theological, philosophical, political, and moral questions. (1985: 44)

And in many cases, offensive speech may be actively salutary, as when racists are offended by defenses of racial equality (Waldron 1987). Accordingly, despite how large it looms in public debate, discussion of offensive speech will not play a major role in the discussion here.

We saw that one way to justify limits on free speech is to balance it against other values. On that approach, free speech is externally constrained. A second approach, in contrast, is internally constrained. On this approach, the very values that justify free speech themselves determine its own limits. This is a revisionist approach to free speech since, unlike orthodox thinking, it contends that a commitment to free speech values can counterintuitively support the restriction of speech—a surprising inversion of traditional thinking on the topic (see Howard and Simpson forthcoming). This move—justifying restrictions on speech by appealing to the values that underpin free speech—is now prevalent in the philosophical literature (for an overview, see Barendt 2005: 1ff).

Consider, for example, the claim that free speech is justified by concerns of listener autonomy. On such a view, as we saw above, autonomous citizens have interests in exposure to a wide range of viewpoints, so that they can decide for themselves what to believe. But many have pointed out that this is not autonomous citizens’ only interest; they also have interests in not getting murdered by those incited by incendiary speakers (Amdur 1980). Likewise, insofar as being targeted by hate speech undermines the exercise of one’s autonomous capacities, appeal to the underlying value of autonomy could well support restrictions on such speech (Brison 1998; see also Brink 2001). What’s more, if our interests as listeners in acquiring accurate information is undermined by fraudulent information, then restrictions on such information could well be compatible with our status as autonomous; this was one of the insights that led Scanlon to complicate his theory of free speech (1978).

Or consider the theory that free speech is justified because of its role in enabling autonomous speakers to express themselves. But as Japa Pallikkathayil has argued, some speech can intimidate its audiences into staying silent (as with some hate speech), out of fear for what will happen if they speak up (Pallikkathayil 2020). In principle, then, restrictions on hate speech may serve to support the value of speaker expression, rather than undermine it (see also Langton 2018; Maitra 2009; Maitra & McGowan 2007; and Matsuda 1989: 2337). Indeed, among the most prominent claims in feminist critiques of pornography is precisely that it silences women—not merely through its (perlocutionary) effects in inspiring rape, but more insidiously through its (illocutionary) effects in altering the force of the word “no” (see MacKinnon 1984; Langton 1993; and West 204 [2022]; McGowan 2003 and 2019; cf. Kramer 2021, pp. 160ff).

Now consider democracy theories. On the one hand, democracy theorists are adamant that citizens should be free to discuss any proposals, even the destruction of democracy itself (e.g., Meiklejohn 1948: 65–66). On the other hand, it isn’t obvious why citizens’ duties as democratic citizens could not set a limit to their democratic speech rights (Howard 2019a). The Nazi propagandist Goebbels is said to have remarked:

This will always remain one of the best jokes of democracy, that it gave its deadly enemies the means by which it was destroyed. (as quoted in Fox & Nolte 1995: 1)

But it is not clear why this is necessarily so. Why should we insist on a conception of democracy that contains a self-destruct mechanism? Merely stipulating that democracy requires this is not enough (see A. Greene and Simpson 2017).

Finally, consider Shiffrin’s thinker-based theory. Shiffrin’s view is especially well-placed to explain why varieties of harmful communications are protected speech; what the theory values is the sincere transmission of veridical testimony, whereby speakers disclose what they genuinely believe to others, even if what they believe is wrongheaded and dangerous. Yet because the sincere testimony of thinkers is what qualifies some communication for protection, Shiffrin is adamant that lying falls outside the protective ambit of freedom of expression (2014) This, then, sets an internal limit on her own theory (even if she herself disfavors all lies’ outright prohibition for reasons of tolerance). The claim that lying falls outside the protective ambit of free speech is itself a recurrent suggestion in the literature (Strauss 1991: 355; Brown 2023). In an era of rampant disinformation, this internal limit is of substantial practical significance.

Suppose the moral right (or principle) of free speech is limited, as most think, such that not all communications fall within its protective ambit (either for external reasons, internal reasons, or both). Even so, it does not follow that laws banning such unprotected speech can be justified all-things-considered. Further moral tests must be passed before any particular policy restricting speech can be justified. This sub-section focuses on the requirement that speech restrictions be proportionate .

The idea that laws implicating fundamental rights must be proportionate is central in many jurisdictions’ constitutional law, as well as in the international law of human rights. As a representative example, consider the specification of proportionality offered by the Supreme Court of Canada:

First, the measures adopted must be carefully designed to achieve the objective in question. They must not be arbitrary, unfair, or based on irrational considerations. In short, they must be rationally connected to the objective. Second, the means, even if rationally connected to the objective in this first sense, should impair “as little as possible” the right or freedom in question[…] Third, there must be a proportionality between the effects of the measures which are responsible for limiting the Charter right or freedom, and the objective which has been identified as of “sufficient importance” ( R v. Oakes 1986).

It is this third element (often called “proportionality stricto sensu ”) on which we will concentrate here; this is the focused sense of proportionality that roughly tracks how the term is used in the philosophical literatures on defensive harm and war, as well as (with some relevant differences) criminal punishment. (The strict scrutiny and intermediate scrutiny tests of U.S. constitutional law are arguably variations of the proportionality test; but set aside this complication for now as it distracts from the core philosophical issues. For relevant legal discussion, see Tsesis 2020.)

Proportionality, in the strict sense, concerns the relation between the costs or harms imposed by some measure and the benefits that the measure is designed to secure. The organizing distinction in recent philosophical literature (albeit largely missing in the literature on free speech) is one between narrow proportionality and wide proportionality . While there are different ways to cut up the terrain between these terms, let us stipulatively define them as follows. An interference is narrowly proportionate just in case the intended target of the interference is liable to bear the costs of that interference. An interference is widely proportionate just in case the collateral costs that the interference unintentionally imposes on others can be justified. (This distinction largely follows the literature in just war theory and the ethics of defensive force; see McMahan 2009.) While the distinction is historically absent from free speech theory, it has powerful payoffs in helping to structure this chaotic debate (as argued in Howard 2019a).

So start with the idea that restrictions on communication must be narrowly proportionate . For a restriction to be narrowly proportionate, those whose communications are restricted must be liable to bear their costs, such that they are not wronged by their imposition. One standard way to be liable to bear certain costs is to have a moral duty to bear them (Tadros 2012). So, for example, if speakers have a moral duty to refrain from libel, hate speech, or some other form of harmful speech, they are liable to bear at least some costs involved in the enforcement of that duty. Those costs cannot be unlimited; a policy of executing hate speakers could not plausibly be justified. Typically, in both defensive and punitive contexts, wrongdoers’ liability is determined by their culpability, the severity of their wrong, or some combination of the two. While it is difficult to say in the abstract what the precise maximal cost ceiling is for any given restriction, as it depends hugely on the details, the point is simply that there is some ceiling above which a speech restriction (like any restriction) imposes unacceptably high costs, even on wrongdoers.

Second, for a speech restriction to be justified, we must also show that it would be widely proportionate . Suppose a speaker is liable to bear the costs of some policy restricting her communication, such that she is not wronged by its imposition. It may be that the collateral costs of such a policy would render it unacceptable. One set of costs is chilling effects , the “overdeterrence of benign conduct that occurs incidentally to a law’s legitimate purpose or scope” (Kendrick 2013: 1649). The core idea is that laws targeting unprotected, legitimately proscribed expression may nevertheless end up having a deleterious impact on protected expression. This is because laws are often vague, overbroad, and in any case are likely to be misapplied by fallible officials (Schauer 1978: 699).

Note that if a speech restriction produces chilling effects, it does not follow that the restriction should not exist at all. Rather, concern about chilling effects instead suggests that speech restrictions should be under-inclusive—restricting less speech than is actually harmful—in order to create “breathing space”, or “a buffer zone of strategic protection” (Schauer 1978: 710) for legitimate expression and so reduce unwanted self-censorship. For example, some have argued that even though speech can cause harm recklessly or negligently, we should insist on specific intent as the mens rea of speech crimes in order to reduce any chilling effects that could follow (Alexander 1995: 21–128; Schauer 1978: 707; cf. Kendrick 2013).

But chilling effects are not the only sort of collateral effects to which speech restrictions could lead. Earlier we noted the risk that states might abuse their censorial powers. This, too, could militate in favor of underinclusive speech restrictions. Or the implication could be more radical. Consider the problem that it is difficult to author restrictions on hate speech in a tightly specified way; the language involved is open-ended in a manner that enables states to exercise considerable judgment in deciding what speech-acts, in fact, count as violations (see Strossen 2018). Given the danger that the state will misuse or abuse these laws to punish legitimate speech, some might think this renders their enactment widely disproportionate. Indeed, even if the law were well-crafted and would be judiciously applied by current officials, the point is that those in the future may not be so trustworthy.

Those inclined to accept such a position might simply draw the conclusion that legislatures ought to refrain from enacting laws against hate speech. A more radical conclusion is that the legal right to free speech ought to be specified so that hate speech is constitutionally protected. In other words, we ought to give speakers a legal right to violate their moral duties, since enforcing those moral duties through law is simply too risky. By appealing to this logic, it is conceivable that the First Amendment position on hate speech could be justified all-things-considered—not because the underlying moral right to free speech protects hate speech, but because hate speech must be protected for instrumental reasons of preventing future abuses of power (Howard 2019a).

Suppose certain restrictions on harmful speech can be justified as proportionate, in both the narrow and wide senses. This is still not sufficient to justify them all-things-considered. Additionally, they must be justified as necessary . (Note that some conceptions of proportionality in human rights law encompass the necessity requirement, but this entry follows the prevailing philosophical convention by treating them as distinct.)

Why might restrictions on harmful speech be unnecessary? One of the standard claims in the free speech literature is that we should respond to harmful speech not by banning it, but by arguing back against it. Counter-speech—not censorship—is the appropriate solution. This line of reasoning is old. As John Milton put it in 1644: “Let [Truth] and Falsehood grapple; who ever knew Truth put to the worse in a free and open encounter?” The insistence on counter-speech as the remedy for harmful speech is similarly found, as noted above, throughout chapter 2 of Mill’s On Liberty .

For many scholars, this line of reply is justified by the fact that they think the harmful speech in question is protected by the moral right to free speech. For such scholars, counter-speech is the right response because censorship is morally off the table. For other scholars, the recourse to counter-speech has a plausible distinct rationale (although it is seldom articulated): its possibility renders legal restrictions unnecessary. And because it is objectionable to use gratuitous coercion, legal restrictions are therefore impermissible (Howard 2019a). Such a view could plausibly justify Mill’s aforementioned analysis in the corn dealer example, whereby censorship is permissible but only when there’s no time for counter-speech—a view that is also endorsed by the U.S. Supreme Court in Brandenburg v. Ohio 395 U.S. 444 (1969).

Whether this argument succeeds depends upon a wide range of further assumptions—about the comparable effectiveness of counter-speech relative to law; about the burdens that counter-speech imposes on prospective counter-speakers. Supposing that the argument succeeds, it invites a range of further normative questions about the ethics of counter-speech. For example, it is important who has the duty to engage in counter-speech, who its intended audience is, and what specific forms the counter-speech ought to take—especially in order to maximize its persuasive effectiveness (Brettschneider 2012; Cepollaro, Lepoutre, & Simpson 2023; Howard 2021b; Lepoutre 2021; Badano & Nuti 2017). It is also important to ask questions about the moral limits of counter-speech. For example, insofar as publicly shaming wrongful speakers has become a prominent form of counter-speech, it is crucial to interrogate its permissibility (e.g., Billingham and Parr 2020).

This final section canvasses the young philosophical debate concerning freedom of speech on the internet. With some important exceptions (e.g., Barendt 2005: 451ff), this issue has only recently accelerated (for an excellent edited collection, see Brison & Gelber 2019). There are many normative questions to be asked about the moral rights and obligations of internet platforms. Here are three. First, do internet platforms have moral duties to respect the free speech of their users? Second, do internet platforms have moral duties to restrict (or at least refrain from amplifying) harmful speech posted by their users? And finally, if platforms do indeed have moral duties to restrict harmful speech, should those duties be legally enforced?

The reference to internet platforms , is a deliberate focus on large-scale social media platforms, through which people can discover and publicly share user-generated content. We set aside other entities such as search engines (Whitney & Simpson 2019), important though they are. That is simply because the central political controversies, on which philosophical input is most urgent, concern the large social-media platforms.

Consider the question of whether internet platforms have moral duties to respect the free speech of their users. One dominant view in the public discourse holds that the answer is no . On this view, platforms are private entities, and as such enjoy the prerogative to host whatever speech they like. This would arguably be a function of them having free speech rights themselves. Just as the free speech rights of the New York Times give it the authority to publish whatever op-eds it sees fit, the free speech rights of platforms give them the authority to exercise editorial or curatorial judgment about what speech to allow. On this view, if Facebook were to decide to become a Buddhist forum, amplifying the speech of Buddhist users and promoting Buddhist perspectives and ideas, and banning speech promoting other religions, it would be entirely within its moral (and thus proper legal) rights to do so. So, too, if it were to decide to become an atheist forum.

A radical alternative view holds that internet platforms constitute a public forum , a term of art from U.S. free speech jurisprudence used to designate spaces “designed for and dedicated to expressive activities” ( Southeastern Promotions Ltd., v. Conrad 1975). As Kramer has argued:

social-media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter and YouTube have become public fora. Although the companies that create and run those platforms are not morally obligated to sustain them in existence at all, the role of controlling a public forum morally obligates each such company to comply with the principle of freedom of expression while performing that role. No constraints that deviate from the kinds of neutrality required under that principle are morally legitimate. (Kramer 2021: 58–59)

On this demanding view, platforms’ duties to respect speech are (roughly) identical to the duties of states. Accordingly, if efforts by the state to restrict hate speech, pornography, and public health misinformation (for example) are objectionable affronts to free speech, so too are platforms’ content moderation rules for such content. A more moderate view does not hold that platforms are public forums as such, but holds that government channels or pages qualify as public forums (the claim at issue in Knight First Amendment Institute v. Trump (2019).)

Even if we deny that platforms constitute public forums, it is plausible that they engage in a governance function of some kind (Klonick 2018). As Jack Balkin has argued, the traditional model of free speech, which sees it as a relation between speakers and the state, is today plausibly supplanted by a triadic model, involving a more complex relation between speakers, governments, and intermediaries (2004, 2009, 2018, 2021). If platforms do indeed have some kind of governance function, it may well trigger responsibilities for transparency and accountability (as with new legislation such as the EU’s Digital Services Act and the UK’s Online Safety Act).

Second, consider the question of whether platforms have a duty to remove harmful content posted by users. Even those who regard them as public forums could agree that platforms may have a moral responsibility to remove illegal unprotected speech. Yet a dominant view in the public debate has historically defended platforms’ place as mere conduits for others’ speech. This is the current position under U.S. law (as with 47 U.S. Code §230), which broadly exempts platforms from liability for much illegal speech, such as defamation. On this view, we should view platforms as akin to bulletin boards: blame whoever posts wrongful content, but don’t hold the owner of the board responsible.

This view is under strain. Even under current U.S. law, platforms are liable for removing some content, such as child sexual abuse material and copyright infringements, suggesting that it is appropriate to demand some accountability for the wrongful content posted by others. An increasing body of philosophical work explores the idea that platforms are indeed morally responsible for removing extreme content. For example, some have argued that platforms have a special responsibility to prevent the radicalization that occurs on their networks, given the ways in which extreme content is amplified to susceptible users (Barnes 2022). Without engaging in moderation (i.e., removal) of harmful content, platforms are plausibly complicit with the wrongful harms perpetrated by users (Howard forthcoming).

Yet it remains an open question what a responsible content moderation policy ought to involve. Many are tempted by a juridical model, whereby platforms remove speech in accordance with clearly announced rules, with user appeals mechanisms in place for individual speech decisions to ensure they are correctly made (critiqued in Douek 2022b). Yet platforms have billions of users and remove millions of pieces of content per week. Accordingly, perfection is not possible. Moving quickly to remove harmful content during a crisis—e.g., Covid misinformation—will inevitably increase the number of false positives (i.e., legitimate speech taken down as collateral damage). It is plausible that the individualistic model of speech decisions adopted by courts is decidedly implausible to help us govern online content moderation; as noted in Douek 2021 and 2022a, what is needed is analysis of how the overall system should operate at scale, with a focus on achieving proportionality between benefits and costs. Alternatively, one might double down and insist that the juridical model is appropriate, given the normative significance of speech. And if it is infeasible for social-media companies to meet its demands given their size, then all the worse for social-media companies. On this view, it is they who must bend to meet the moral demands of free speech theory, not the other way around.

Substantial philosophical work needs to be done to deliver on this goal. The work is complicated by the fact that artificial intelligence (AI) is central to the processes of content moderation; human moderators, themselves subjected to terrible working conditions at long hours, work in conjunction with machine learning tools to identify and remove content that platforms have restricted. Yet AI systems notoriously are as biased as their training data. Further, their “black box” decisions are cryptic and cannot be easily understood. Given that countless speech decisions will necessarily be made without human involvement, it is right to ask whether it is reasonable to expect users to accept the deliverances of machines (e.g., see Vredenburgh 2022; Lazar forthcoming a). Note that machine intelligence is used not merely for content moderation, narrowly understood as the enforcement of rules about what speech is allowed. It is also deployed for the broader practice of content curation, determining what speech gets amplified — raising the question of what normative principles should govern such amplification; see Lazar forthcoming b).

Finally, there is the question of legal enforcement. Showing that platforms have the moral responsibility to engage in content moderation is necessary to justifying its codification into a legal responsibility. Yet it is not sufficient; one could accept that platforms have moral duties to moderate (some) harmful speech while also denying that those moral duties ought to be legally enforced. A strong, noninstrumental version of such a view would hold that while speakers have moral duties to refrain from wrongful speech, and platforms have duties not to platform or amplify it, the coercive enforcement of such duties would violate the moral right to freedom of expression. A more contingent, instrumental version of the view would hold that legal enforcement is not in principle impermissible; but in practice, it is simply too risky to grant the state the authority to enforce platforms’ and speakers’ moral duties, given the potential for abuse and overreach.

Liberals who champion the orthodox interpretation of the First Amendment, yet insist on robust content moderation, likely hold one or both of these views. Yet globally such views seem to be in the minority. Serious legislation is imminent that will subject social-media companies to burdensome regulation, in the form of such laws as the Digital Services Act in the European Union and the Online Safety Bill in the UK. Normatively evaluating such legislation is a pressing task. So, too, is the task of designing normative theories to guide the design of content moderation systems, and the wider governance of the digital public sphere. On both fronts, political philosophers should get back to work.

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How to cite this entry . Preview the PDF version of this entry at the Friends of the SEP Society . Look up topics and thinkers related to this entry at the Internet Philosophy Ontology Project (InPhO). Enhanced bibliography for this entry at PhilPapers , with links to its database.

• International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) , adopted: 16 December 1966; Entry into force: 23 March 1976.
• Free Speech Debate
• Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University
• van Mill, David, “Freedom of Speech”, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Winter 2023 Edition), Edward N. Zalta & Uri Nodelman (eds.), URL = < https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2023/entries/freedom-speech/ >. [This was the previous entry on this topic in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy – see the version history .]

ethics: search engines and | hate speech | legal rights | liberalism | Mill, John Stuart | Mill, John Stuart: moral and political philosophy | pornography: and censorship | rights | social networking and ethics | toleration

Acknowledgments

I am grateful to the editors and anonymous referees of this Encyclopedia for helpful feedback. I am greatly indebted to Robert Mark Simpson for many incisive suggestions, which substantially improved the entry. This entry was written while on a fellowship funded by UK Research & Innovation (grant reference MR/V025600/1); I am thankful to UKRI for the support.

Copyright © 2024 by Jeffrey W. Howard < jeffrey . howard @ ucl . ac . uk >

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Student Opinion

Why Is Freedom of Speech an Important Right? When, if Ever, Can It Be Limited?

By Michael Gonchar

• Sept. 12, 2018

This extended Student Opinion question and a related lesson plan were created in partnership with the National Constitution Center in advance of Constitution Day on Sept. 17. For information about a cross-classroom “Constitutional Exchange,” see The Lauder Project .

One of the founding principles of the United States that Americans cherish is the right to freedom of speech. Enshrined in the First Amendment to the Constitution, freedom of speech grants all Americans the liberty to criticize the government and speak their minds without fear of being censored or persecuted.

Even though the concept of freedom of speech on its face seems quite simple, in reality there are complex lines that can be drawn around what kinds of speech are protected and in what setting.

The Supreme Court declared in the case Schenck v. United States in 1919 that individuals are not entitled to speech that presents a “clear and present danger” to society. For example, a person cannot falsely yell “fire” in a crowded theater because that speech doesn’t contribute to the range of ideas being discussed in society, yet the risk of someone getting injured is high. On the other hand, in Brandenburg v. Ohio in 1969, the court declared that even inflammatory speech, such as racist language by a leader of the Ku Klux Klan, should generally be protected unless it is likely to cause imminent violence.

While the text and principle of the First Amendment have stayed the same, the court’s interpretation has indeed changed over time . Judges, lawmakers and scholars continue to struggle with balancing strong speech protections with the necessity of maintaining a peaceful society.

What do you think? Why is the freedom of speech an important right? Why might it be important to protect even unpopular or hurtful speech? And yet, when might the government draw reasonable limits on speech, and why?

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Freedom of Speech

Definition of freedom of speech, what is freedom of speech, freedom of speech amendment, freedom of speech quotes, freedom of speech examples in legal cases, gitlow v. new york (1925), brandenburg v. ohio (1969), related legal terms and issues.

Free Speech

Protecting free speech means protecting a free press, the democratic process, diversity of thought, and so much more. The ACLU has worked since 1920 to ensure that freedom of speech is protected for everyone.

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Employee speech and whistleblowers, freedom of the press, intellectual property, internet speech, photographers' rights, rights of protesters, student speech and privacy, what's at stake.

“Freedom of expression is the matrix, the indispensable condition, of nearly every other form of freedom.”

—U.S. Supreme Court Justice Benjamin N. Cardozo in Palko v. Connecticut

Freedom of speech, the press, association, assembly, and petition: This set of guarantees, protected by the First Amendment, comprises what we refer to as freedom of expression. It is the foundation of a vibrant democracy, and without it, other fundamental rights, like the right to vote, would wither away.

The fight for freedom of speech has been a bedrock of the ACLU’s mission since the organization was founded in 1920, driven by the need to protect the constitutional rights of conscientious objectors and anti-war protesters. The organization’s work quickly spread to combating censorship, securing the right to assembly, and promoting free speech in schools.

Almost a century later, these battles have taken on new forms, but they persist. The ACLU’s Speech, Privacy, and Technology Project continues to champion freedom of expression in its myriad forms — whether through protest, media, online speech, or the arts — in the face of new threats. For example, new avenues for censorship have arisen alongside the wealth of opportunities for speech afforded by the Internet. The threat of mass government surveillance chills the free expression of ordinary citizens, legislators routinely attempt to place new restrictions on online activity, and journalism is criminalized in the name of national security. The ACLU is always on guard to ensure that the First Amendment’s protections remain robust — in times of war or peace, for bloggers or the institutional press, online or off.

Over the years, the ACLU has represented or defended individuals engaged in some truly offensive speech. We have defended the speech rights of communists, Nazis, Ku Klux Klan members, accused terrorists, pornographers, anti-LGBT activists, and flag burners. That’s because the defense of freedom of speech is most necessary when the message is one most people find repulsive. Constitutional rights must apply to even the most unpopular groups if they’re going to be preserved for everyone.

Some examples of our free speech work from recent years include:

• In 2019, we filed a petition of certiorari on behalf of DeRay Mckesson, a prominent civil rights activist and Black Lives Matter movement organizer, urging the Supreme Court to overturn a lower court ruling that, if left standing, would dismantle civil rights era speech protections safeguarding the First Amendment right to protest.
• In 2019, we successfully challenged a spate of state anti-protest laws aimed at Indigenous and climate activists opposing pipeline construction.
• We’ve called on big social media companies to resist calls for censorship.
• We’re representing five former intelligence agency employees and military personnel in a lawsuit challenging the government’s pre-publication review system, which prohibits millions of former intelligence agency employees and military personnel from writing or speaking about topics related to their government service without first obtaining government approval.
• In 2018, we filed a friend-of-the-court brief arguing that the NRA’s lawsuit alleging that the state of New York violated its First Amendment rights should be allowed to proceed.
• In 2016, the we defended the First Amendment rights of environmental and racial justice activists in Uniontown, Alabama, who were sued for defamation after they organized against the town’s hazardous coal ash landfill.
• In 2014, the ACLU of Michigan filed an amicus brief arguing that the police violated the First Amendment by ejecting an anti-Muslim group called Bible Believers from a street festival based on others’ violent reactions to their speech.

Today, years of hard-fought civil liberty protections are under threat.

To influence lawmakers, we need everyone to get involved. Here is 1 action you can take today:

Gettysburg Address

Text of lincoln's speech.

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(Bliss copy)

Delivered at the dedication of the Soldiers' National Cemetery at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania.

Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth, on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate—we can not consecrate—we can not hallow—this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us—that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion—that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

Abraham Lincoln

November 19, 1863.

The Civil War has gone by a variety of different names throughout the years. One popular name in the postwar South was “The War Between the States.” Other names employed by Southerners include “The War for Southern Independence” and “The War of Separation”; in the North popular names included “The War for the Union” and “The War of the Rebellion.” The most common and lasting name, however, has always been “The Civil War,” the name used by Lincoln, Davis, Lee, and Grant during the war and by most Americans ever since.

This short, declarative sentence contains evocative visual imagery that powerfully conveys the magnitude of the Battle of Gettysburg. Lincoln’s use of a passive verb construction here also emphasizes the power of the place—Lincoln conveys that something brought them all to Gettysburg. Years later, Lincoln would use this notion of a divine plan, or fate, in his second inaugural address to portray the Civil War as an inevitable confrontation.

The United States was founded in 1776 on principles of democracy and freedom that were revolutionary for the time. Lincoln states that the Civil War is the first true test of whether or not a country founded on liberty and democracy is capable of surviving. His use of the word “conceived” emphasizes the singularity of the country’s origin and employs a birth metaphor that returns at the end of the speech.

The first hostilities in the American Civil War took place in April, 1861, with the Confederate army’s attack on the US Army base of Fort Sumter in South Carolina. When Lincoln delivered the Gettysburg Address two years later, the tide of the war was turning in favor of the Union. The Confederate army under General Robert E. Lee had recently lost the Battle of Gettysburg, ending their northern advance and forcing them to retreat.

One of Lincoln’s primary goals as president was to stop the spread of slavery. After the start of the Civil War, this approach quickly shifted towards the emancipation of the slaves, and Lincoln began taking steps to accomplish that goal by issuing the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863. Lincoln uses this line, taken from the Declaration of Independence, to evoke the founding principles of the country, namely equality and freedom. Given the context of Lincoln’s speech, this is also a clear reference to the Union’s desire to eradicate slavery.

Lincoln begins his speech by alluding to the founding of the United States and the signing of the Declaration of Independence in 1776—four score and seven, or eighty-seven, years ago. Lincoln draws on the nation’s history to use the ideas of the founders as a key element of his own speech. In doing so, Lincoln aligns the Northern cause with the ideals set forth in the Declaration of Independence.

In this address, Lincoln coined the phrase “of the people, by the people, for the people,” which has since entered the national lexicon as an elegant and concise definition of American democracy. Just as Lincoln began the speech with a reference to the Declaration of Independence , this final statement nods to the same founding document. The spirit of the declaration, with its insistence that “Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed,” can be heard echoing through the Gettysburg Address and, in particular, its stirring conclusion.

Five-known copies of the Gettysburg Address exist: the Nicolay draft, the Hay draft, the Everett copy, the Bancroft copy, and the Bliss copy. Each is named after the person to whom Lincoln sent the version. The Bliss copy (sent to Colonel Alexander Bliss) is the best known and is widely accepted as the standard because Lincoln signed and dated this version, and provided it with a title. It is also the version chosen for inscription at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C.

This passage reveals the threading together of two separate strands of repetition. The long final sentence of the speech is divided by em dashes, each of which proceeds a statement about “the great task remaining before us” beginning with the word “that.” In the final such statement, Lincoln embeds another piece of repetition—“of the people, by the people, for the people”—thus ending the speech on a rhythmically and rhetorically powerful note.

In the conclusion of the address, Lincoln emphasizes “a new birth of freedom,” reiterating the birth metaphor he introduced at the start of the speech. The implication is that through conflict, sacrifice, and even death, there is the possibility for a rebirth and renewal of the nation’s values—democracy, equality, and freedom. Lincoln’s use of sustained metaphor brings the important themes and ideas to the forefront again and again, an effective rhetorical strategy.

To do something “in vain” is to do it uselessly, without effect or purpose. The word derives from the Latin vanus , which means “empty” or “void.” Lincoln’s aim is to ensure that the Union dead did not die without meaning, and therefore to call on the living to fulfill the purpose of the dead.

Lincoln carefully transforms the deaths of the soldiers at Gettysburg into a call to action for his fellow citizens of the Union. Rather than viewing the battle as a tragedy, Lincoln attends to the greater cause and purpose for which the soldiers fought. In such a light, the proper way to honor the dead is to further the cause they died for.

In this passage, Lincoln conveys the idea that actions speak louder than words. As he puts it, the words used to consecrate the battlefield will fade in time, but the efforts of the soldiers will not. In a twist of irony, Lincoln’s words in this speech—“what we say here”—have been canonized for their eloquence, and thus will be long remembered, despite his predictions to the contrary. The construction of this statement is an example of antithesis , a technique which contrasts opposing ideas to emphasize a larger point.

One of Lincoln’s primary themes in the Gettysburg Address is the weakness of words compared to actions. Lincoln claims that the battlefield cannot be consecrated by an exchange of words; rather, it has already been consecrated by the deeds of the soldiers who fought at the Battle of Gettysburg. One of the great ironies, both of this address and of Lincoln’s political career, is that Lincoln’s words are powerful, despite the claims he made otherwise throughout his life. The humility of his presentation is integral to his rhetorical power.

To “hallow” means to sanctify or purify a person, place, or object. The word derives from the Old Saxon “hêlagôn,” from which we also derive “holy.” Lincoln uses a series of related words— dedicate , consecrate , and hallow —in order to emphasize his point that the ground at Gettysburg has already been rendered sacred by the sacrifices of the fallen soldiers.

The verb “consecrate” means to designate a person, place, or thing as sacred, to dedicate it to a religious purpose. In many cases, the act of consecration grants a place—often a church or cemetery—a special legal status. The process of assigning events a religious purpose was familiar to Abraham Lincoln, who spoke eloquently of the divine purposes animating the Civil War in his Second Inaugural Address .

Throughout the Gettysburg address, Lincoln uses the literary device of anaphora —the repetition of a word or phrase at the beginning of a series of statements. In this passage, Lincoln repeats “we can not” in order to drive home his point that Gettysburg has already been consecrated, by the dead rather than the living.

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Synonyms of liberty

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Thesaurus Definition of liberty

Synonyms & Similar Words

• alternative
• determination
• inclination
• predilection
• discernment
• perspicacity

Antonyms & Near Antonyms

• Hobson's choice
• sovereignty
• independence
• independency
• emancipation
• self - government
• self - governance
• self - determination
• manumission
• enfranchisement
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• subjugation
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Synonym Chooser

How is the word liberty different from other nouns like it?

The words freedom and license are common synonyms of liberty . While all three words mean "the power or condition of acting without compulsion," liberty suggests release from former restraint or compulsion.

When could freedom be used to replace liberty ?

In some situations, the words freedom and liberty are roughly equivalent. However, freedom has a broad range of application from total absence of restraint to merely a sense of not being unduly hampered or frustrated.

When is it sensible to use license instead of liberty ?

Although the words license and liberty have much in common, license implies freedom specially granted or conceded and may connote an abuse of freedom.

Examples of liberty in a Sentence

These examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'liberty.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

Phrases Containing liberty

Thesaurus entries near liberty.

libertinism

Cite this Entry

“Liberty.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus , Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/liberty. Accessed 18 Sep. 2024.

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Nglish: Translation of liberty for Spanish Speakers

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freedom of speech

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Freedom of speech is the right to speak, write, and share ideas and opinions without facing punishment from the government. The First Amendment protects this right by prohibiting Congress from making laws that would curtail freedom of speech.

Even though freedom of speech is protected from infringement by the government, the government is still free to restrict speech in certain circumstances. Some of these circumstances include:

• Obscenity and Indecency – In Alliance for Community Media v. FCC , the Supreme Court found that obscenity and child pornography have no right to protection from the First Amendment, and as such, the government has the ability to ban this media altogether. But when it comes to indecency, which is generally defined by the courts as something describing or depicting offensive sexual activity, the Supreme Court has found this speech protected. But the government can regulate this speech on radio and television, so long as it’s for a compelling reason and is done in the least restrictive manner. 
• Defamation – Private and public figures are able to sue someone for statements they have made. Public figures must prove that the person made the statement with malice , which means knowing the statement was false or having a reckless disregard for the truth or falsity of the statement. (See  New York Times v. Sullivan ) . Private figures must prove the person failed to act with reasonable care when they made the statement. 
• Incitement – If a person has the intention of inciting the violations of laws that is imminent and likely, while directing this incitement at a person or groups of persons, their speech will not be protected under the First Amendment. This test was created by the Supreme Court in Brandenburg v. Ohio . 
• Fighting words  

While the public has a right to freedom of speech when it comes to the U.S. government, the public does not have this right when it comes to private entities. Companies and private employers are able to regulate speech on their platforms and within their workplace since the First Amendment only applies to the government. This right allowed Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter to ban President Donald Trump from their sites in 2021 without legal repercussion. Companies like Facebook and YouTube were also able to ban misleading information on Covid-19 during the 2020 pandemic.

The Supreme Court recently affirmed that private entities are not restricted by the First Amendment in the case Manhattan Community Access Corporation v. Halleck . Manhattan Neighborhood Network is a nonprofit that was given the authority by New York City to operate public access channels in Manhattan. The organization decided to suspend two of their employees after they received complaints about a film the employees produced. The employees argued that this was a violation of their First Amendment freedom of speech rights because they were being punished due to the content of their film. The Supreme Court held that Manhattan Neighborhood Network was not a government entity or a state actor , so the nonprofit couldn’t be subjected to the First Amendment.

In another case, Nyabwa v. Facebook , the Southern District of Texas also affirmed that private entities are not subject to the First Amendment. There, the plaintiff had a Facebook account, which spoke on President Donald Trump’s business conflicts of interest. Facebook decided to lock the account, so the plaintiff was no longer able to access it. The plaintiff decided to sue Facebook because he believed the company was violating his First Amendment rights. The court dismissed the lawsuit stating that the First Amendment prevents Congress and other government entities from restricting freedom of speech, not private entities. 

[Last updated in June of 2021 by the Wex Definitions Team ] 

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Patrick Henry

By: History.com Editors

Updated: June 20, 2023 | Original: November 9, 2009

Patrick Henry was one of the Founding Fathers of the United States and the first governor of Virginia. A gifted orator and major figure in the American Revolution, his rousing speeches—which included a 1775 speech to the Virginia legislature in which he famously declared, “Give me liberty, or give me death!”—fired up America’s fight for independence. An outspoken Anti-Federalist, Henry opposed the ratification of the U.S. Constitution, which he felt put too much power in the hands of a national government. His influence helped create the Bill of Rights, which guaranteed personal freedoms and set limits on the government’s constitutional power.

Early Years

Patrick Henry was born in 1736 to John and Sarah Winston Henry on his family’s farm in Hanover County , Virginia . He was educated mostly at home by his father, a Scottish-born planter who had attended college in Scotland.

Henry struggled to find a profession as a young adult. He failed in several attempts as a storeowner and a planter. He taught himself law while working as a tavern keeper at his father-in-law’s inn and opened a law practice in Hanover County in 1760.

As a lawyer and politician, Patrick Henry was known for his persuasive and passionate speeches, which appealed as much to emotion as to reason. Many of Henry’s contemporaries likened his rhetorical style to the evangelical preachers of the Great Awakening , a religious revival that swept the American colonies in the 1730s and 1740s.

Parson’s Cause

Henry’s first major legal case was known as the Parson’s Cause in 1763, a dispute involving Anglican clergy in colonial Virginia. The case – one of the first legal attempts to challenge the limits of England’s power over the American colonies – is often viewed as an important event leading up to the American Revolution .

Ministers of the Church of England in Virginia were paid their annual salaries in tobacco. A tobacco shortage caused by drought led to price increases in the late 1750s.

In response, the Virginia legislature passed the Two-Penny Act , which set the value of the Anglican ministers’ annual salaries at two pennies per pound of tobacco, rather than the inflated price, which was closer to six pennies per pound. The Anglican clergy appealed to Britain’s King George III , who overturned the law and encouraged ministers to sue for back pay.

The Parson’s Cause established Patrick Henry as a leader in the emerging movement for American independence. During the case, Henry, then a relatively unknown attorney, delivered an impassioned speech against British overreach into colonial affairs, arguing “that a King by annulling or disallowing acts of so salutary a nature, from being Father of his people degenerated into a Tyrant, and forfeits all rights to his subjects’ obedience.”

The Stamp Act of 1765 required American colonists to pay a small tax on every piece of paper they used. Colonists viewed the Stamp Act—an attempt by England to raise money in the colonies without approval from colonial legislatures—as a troublesome precedent.

Patrick Henry responded to the Stamp Act with a series of resolutions introduced to the Virginia legislature in a speech. The resolves, adopted by the Virginia legislature, were soon published in other colonies, and helped to articulate America’s stance against taxation without representation under the British Crown.

Henry’s resolves declared that Americans should be taxed only by their own representatives and that Virginians should pay no taxes except those voted on by the Virginia legislature.

Later in the speech, Henry flirted with treason when he hinted that the King risked suffering the same fate as Julius Caesar —assassination—if he maintained his oppressive policies.

Give Me Liberty, or Give Me Death

In March of 1775, the Second Virginia Convention met at St. John’s Church in Richmond to discuss the state’s strategy against the British. It was here that Patrick Henry delivered his most famous speech.

“Gentlemen may cry, ‘Peace, Peace,’ but there is no peace. The war is actually begun! The next gale that sweeps from the north will bring to our ears the clash of resounding arms! Our brethren are already in the field! Why stand we here idle? ... Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty, or give me death!"

George Washington , Thomas Jefferson and five of the six other Virginians who would later sign the Declaration of Independence were in attendance that day. Historians say that Henry’s “Liberty or Death” speech helped convince those in attendance to begin preparing Virginia troops for war against Great Britain.

Royal Governor Lord Dunmore responded to the speech by removing gunpowder from the magazine. That November, he would issue Dunmore’s Proclamation declaring martial law in Virginia and promising freedom to enslaved people who joined the King’s cause.

Henry spoke without notes, and no transcripts exist from his famous address. The only known version of the speech was reconstructed in an 1817 biography of Henry by author William Wirt, leading some historians to speculate that the famous Patrick Henry quote may have been fabricated by Wirt to sell copies of his book.

Henry and Slavery

Patrick Henry married his first wife, Sarah Shelton, in 1754, and the couple went on to have six children together. Her dowry included a 600-acre farm, a house, and six enslaved people.

After Sarah died in 1775, he married Dorothea Dandridge of Tidewater, Virginia, and their union produced eleven children.

Despite the size of his family, Henry and his family lived in a small farmhouse on a Piedmont-area plantation known as Red Hill. Henry once referred to slavery as a “lamentable evil,” but throughout his adult life Henry owned dozens of enslaved persons, some of whom worked the fields at Red Hill.

Anti-Federalism and the Bill of Rights

Patrick Henry served as Virginia’s first governor (1776-1779) and sixth governor (1784-1786).

In the aftermath of the Revolutionary War , Henry became an outspoken Anti-Federalist. Henry and other Anti-Federalists opposed the ratification of the 1787 United States Constitution , which created a strong federal government.

Patrick Henry worried that a federal government that was too powerful and too centralized could evolve into a monarchy. He was the author of several Anti- Federalist Papers —written arguments by Founding Father’s who opposed the U.S. Constitution.

While the Anti-Federalists were unable to stop the ratification of the U.S. Constitution, the Anti-Federalist Papers were influential in helping to shape the Bill of Rights . The first 10 Amendments to the United States Constitution, known collectively as the Bill of Rights, protected individual liberties and placed limits on the powers of the federal government.

Besides a brief stint as a Virginia delegate to the Continental Congress —the United States government during the American Revolution—Patrick Henry never held national public office.

He died on June 6, 1799 at the age of 63 from stomach cancer. His Southern Virginia plantation is now the Red Hill Patrick Henry National Memorial .

HISTORY Vault: The American Revolution

Stream American Revolution documentaries and your favorite HISTORY series, commercial-free.

Henry’s Full Biography; Red Hill Patrick Henry Memorial Foundation .

Patrick Henry Arguing the Parson’s Cause; Virginia Museum of History and Culture .

A Summary of the 1765 Stamp Act; Colonial Williamsburg .

Patrick Henry, Orator of Liberty; U.S. Library of Congress .

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177 Freedom of Speech Quotes: Empowering Words for Advocates of Expression

Immersing oneself in famous freedom of speech quotes can be an enlightening experience, one that opens your mind to various perspectives. These quotes, drawn from diverse sources like Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and Martin Luther King Jr., offer profound insights into the essence of expression, the vitality of voice, and the value of dissent. They also provide a historical context, reminding us of the battles fought and the sacrifices made to uphold this precious liberty.

Famous Freedom Of Speech Quotes

Short freedom of speech quotes, top 10 freedom of speech quotes, first amendment freedom of speech quotes, freedom of expression quotes, free speech quotes, liberty of speech quotes, freedom of speech and expression quotes, first amendment rights quotes, freedom of the press quotes, first amendment quotes, limiting freedom of expression quotes, freedom of religion quotes.

There is freedom of speech, but I cannot guarantee freedom after speech — Idi Amin 308

Free speech means the right to shout 'theatre' in a crowded fire. — Abbie Hoffman 31

Free expression is the base of human rights, the root of human nature and the mother of truth. To kill free speech is to insult human rights, to stifle human nature and to suppress truth. — Liu Xiaobo 134

Free speech is my right to say what you don't want to hear. — George Orwell 49

Freedom includes the right to say what others may object to and resent... The essence of citizenship is to be tolerant of strong and provocative words. — John Diefenbaker 73

I think free speech is probably the coolest thing we have in this country, and again, you can label it hate speech and dismiss it, and then you're allowed to censor it. — Dana Carvey 49

If our hard-earned liberty, our desire to be irreverent of the old and to question the new, can be reduced to one, basic, and indispensable right, it must be the right to free speech. — Maajid Nawaz 51

Freedom of expression is the foundation of human rights, the source of humanity, and the mother of truth. — Liu Xiaobo 37

Free speech is the whole thing, the whole ball game. Free speech is life itself. — Salman Rushdie 22

Fear of serious injury alone cannot justify oppression of free speech and assembly. Men feared witches and burnt women. It is the function of speech to free men from the bondage of irrational fears. — Louis D. Brandeis 21

The people shall not be deprived or abridged of their right to speak, or to publish their sentiments; and the freedom of the press, as one of the great bulwarks of liberty, shall be inviolable. — James Madison 39

An unconditional right to say what one pleases about public affairs is what I consider to be the minimum guarantee of the First Amendment. — Hugo Black 40

Free speech is a bourgeois prejudice. — Vladimir Lenin 53

Free speech is not just a right, but a necessary component of a healthy society. — Bret Weinstein 78

For the average American, freedom of speech is simply the freedom to repeat what everyone else is saying and no more. — Gore Vidal 28

• Absolute freedom of the press to discuss public questions is a foundation stone of American liberty. — Herbert Hoover
• People demand freedom of speech as a compensation for the freedom of thought which they seldom use. — Soren Kierkegaard
• Freedom is hammered out on the anvil of discussion, dissent, and debate . — Hubert Humphrey
• If freedom of speech is taken away, then dumb and silent we may be led, like sheep to the slaughter. — George Washington
• What is freedom of expression? Without the freedom to offend, it ceases to exist. — Salman Rushdie
• If there is no free speech, every single life has lived in vain — Ai Weiwei
• There is no freedom of speech if you're a conservative. — Hank Williams, Jr.
• If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear. — George Orwell
• To silence criticism is to silence freedom. — Sidney Hook

Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred. — Martin Luther King, Jr. 325

Whoever would overthrow the liberty of a nation must begin by subduing the freeness of speech. — Benjamin Franklin 299

We want deeper sincerity of motive, a greater courage in speech and earnestness in action. — Sarojini Naidu 248

Proclaim the truth and do not be silent through fear. — St. Catherine of Siena 192

Our liberty depends on the freedom of the press, and that cannot be limited without being lost. — Thomas Jefferson 170

Freedom of the press is not just important to democracy, it is democracy. — Walter Cronkite 135

Silence is golden but when it threatens your freedom it's yellow. — Edmund Burke 130

When even one American - who has done nothing wrong - is forced by fear to shut his mind and close his mouth - then all Americans are in peril. — Harry S. Truman 121

We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men and women are created equal. — Elizabeth Cady Stanton 101

Freedom of speech is a two way street, man. You have the right to say whatever you want and the Boss has a right to tell the police to arrest you. — Lenny Bruce 95

Freedom Of Speech Image Quotes

It is the function of speech to free men from the bondage of irrational fears. — Louis D. Brandeis 83

If there is a bedrock principle underlying the First Amendment, it is that the government may not prohibit the expression of an idea simply because society finds the idea itself offensive or disagreeable. — William J. Brennan 67

Restriction of free thought and free speech is the most dangerous of all subversions. It is the one un-American act that could most easily defeat us. — William O. Douglas 62

After reading hundreds of e-mails, I have made MY decision. By pulling my opening Oct 3rd, You (ESPN) stepped on the Toes of The First Amendment Freedom of Speech, so therefore Me, My Song, and All My Rowdy Friends are OUT OF HERE. It's been a great run. — Hank Williams, Jr. 48

The First Amendment is often inconvenient. But that is besides the point. Inconvenience does not absolve the government of its obligation to tolerate speech. — Anthony Kennedy 27

Without either the first or second amendment, we would have no liberty; the first allows us to find out what's happening, the second allows us to do something about it! The second will be taken away first, followed by the first and then the rest of our freedoms. — Unknown Author 27

There are many prices we pay for freedoms secured by the First Amendment; the risk of undue influence is one of them, confirming what we have long known: Freedom is hazardous, but some restraints are worse. — Warren E. Burger 24

Censorship reflects a society's lack of confidence in itself. It is a hallmark of an authoritarian regime. — Potter Stewart 20

The dominant purpose of the First Amendment was to prohibit the widespread practice of government suppression of embarrassing information. — William O. Douglas 12

First Amendment freedoms are most in danger when the government seeks to control thought or to justify its laws for that impermissible end. The right to think is the beginning of freedom, and speech must be protected from the government because speech is the beginning of thought. — Anthony Kennedy 11

A loving relationship is one in which the loved one is free to be himself -- to laugh with me, but never at me; to cry with me, but never because of me; to love life, to love himself, to love being loved. Such a relationship is based upon freedom and can never grow in a jealous heart — Leo Buscaglia 208

We look forward to a world founded upon four essential human freedoms. The first is freedom of speech and expression. The second is freedom of every person to worship God in his own way. The third is freedom from want. The fourth is freedom from fear. — Franklin D. Roosevelt 131

If we don't believe in freedom of expression for people we despise, we don't believe in it at all. — Noam Chomsky 119

Contrary to popular misconception, Islam does not mean peace but rather means submission to the commands of Allah alone. Therefore, Muslims do not believe in the concept of freedom of expression, as their speech and actions are determined by divine revelation and not based on people's desires. — Anjem Choudary 94

If there be time to expose through discussion the falsehood and fallacies, to avert the evil by the processes of education, the remedy to be applied is more speech, not enforced silence. — Louis D. Brandeis 85

Young players need freedom of expression to develop as creative players... they should be encouraged to try skills without fear of failure. — Arsene Wenger 81

I certainly was one of the instigators in the 1960s of freedom of expression. — Sally Kirkland 80

A person who doesn't breathe deeply reduces the life of his body. If he doesn't move freely, he restricts the life of his body. If he doesn't feel fully, he narrows the life of his body. And if his self-expression is constricted, he limits the life of his body. — Alexander Lowen 70

Voting is not an act of political freedom. It is an act of political conformity. Those who refuse to vote are not expressing silence. They are screaming in the politician's ear: 'You do not represent me. This is not a process in which my voice matters. I do not believe you.' — Wendy McElroy 64

A kite can't really fly free,that's just an expression. In order to soar high in the sky the string of a kite needs to be anchored. If the string breaks the kite drops back to the ground. The kite's freedom depends on it not being as free as he thinks it is. — Simon Napier-Bell 64

Everyone is in favor of free speech. Hardly a day passes without its being extolled, but some people's idea of it is that they are free to say what they like, but if anyone else says anything back, that is an outrage. — Winston Churchill 426

We live in a country that talks about being the home of the brave and the land of the free, and we have the highest incarceration rate in the world. — Bryan Stevenson 178

I believe America went wrong in terms of respecting the First Amendment, the state of free speech on American college campuses and on the media and in academia. — Milo Yiannopoulos 164

Without general elections, without freedom of the press, freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, without the free battle of opinions, life in every public institution withers away, becomes a caricature of itself, and bureaucracy rises as the only deciding factor. — Rosa Luxemburg 141

Americans' right to free speech should not be proportionate to their bank accounts. — Bernie Sanders 136

Goebbels was in favor of free speech for views he liked. So was Stalin. If you’re really in favor of free speech, then you’re in favor of freedom of speech for precisely the views you despise. Otherwise, you’re not in favor of free speech. — Noam Chomsky 88

I do not agree with what you have to say, but I'll defend to the death your right to say it. — Evelyn Beatrice Hall 86

Elon Musk acquiring Twitter is a big win for free speech. — Lex Fridman 83

All I care about is free speech and free expression; I want people to be able to be, do, and say anything. — Milo Yiannopoulos 76

It is a paradox that every dictator has climbed to power on the ladder of free speech. Immediately on attaining power each dictator has suppressed all free speech except his own. — Herbert Hoover 74

The greatest menace to freedom is an inert people. — Louis D. Brandeis 66

Just as the strength of the Internet is chaos, so the strength of our liberty depends upon the chaos and cacophony of the unfettered speech the First Amendment protects. — Stewart Dalzell 62

Manchester is a city which has witnessed a great many stirring episodes, especially of a political character. Generally speaking, its citizens have been liberal in their sentiments, defenders of free speech and liberty of opinion. — Emmeline Pankhurst 59

The American constitutions were to liberty, what a grammar is to language: they define its parts of speech, and practically construct them into syntax — Thomas Paine 52

Hamas is a terrorist organization dedicated to annihilating the Jewish state. It runs a theocratic totalitarian state in Gaza, with no individual liberty, and no freedom of speech or press. — Dennis Prager 52

Freedom of thought and freedom of speech in our great institutions are absolutely necessary for the preservation of our country. The moment either is restricted, liberty begins to wither and die. — John Peter Altgeld 47

Freedom of speech means that you shall not do something to people either for the views they have, or the views they express, or the words they speak or write. — Hugo Black 44

When a legislature undertakes to proscribe the exercise of a citizen's constitutional right to free speech, it acts lawlessly; and the citizen can take matters into his own hands and proceed on the basis that such a law is no law at all. — William O. Douglas 41

The most stringent protection of free speech would not protect a man in falsely shouting fire in a theater and causing a panic. — Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. 35

The framers of the constitution knew human nature as well as we do. They too had lived in dangerous days; they too knew the suffocating influence of orthodoxy and standardized thought. They weighed the compulsions for restrained speech and thought against the abuses of liberty. They chose liberty. — William O. Douglas 31

There's a time and a place for getting a smart mouth. — J. K. Rowling 55

It can hardly be argued that either students or teachers shed their constitutional rights to freedom of speech or expression at the schoolhouse gate. — Abe Fortas 34

Whether it's people walking off 'The View' when Bill O'Reilly makes a statement about radical Islam or Juan Williams being fired for expressing his opinion, over-reaching political correctness is chipping away at the fundamental American freedoms of speech and expression. — Eric Cantor 21

A bunch of bong-smoking, America-bashing, flag-burning, yoga-posing, incense-burning, dolphin-saving, salmon-eating hypocrites. These are the sensitive, liberal people who are always yelling about people's freedom of speech and expression, unless you happen to say something that pisses them off. — Richard Jeni 19

In order for the State in the person of school officials to justify prohibition of a particular expression of opinion, it must be able to show that its action was caused by something more than a mere desire to avoid the discomfort and unpleasantness that always accompany an unpopular viewpoint. — Abe Fortas 15

I'm a big advocate of freedom: freedom of speech, freedom of expression, freedom of thought. — Jimmy Wales 15

Freedom of expression is actually a way for people to know themselves better, and to understand themselves better. Because without it, you become a stranger to yourself. — Lucien Bourjeily 13

There is a time and a place for creativity. — William Redington Hewlett 3

I joined the Labour party because I believed in equality, in freedom of speech and in tolerance, compassion and understanding for people, irrespective of their background and views. In whatever I decide to do in the future I will hold to those principles. — Geoff Hoon 2

Freedom of speech is about expressing your opinion, however bad or good, however right or wrong, and being able to defend it and argue it and be argued with about it in public forums. But that's not what academic freedom is about. That's not what the classroom is about. — Joan Wallach Scott 0

The civil rights of none, shall be abridged on account of religious belief or worship, nor shall any national religion be established, nor shall the full and equal rights of conscience be in any manner, or on any pretext infringed. — James Madison 119

I'm tired of being considered some kind of criminal or dangerous throwback for no other reason than that I value, exercise, and defend my rights under the first ten Amendments to the United States Constitution. — L. Neil Smith 63

Freedom to differ is not limited to things that do not matter much. That would be a mere shadow of freedom. The test of its substance is the right to differ as to things that touch the heart of the existing order. — Robert H. Jackson 33

The Washington Times wrote a story questioning the authenticity of some of the suggestions made about me in Silent Coup. But as a believer in the First Amendment, I believe they have more than a right to air their views. — Bob Woodward 20

Just as the First and Fourth Amendment secure individual rights of speech and security respectively, the Second Amendment protects an individual right to keep and bear arms. This view of the text comports with the all but unanimous understanding of the Founding Fathers. — John Ashcroft 20

A lot of people in the adult population have a very limited idea as to why they are Americans, why we have a First Amendment or a Bill of Rights. — Nat Hentoff 9

It just seems to be a human trait to want to protect the speech of people with whom we agree. For the First Amendment, that is not good enough. So it is really important that we protect First Amendment rights of people no matter what side of the line they are on. — Floyd Abrams 8

[Asserting] important First Amendment rights ... why should [executions] be the one area that is conducted behind closed doors?... Why shouldn't executions be public? — Phil Donahue 7

We all have the right of freedom of speech under the First Amendment. We all don't have to agree with one another on our opinions. Everyone in my circle, that I run around with, we all feel the same about God, country, integrity and character. — Luke Scott 6

The US constitution's First Amendment rights only cover Americans, but I believe that in a democracy the competition of ideas and free speech should combat beliefs that it does not agree with - more speech and debate, not censorship. — Joichi Ito 5

Freedom of conscience, of education, of speech, of assembly are among the very fundamentals of democracy and all of them would be nullified should freedom of the press ever be successfully challenged. — Franklin D. Roosevelt 127

The freedom of the press is one of the great bulwarks of liberty, and can never be restrained but by despotic governments. — George Mason 91

The press was to serve the governed, not the governors. — Hugo Black 88

Freedom of the Press, if it means anything at all, means the freedom to criticize and oppose — George Orwell 78

The Constitution be never construed to authorize Congress to infringe the just liberty of the press, or the rights of conscience; or to prevent the people of the United States, who are peaceable citizens, from keeping their own arms. — Samuel Adams 72

The only security of all is in a free press. — Thomas Jefferson 67

Freedom of the press is not questioned when investigative journalism unearths scandals, But that does not mean that every classified state document should be made available to journalists. — Otto Schily 61

Freedom of the press is essential to the preservation of a democracy; but there is a difference between freedom and license. Editorialists who tell downright lies in order to advance their own agendas do more to discredit the press than all the censors in the world. — Franklin D. Roosevelt 58

Freedom of religion, freedom of the press, freedom of person under protection of habeas corpus; and trial by juries impartially selected, these principles form the bright constellation which has gone before us, and guided our steps through an age of revolution and reformation. — Thomas Jefferson 58

Without freedom of the press, there can be no representative government. — Charles Maurice de Talleyrand 50

The First Amendment has the same role in my life as a citizen and a writer as the sun has in our ecosystem. — Michael Chabon 82

No one understands that the First Amendment is only important if you are going to offend somebody. If you're not going to offend somebody, you don't need protection of the First Amendment. — Larry Flynt 57

For an American to be patriotic is to be loyal to the principles of our Constitution, and the First Amendment. The truth is that the policies of the government is sometimes in conflict with that. In our country, patriotism should not be defined as obedience to an authority. — Daniel Ellsberg 54

The First Amendment is not an altar on which we must sacrifice our children, families, and community standards. Obscene material that is not protected by the First Amendment can and must be prohibited. — Orrin Hatch 49

The real object of the First Amendment was not to countenance, much less advance Mohammedanism, or Judaism or infidelity, by prostrating Christianity; but ... to prevent any national ecclesiastical establishment which should give to a hierarchy the exclusive patronage of the national government. — Joseph Story 44

I don't want to be shut out from the truth. If they ban books, they might as well lock us away from the world. — Rory Edwards 43

You know why there's a Second Amendment? In case the government fails to follow the first one. — Rush Limbaugh 41

Whatever one's religion in his private life may be, for the officeholder, nothing takes precedence over his oath to uphold the Constitution and all its parts - including the First Amendment and the strict separation of church and state. — John F. Kennedy 41

Any time someone carries a picket sign in front of the White House, that is the First Amendment in action — Julian Bond 35

The very reason for the First Amendment is to make the people of this country free to think, speak, write and worship as they wish, not as the Government commands. — Hugo Black 30

In Iran, there is no freedom of the press, no freedom of speech, no independent judiciary, no free elections. There is no freedom of religion - not even for Shiites, who are forced by Irans theocracy to adhere to one narrow set of official rules. — Elliott Abrams 10

Freedom of speech includes the freedom to offend people. — Brad Thor 9

Slavery tolerates no freedom of the press, no freedom of speech, no freedom of opinion. — Hinton Rowan Helper 8

Acting is the most pure fun as far as jobs go, but it can be limiting in terms of freedom of expression. You are never the master of the story, just a part of it. But writing and directing give you the power of the gods. — David Hayter 6

We have freedom of speech, but you got to watch what you say. — Viola Spolin 6

Better a thousandfold abuse of free speech than denial of free speech. — Charles Bradlaugh 6

It seems that the right of freedom of speech that was enshrined in numerous constitutions is now under attack by religious institutions. — Salman Rushdie 4

Every religion has its dignity ... in freedom of expression there are limits. — Pope Francis 0

Let me be a free man, free to travel, free to stop, free to work, free to trade where I choose, free to choose my own teachers, free to follow the religion of my fathers, free to talk, think and act for myself — and I will obey every law or submit to the penalty. — Chief Joseph 197

To achieve world government, it is necessary to remove from the minds of men, their individualism, loyalty to family traditions, national patriotism and religious dogmas. — Brock Chisholm 112

The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts only as are injurious to others. — Thomas Jefferson 93

This I must fight against: any idea, religion, or government which limits or destroys the individual. — John Steinbeck 87

People need to free their minds of racial prejudice and believe in equality for all and freedom regardless of race. It would be a good thing if all people were treated equally and justly and not be discriminated against because of race or religion or anything that makes them different from others. — Rosa Parks 83

Freedom prospers when religion is vibrant and the rule of law under God is acknowledged. — Ronald Reagan 76

In the attitude of silence the soul finds the path in a clearer light, and what is elusive and deceptive resolves itself into crystal clearness. Our life is a long and arduous quest after Truth. — Mahatma Gandhi 76

Religion is like a pair of shoes.....Find one that fits for you, but don't make me wear your shoes. — George Carlin 72

Freedom of religion does not entitle your religion to have a privileged position within the public sphere. — Gad Saad 72

As my ancestors are free from slavery, I am free from the slavery of religion. — Butterfly McQueen 68

People Writing About Freedom Of Speech

More Freedom Of Speech Quotes

Freedom of speech is a principal pillar of a free government; when this support is taken away, the constitution of a free society is dissolved, and tyranny is erected on its ruins. Republics and limited monarchies derive their strength and vigor from a popular examination into the action of the magistrates. — Benjamin Franklin 161

I had a right to my own political opinions. I am a Southern woman, born with Revolutionary blood in my veins. Freedom of speech and of thought were my birthright, guaranteed, signed and sealed by the blood of our fathers. — Rose O'Neal Greenhow 153

I have always been among those who believed that the greatest freedom of speech was the greatest safety, because if a man is a fool, the best thing to do is to encourage him to advertise the fact by speaking. — Woodrow Wilson 121

The Government's power to censor the press was abolished so that the press would remain forever free to censure the Government. The press was protected so that it could bare the secrets of government and inform the people. Only a free and unrestrained press can effectively expose deception in government. — Hugo Black 120

Dissents speak to a future age. It's not simply to say, 'My colleagues are wrong and I would do it this way.' But the greatest dissents do become court opinions and gradually over time their views become the dominant view. So that's the dissenter's hope: that they are writing not for today but for tomorrow. — Ruth Bader Ginsburg 113

Freedom of speech and thought matters, especially when it is speech and thought with which we disagree. The moment the majority decides to destroy people for engaging in thought it dislikes, thought crime becomes a reality. — Ben Shapiro 92

Threats to freedom of speech, writing and action, though often trivial in isolation, are cumulative in their effect and, unless checked, lead to a general disrespect for the rights of the citizen. — George Orwell 88

It is by the goodness of God that in our country we have those three unspeakably precious things: freedom of speech, freedom of conscience, and the prudence never to practice either of them. — Mark Twain 84

The Press was protected so that it could bare the secrets of the government and inform the people. Only a free and unrestrained press can effectively expose deception in government. And paramount among the responsibilities of a free press is the duty to prevent any part of the government from deceiving the people. — Hugo Black 82

The general idea is that we must weigh our freedom of speech against the right of others to not be offended. No! Freedom of speech is precisely meant to protect the most obnoxious, offensive, and disgusting speech. It does not exist to ensure that you only levy beautiful compliments at me. Occasionally being offended is the price that one pays for living in a truly free society. — Gad Saad 74

When a man says that he is Jesus or Napoleon, or that the Martians are after him, or claims something else that seems outrageous to common sense, he is labeled psychotic and locked up in a madhouse. Freedom of speech is only for normal people. — Thomas Szasz 72

Slave power crushes freedom of speech and of opinion. Slave power degrades labor. Slave power is arrogant, is jealous and intrusive, is cruel, is despotic, not only over the slave but over the community, the state. — Elizabeth Van Lew 72

Silencing 'wrong' ideas will eventually destroy our ability to discover the truth. — Lex Fridman 72

The First Amendment's language leaves no room for inference that abridgments of speech and press can be made just because they are slight. That Amendment provides, in simple words, that "Congress shall make no law . . . abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press." I read "no law . . . abridging" to mean no law abridging. — Hugo Black 65

Love myself I do. Not everything, but I love the good as well as the bad. I love my crazy lifestyle, and I love my hard discipline. I love my freedom of speech and the way my eyes get dark when I'm tired. I love that I have learned to trust people with my heart, even if it will get broken. I am proud of everything that I am and will become. — Johnny Weir 65

Israel is a country that respects freedom - freedom of assembly, freedom of speech and freedom of worship. — George Pataki 61

Free speech is meaningless if the commercial cacophony has risen to the point where no one can hear you. — Naomi Klein 61

I am a victim-oriented person. I like to see that the victims know that they have a voice. — Fatou Bensouda 58

WikiLeaks will not comply with legally abusive requests from Scientology any more than WikiLeaks has complied with similar demands from Swiss banks, Russian offshore stem-cell centers, former African kleptocrats, or the Pentagon. — Julian Assange 52

In Conclusion

Reading such quotes, whether they are short freedom of speech quotes or more elaborate ones, serves as a constant reminder of the importance of this fundamental right. Quotes from dystopian narratives like Fahrenheit 451 and 1984 serve as stark warnings against repression, while others, such as those from Jordan Peterson, inspire thought-provoking discussions. Even the anti-freedom of speech quotes have their place, offering a counterpoint that encourages critical thinking. Thus, delving into freedom of speech quotes is not merely an intellectual exercise, but also a means to appreciate, understand, and safeguard this essential liberty.

Which quotation resonated with you best? Did you enjoy our collection of freedom of speech quotes? Or may be you have a slogan about freedom of speech to suggest. Let us know using our contact form .

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10 of the Best Poems about Freedom and Liberty

By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)

Freedom and liberty have proved to be popular topics for poets down the ages, whether it’s Romantic poets espousing the values of liberty in the wake of the French Revolution or more recent poets musing upon the various meanings of freedom in the world. Here are ten of our favourite poems to touch upon freedom and what it means to be ‘free’.

1. William Wordsworth, ‘ Nuns Fret Not at Their Convent’s Narrow Room ’.

Pleased if some Souls (for such there needs must be) Who have felt the weight of too much liberty, Should find brief solace there, as I have found …

We start this pick of the best poems about freedom with an unusual choice: a poem that is about the value of being restricted or confined. Wordsworth considers some examples of people who actually prefer to have a ‘scanty plot of ground’, much as the sonnet-writer makes do with just 14 lines. The sonnet makes the paradoxical argument that restriction can mean freedom, since sometimes clearly defined boundaries are needed for creativity and thought.

What is often viewed as a ‘prison’, a space which restricts us, is actually no prison at all in Wordsworth’s view. The ‘Sonnet’s scanty plot of ground’ was a happy place for Wordsworth the poet to be ‘bound’, the implication being that a bit of structure and order was a good thing for a young poet. It taught him restraint and organisation. Wordsworth says that the sonnet is a good poetic form for those who ‘have felt the weight of too much liberty’.

2. Percy Shelley, ‘ Ode to Liberty ’.

Written in 1820, this poem by one of the leading lights of Second Generation Romanticism in England was inspired by a revolution in Spain in March of that year, although the poem takes in numerous kinds of ‘liberty’:

Come thou, but lead out of the inmost cave Of man’s deep spirit, as the morning-star Beckons the Sun from the Eoan wave, Wisdom. I hear the pennons of her car Self-moving, like cloud charioted by flame; Comes she not, and come ye not, Rulers of eternal thought, To judge, with solemn truth, life’s ill-apportioned lot? Blind Love, and equal Justice, and the Fame Of what has been, the Hope of what will be? O Liberty! if such could be thy name Wert thou disjoined from these, or they from thee: If thine or theirs were treasures to be bought By blood or tears, have not the wise and free Wept tears, and blood like tears?

3. Alfred, Lord Tennyson, ‘ Of Old Sat Freedom on the Heights ’.

The longest-serving UK Poet Laureate, Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809-92), personifies freedom as ‘Freedom’ in this little-known early poem from the 1830s. Tennyson views Freedom as a deity, a goddess whose influence gradually spreads throughout the world:

Of old sat Freedom on the heights, The thunders breaking at her feet: Above her shook the starry lights: She heard the torrents meet.

There in her place she did rejoice, Self-gather’d in her prophet-mind, But fragments of her mighty voice Came rolling on the wind …

4. Helen Hunt Jackson, ‘ Freedom ’.

Jackson (1830-85) was a poet, a novelist, and an activist who campaigned on behalf of Native Americans. Here, Jackson takes up the abolitionist cause during the American Civil War:

What freeman knoweth freedom? Never he Whose father’s father through long lives have reigned O’er kingdoms which mere heritage attained. Though from his youth to age he roam as free As winds, he dreams not freedom’s ecstasy. But he whose birth was in a nation chained For centuries; where every breath was drained From breasts of slaves which knew not there could be Such thing as freedom, – he beholds the light Burst, dazzling; though the glory blind his sight He knows the joy. Fools laugh because he reels And wields confusedly his infant will; The wise man watching with a heart that feels Says: ‘Cure for freedom’s harms is freedom still.’

5. Emily Dickinson, ‘ No Rack Can Torture Me ’.

Emily Dickinson, Jackson’s contemporary, wrote about a vast range of topics, so it’s of little surprise that she turned her distinctive mind and voice to the question of liberty:

The Eagle of his Nest No easier divest— And gain the Sky Than mayest Thou—

Except Thyself may be Thine Enemy— Captivity is Consciousness— So’s Liberty …

6. Emma Lazarus, ‘ The New Colossus ’.

Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame …

Here’s a poem that’s not just about liberty, but was written for Liberty: the Statue of Liberty, that is. In 1883, Lazarus penned this stirring sonnet for the newly completed statue; its rousing words are now inscribed at the base. Lazarus’ poem celebrates the United States of America as the Land of the Free, a welcoming nation where people can come to make something of themselves.

Not only this, but France intended for the Statue of Liberty to be propaganda, with the light-bearing female personification of Liberty – that French Revolutionary watchword – symbolising a beacon of enlightenment for those European countries still living under tyranny. But  Lazarus twisted this propagandistic intention , and her poem ensured that the Statue of Liberty would instead be viewed as a beacon of welcome for immigrants leaving their European mother countries, for the new ‘Mother of Exiles’.

7. Edward Thomas, ‘ Liberty ’.

Thomas (1878-1917) is often classified as a ‘war poet’ and sometimes as a ‘Georgian poet’, but really he was more complex than either of these labels suggests. In this poem, Thomas identifies with the moon, reflecting on his own freedom and also the limits of that freedom: ‘There’s none less free than who / Does nothing and has nothing else to do …’

It is as if everything else had slept Many an age, unforgotten and lost – The men that were, the things done, long ago, All I have thought; and but the moon and I Live yet and here stand idle over a grave Where all is buried. Both have liberty To dream what we could do if we were free To do some thing we had desired long, The moon and I. There’s none less free than who Does nothing and has nothing else to do, Being free only for what is not to his mind, And nothing is to his mind …

8. Osip Mandelstam, ‘ The Twilight of Freedom ’.

Mandelstam (1891-1938) was a Russian poet and essayist, and wrote this poem in May 1918, shortly after the October Revolution in Russia the previous autumn.

9. e. e. cummings, ‘ as freedom is a breakfastfood ’.

In this poem, the brilliantly eccentric American poet e. e. cummings (as he styled himself) ponders freedom and much else besides, in verses which verge on the Carrollesque (look out for the line about hatracks growing into peachtrees…).

10. Langston Hughes, ‘ Freedom’s Plow ’.

Hughes was probably the most celebrated poet of the Harlem Renaissance in the 1920s, and is widely viewed as one of the finest African-American poets of the twentieth century. ‘Freedom’s Plow’ lauds freedom as an essential value, particularly in the United States of America.

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Published on: July 3rd, 2020

15 Great Speeches to Remind America what Independence Day is About

This year we will celebrate the 244 th anniversary of American independence. This day does not only represent the creation of a new nation, but the creation of a new civilization, one founded on the principles of freedom, self-government, and equality. Here are 15 speeches to inspire new vigor for our founding principles. Looking at who and what we were will help us remember who and what we ought to be.

1. Patrick Henry, “Give Me Liberty or Give Me Death” 1775

Patrick Henry gave this speech in 1775 at the Virginia Convention. It took place only a few months after the assembly of the first Continental Congress had sent King George III a petition for the redress of grievances. Boston Harbor was also blockaded by the British in retaliation for the Boston Tea Party. Tensions were high, revolution seemed inevitable, but still many political leaders in Virginia held out hope that the relationship with Great Britain could be restored. Patrick Henry sought to dispel them of that notion.

Patrick Henry was a lawyer and had a reputation as one of the greatest opponents of British taxation. In this speech he argues passionately for independence. He made his case clear in the opening of his speech stating, “For my own part, I consider it as nothing less than a question of freedom or slavery…” He chides the assembly for indulging in “illusions of hope” for passively waiting “to be betrayed with a kiss” and for falling prey to the siren songs of the British.

He reminds the assembly of the lengths the colonists have gone to in order to plead their case to the British, “We have petitioned; we have remonstrated; we have supplicated; we have prostrated ourselves before the throne, and have implored its interposition to arrest the tyrannical hands of the ministry and Parliament.” He then states how the British have received such outreach, “Our petitions have been slighted; our remonstrances have produced additional violence and insult; our supplications have been disregarded; and we have been spurned, with contempt, from the foot of the throne.”

Next is Henry’s powerful call to action, a call that would galvanize the colonies into declaring independence from Great Britain:

In vain, after these things, may we indulge the fond hope of peace and reconciliation. There is no longer any room for hope. If we wish to be free if we mean to preserve inviolate those inestimable privileges for which we have been so long contending if we mean not basely to abandon the noble struggle in which we have been so long engaged, and which we have pledged ourselves never to abandon until the glorious object of our contest shall be obtained, we must fight! I repeat it, sir, we must fight! An appeal to arms and to the God of Hosts is all that is left us! … Besides, sir, we shall not fight our battles alone. There is a just God who presides over the destinies of nations; and who will raise up friends to fight our battles for us. The battle, sir, is not to the strong alone; it is to the vigilant, the active, the brave… There is no retreat but in submission and slavery! Our chains are forged! Their clanking may be heard on the plains of Boston! The war is inevitable and let it come! I repeat it, sir, let it come. It is in vain, sir, to extenuate the matter. Gentlemen may cry, Peace, Peace but there is no peace. The war is actually begun! The next gale that sweeps from the north will bring to our ears the clash of resounding arms! Our brethren are already in the field! Why stand we here idle? What is it that gentlemen wish? What would they have? Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!

Read Patrick’s entire speech . Watch Patrick’s speech on YouTube .

2. Samuel Adams, “On American Independence” 1776

Samuel Adams was a delegate to the First Continental Congress in 1774, was a Signer of the Declaration of Independence, helped get the Constitution ratified in the Massachusetts Convention, and became Governor of Massachusetts in 1794.

In this speech Adams recognizes that this was not simply a battle that would determine the fate of two nations, but the fate of the world at large. He declared, “Courage, then, my countrymen; our contest is not only whether we ourselves shall be free, but whether there shall be left to mankind an asylum on earth for civil and religious liberty.”

Adams notes the ability of men to “deliberately and voluntarily” form for themselves a political society. He cites John Hampden, John Locke, and Algernon Sidney whose ideas and actions paved the way for such a feat. Of this new founding he states:

Other nations have received their laws from conquerors; some are indebted for a constitution to the suffering of their ancestors through revolving centuries. The people of this country, alone, have formally and deliberately chosen a government for themselves, and with open and uninfluenced consent bound themselves into a social compact. Here no man proclaims his birth or wealth as a title to honorable distinction, or to sanctify ignorance and vice with the name of hereditary authority. He who has most zeal and ability to promote public felicity, let him be the servant of the public. This is the only line of distinction drawn by nature. Leave the bird of night to the obscurity for which nature intended him, and expect only from the eagle to brush the clouds with his wings and look boldly in the face of the sun.

He like Patrick Henry then gives a call to action:

We have no other alternative than independence, or the most ignominious and galling servitude. The legions of our enemies thicken on our plains; desolation and death mark their bloody career, while the mangled corpses of our countrymen seem to cry out to us as a voice from heaven.

Lastly, Adams ends his address declaring the people of America the guardians of their own liberty. Then with an ode to the ancient Roman republic he ends stating, “Nothing that we propose can pass into a law without your consent. Be yourselves, O Americans, the authors of those laws on which your happiness depends.”

You can read Samuel Adams' full speech .

3. John Quincy Adams, “An Address Celebrating the Declaration of Independence” 1821

Adams begins the speech recounting the first settlers of the Plymouth colony and how they entered into a written covenant with one another on the eve of their landing. Of this event he states,

Thus was a social compact formed upon the elementary principles of civil society, in which conquest and servitude had no part. The slough of brutal force was entirely cast off; all was voluntary; all was unbiased consent; all was the agreement of soul with soul.

Adams continues to trace America’s historical and political development throughout the speech. He recalls how the British mistreated the colonists from the beginning, citing how Britain went against its own ideas and principles in denying the colonists representation and consent. He states, “For the independence of North America, there were ample and sufficient causes in the laws of moral and physical nature.”

Adams’ ode to the Declaration of Independence is most worth reading:

It was the first solemn declaration by a nation of the only legitimate foundation of civil government. It was the corner stone of a new fabric, destined to cover the surface of the globe. It demolished at a stroke the lawfulness of all governments founded upon conquest. It swept away all the rubbish of accumulated centuries of servitude. It announced in practical form to the world the transcendent truth of the unalienable sovereignty of the people. It proved that the social compact was no figment of the imagination; but a real, solid, and sacred bond of the social union. From the day of this declaration, the people of North America were no longer the fragment of a distant empire, imploring justice and mercy from an inexorable master in another hemisphere. They were no longer children appealing in vain to the sympathies of a heartless mother; no longer subjects leaning upon the shattered columns of royal promises, and invoking the faith of parchment to secure their rights. They were a nation, asserting as of right, and maintaining by war, its own existence. A nation was born in a day. […] [T]hat a new civilization had come, a new spirit had arisen on this side of the Atlantic more advanced and more developed in its regard for the rights of the individual than that which characterized the Old World. Life in a new and open country had aspirations which could not be realized in any subordinate position. A separate establishment was ultimately inevitable. It had been decreed by the very laws of human nature. Man everywhere has an unconquerable desire to be the master of his own destiny.

Adams goes on to pronounce that the Declaration was more than the “mere secession of territory” and the “establishment of a nation.” No, these things have occurred before, but the Declaration of Independence not only liberated America but ennobled all of humanity, he stated. 

You can read John Quincy Adams' entire speech here .

  4. Daniel Webster “Speech at the laying of the cornerstone of the capitol,” July 4, 1851.

Daniel Webster was one of the most prominent lawyers in the 19 th century, arguing over 200 cases before the Supreme Court. He also represented New Hampshire and Massachusetts in Congress and was Secretary of State under three presidents. Webster is also known for his speech in Congress, called the Second Reply to Hayne, which derided the theory of nullification espoused by John C. Calhoun.

Webster’s speech on the occasion of laying the Capital building’s cornerstone had a patriotic tone, He begins with the celebratory declaration, “This is America! This is Washington! And this the Capitol of the United States!”

Of the Founding generation Webster stated,

The Muse inspiring our Fathers was the Genius of Liberty, all on fire with a sense of oppression, and a resolution to throw it off; the whole world was the stage and higher characters than princes trod it… how well the characters were cast, and how well each acted his part…

He went on to speak about the tremendous sacrifice the men who signed the Declaration paid. “It was sealed in blood,” he stated. Of the liberty that the Founding generation bestowed upon successive generations Webster said,

Every man’s heart swells within him; every man’s port and bearing becomes somewhat more proud and lofty, as he remembers that seventy-five years have rolled away, and that the great inheritance of liberty is still his; his undiminished and unimpaired; his in all its original glory’ his to enjoy’ his to protect; and his to transmit to future generations.

Finally, Webster made clear that American liberty is unique among nations,

I have said, gentlemen, that our inheritance is an inheritance of American liberty. That liberty is characteristic, peculiar, and altogether our own. Nothing like it existed in former times, nor was known in the most enlightened States of antiquity; while with us its principles have become interwoven into the minds of individual men… […] And, finally another most important part of the great fabric of American liberty is, that there shall be written constitutions, founded on the immediate authority of the people themselves, and regulating and restraining all the powers conferred upon Government, whether legislative, executive, or judicial.

You can read Daniel Webster's entire speech here .

5. Frederick Douglass, “What to the slave is the 4 th of July?”  July 5, 1852

He spoke about the Founding Fathers as men of courage who “preferred revolution to peaceful submission to bondage.” Of the “fathers of this republic” he said, “They were statesmen, patriots and heroes, and for the good they did, and the principles they contended for, I will unite with you to honor their memory.”

Drawing a contrast between the Founders and the men of his generation advocating the positive good of slavery Douglass stated,

They believed in order; but not in the order of tyranny. With them, nothing was “settled” that was not right. With them, justice, liberty and humanity were “final;” not slavery and oppression. You may well cherish the memory of such men. They were great in their day and generation. Their solid manhood stands out the more as we contrast it with these degenerate times.

Douglass encouraged Americans to celebrate the Declaration as the ring-bolt to the chains of the United Sates’ destiny. “The principles contained in that instrument are saving principles. Stand by those principles, be true to them on all occasions, in all places, against all foes, and at whatever cost,” he stated.

Douglass then rightly points out that America was not living up to its own ideals as laid out in the Declaration when it came to the millions of black men and women still enslaved. He stated,

Fellow-citizens, pardon me, allow me to ask, why am I called upon to speak here to-day? What have I, or those I represent, to do with your national independence? Are the great principles of political freedom and of natural justice, embodied in that Declaration of Independence, extended to us? and am I, therefore, called upon to bring our humble offering to the national altar, and to confess the benefits and express devout gratitude for the blessings resulting from your independence to us?

Of Slavery’s effects on the American union he declared, “It fetters your progress; it is the enemy of improvement, the deadly foe of education; it fosters pride; it breeds insolence; it promotes vice; it shelters crime; it is a curse to the earth that supports it…”

He goes on to explain that this anniversary does not yet include black men and women. He stated, “The rich inheritance of justice, liberty, prosperity and independence, bequeathed by your fathers, is shared by you, not by me.” Yet Douglass was optimistic that this would soon change. He called the Constitution a “GLORIOUS LIBERTY DOCUMENT.” He exhorted the assembly to consider the Constitution’s preamble and ask themselves if slavery was listed as one of its purposes.

He finished his momentous speech by saying, 

Allow me to say, in conclusion, notwithstanding the dark picture I have this day presented of the state of the nation, I do not despair of this country. There are forces in operation, which must inevitably work the downfall of slavery. “The arm of the Lord is not shortened,” and the doom of slavery is certain. I, therefore, leave off where I began, with hope. While drawing encouragement from the Declaration of Independence, the great principles it contains, and the genius of American Institutions, my spirit is also cheered by the obvious tendencies of the age.

You can read Frederick Douglass' entire speech here .

6. Abraham Lincoln, Electric Cord Speech, 1858

In this speech often titled, “Speech at Chicago, Illinois” Abraham Lincoln replies to Senator Stephen Douglas’ conception of popular sovereignty. This was a theory that argued that each new territory should be able to decide whether or not to have slavery within their borders instead of allowing the federal government to decide. Lincoln saw this as a repeal of the Missouri Compromise which kept slavery relegated to the South.

To make his case against popular sovereignty and the expansion of slavery Lincoln argues that the adopters of the Constitution decreed that slavery should not go into the new territory and that the slave trade should be cut off within twenty years by an act of Congress. “What were [these provisions] but a clear indication that the framers of the Constitution intended and expected the ultimate extinction of that institution,” Lincoln asked the crowd.

After expounding upon the evils of slavery and recent actions to preserve the institution Lincoln turns to the Declaration of Independence for support. He stated,

We hold this annual celebration to remind ourselves of all the good done in this process of time of how it was done and who did it, and how we are historically connected with it; and we go from these meetings in better humor with ourselves—we feel more attached the one to the other and more firmly bound to the country we inhabit. In every way we are better men in the age, and race, and country in which we live for these celebrations. But after we have done all this we have not yet reached the whole. There is something else connected with it. We have besides these men—descended by blood from our ancestors—among us perhaps half our people who are not descendants at all of these men, they are men who have come from Europe—German, Irish, French and Scandinavian—men that have come from Europe themselves, or whose ancestors have come hither and settled here, finding themselves our equals in all things. If they look back through this history to trace their connection with those days by blood, they find they have none, they cannot carry themselves back into that glorious epoch and make themselves feel that they are part of us, but when they look through that old Declaration of Independence they find that those old men say that “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal,” and then they feel that that moral sentiment taught in that day evidences their relation to those men, that it is the father of all moral principle in them, and that they have a right to claim it as though they were blood of the blood, and flesh of the flesh of the men who wrote that Declaration, (loud and long continued applause) and so they are. That is the electric cord in that Declaration that links the hearts of patriotic and liberty-loving men together, that will link those patriotic hearts as long as the love of freedom exists in the minds of men throughout the world.

You can read the entire Electric Cord speech here .

7. Abraham Lincoln, Address in Independence Hall, February 22, 1861

On Abraham Lincoln's inaugural journey to Washington as president-elect, he stopped in Philadelphia at the site where the Declaration of Independence had been signed. There he said,

I have never had a feeling politically that did not spring from the sentiments embodied in the Declaration of Independence. I have often pondered over the dangers which were incurred by the men who assembled here, and framed and adopted that Declaration of Independence. I have pondered over the toils that were endured by the officers and soldiers of the army who achieved that Independence. I have often inquired of myself, what great principle or idea it was that kept this Confederacy so long together. It was not the mere matter of the separation of the Colonies from the motherland; but that sentiment in the Declaration of Independence which gave liberty, not alone to the people of this country, but, I hope, to the world, for all future time. It was that which gave promise that in due time the weight would be lifted from the shoulders of all men. This is a sentiment embodied in the Declaration of Independence.

You can read the entire address in Independence Hall here .

8. Abraham Lincoln, Fragments on the Constitution and Union, January 1, 1861

This short selection is not part of Lincoln’s tome of public speeches. One theory is that Lincoln wrote it while composing his first inaugural address. It is noteworthy because of Lincoln’s argument that what is most important about America are the principles and ideals it was founded upon. That principle, he states, is “Liberty to all.”

The  expression  of that principle, in our Declaration of Independence, was most happy, and fortunate.  Without  this, as well as  with  it, we could have declared our independence of Great Britain; but  without  it, we could not, I think, have secured our free government, and consequent prosperity. No oppressed, people will  fight,  and  endure,  as our fathers did, without the promise of something better, than a mere change of masters. The assertion of that principle, at that time, was the word, “fitly spoken” which has proved an “apple of gold” to us. The Union, and the Constitution, are the picture of silver, subsequently framed around it. The picture was made, not to conceal, or destroy the apple; but to adorn, and preserve it. The picture was made for the apple–not the apple for the picture.

Read the entire Fragments on the Constitution and Union selection here .

9. Abraham Lincoln, The Gettysburg Address, November 19, 1863

Aside from our original founding documents the Gettysburg address is perhaps the most important American creed ever written. It signifies America’s second founding or the moment our first founding more fully aligned with its own ideals. Since its decree America has begun to live in what Lincoln called “a new birth of freedom.” Here are selections from the address:

Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth, upon this continent, a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. […] It is rather for us, the living, we here be dedicated to the great task remaining before us that, from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they here, gave the last full measure of devotion that we here highly resolve these dead shall not have died in vain; that the nation, shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

You can read the full Gettysburg Address here .

10. Winston Churchill, “The Third Great Title-Deed of Anglo-American Liberties” July 4, 1918

A great harmony exists between the spirit and language of the Declaration of Independence and all we are fighting for now. A similar harmony exists between the principles of that Declaration and all that the British people have wished to stand for, and have in fact achieved at last both here at home and in the self-governing Dominions of the Crown. The Declaration of Independence is not only an American document. It follows on Magna Carta and the Bill of Rights as the third great title-deed on which the liberties of the English-speaking people are founded.

Read Churchill's entire speech here .

11. Calvin Coolidge, “Speech on the 150 th Anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, July 5 1926

 Calvin Coolidge, the 30 th president of the United States, was sworn in after President Harding’s unexpected death. Harding’s administration was steeped in scandal. Coolidge is known for restoring integrity to the executive branch by rooting out corruption and being a model of integrity.

Coolidge gave his Fourth of July Speech in Philadelphia, the birthplace of our nation. There he pointed to the Liberty Bell as a great American symbol,

It is little wonder that people at home and abroad consider Independence Hall as hallowed ground and revere the Liberty Bell as a sacred relic. That pile of bricks and mortar, that mass of metal, might appear to the uninstructed as only the outgrown meeting place and the shattered bell of a former time, useless now because of more modern conveniences, but to those who know they have become consecrated by the use which men have made of them. They have long been identified with a great cause. They are the framework of a spiritual event.

Of the Declaration Coolidge stated,

It was not because it was proposed to establish a new nation, but because it was proposed to establish a nation on new principles, that July 4, 1776, has come to be regarded as one of the greatest days in history. Great ideas do not burst upon the world unannounced. They are reached by a gradual development over a length of time usually proportionate to their importance. This is especially true of the principles laid down in the Declaration of Independence. Three very definite propositions were set out in its preamble regarding the nature of mankind and therefore of government. These were the doctrine that all men are created equal, that they are endowed with certain inalienable rights, and that therefore the source of the just powers of government must be derived from the consent of the governed.

Of his trust in our Founding documents he said,

It is not so much, then, for the purpose of undertaking to proclaim new theories and principles that this annual celebration is maintained, but rather to reaffirm and reestablish those old theories and principles which time and the unerring logic of events have demonstrated to be sound. Amid all the clash of conflicting interests, amid all the welter of partisan politics, every American can turn for solace and consolation to the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States with the assurance and confidence that those two great charters of freedom and justice remain firm and unshaken. Whatever perils appear, whatever dangers threaten, the Nation remains secure in the knowledge that the ultimate application of the law of the land will provide an adequate defense and protection.

Read Coolidge's full speech here .

12. John F. Kennedy, “Some Elements of the American Character” July 4, 1946

John F. Kennedy gave this speech as a candidate for Congress. In it he offers a robust defense of America’s founding. He lauds America’s religious character and derides the theory that America’s founders were concerned purely with economic interests. He explicitly states,

In recent years, the existence of this element in the American character has been challenged by those who seek to give an economic interpretation to American history. They seek to destroy our faith in our past so that they may guide our future. These cynics are wrong…

 Kennedy instead argues,

In Revolutionary times, the cry "No taxation without representation" was not an economic complaint. Rather, it was directly traceable to the eminently fair and just principle that no sovereign power has the right to govern without the consent of the governed. Anything short of that was tyranny. It was against this tyranny that the colonists "fired the shot heard 'round the world."

Kennedy then espouses a political theory of the American founding that relies on natural rights, 

The American Constitution has set down for all men to see the essentially Christian and American principle that there are certain rights held by every man which no government and no majority, however powerful, can deny. Conceived in Grecian thought, strengthened by Christian morality, and stamped indelibly into American political philosophy, the right of the individual against the State is the keystone of our Constitution. Each man is free.

You can read John F. Kennedy's full speech here .

13. Martin Luther King Jr., “I Have a Dream” 1963

Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream Speech” is another great cry from another great man declaring that America was not living up to its founding principles.

King begins his speech by harkening back to Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation. He states, “This momentous decree came as a great beacon light of hope to millions of Negro slaves who had been seared in the flames of withering injustice.” Yet, he argues, 100 years later black men and women are still not free. To right this wrong, he points to the Declaration,

In a sense we've come to our nation's capital to cash a check. When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir. This note was a promise that all men, yes, black men as well as white men, would be guaranteed the "unalienable Rights" of "Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness." It is obvious today that America has defaulted on this promissory note, insofar as her citizens of color are concerned. Instead of honoring this sacred obligation, America has given the Negro people a bad check, a check which has come back marked "insufficient funds."

King refused to believe that there was no hope. He said,

But we refuse to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt. We refuse to believe that there are insufficient funds in the great vaults of opportunity of this nation. And so, we've come to cash this check, a check that will give us upon demand the riches of freedom and the security of justice.

King’s dream inspired a nation to live up to its ideals. His beautiful words have become iconic,

I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal."

 You can read and listen to "I Have a Dream" in full here .

14. Martin Luther King Jr. “The American Dream” Sermon Delivered at Ebenezar Baptist Church” July 4, 1965

In this sermon delivered on July 4, 1965, Martin Luther King Jr. locates the substance of the American dream within the Declaration of Independence. About the statement, “All men are created equal,” King states, “The first saying we notice in this dream is an amazing universalism. It doesn’t say “some men,” it says “all men.”

King goes on to explain to the congregation what separates the United States from other nations around the world.

 Then that dream goes on to say another thing that ultimately distinguishes our nation and our form of government from any totalitarian system in the world. It says that each of us has certain basic rights that are neither derived from or conferred by the state.

As the source of these inalienable rights King points to the fact that they are God-given. “Never before in the history of the world has a sociopolitical document expressed in such profound, eloquent, and unequivocal language the dignity and the worth of human personality,” he said.

King goes on to point out that America has not lived up to this dream. He describes America as being “divided against herself.” He argues that America cannot afford an “anemic democracy.”

He however professed hope that this dream will challenge America to remember her “noble capacity for justice and love and brotherhood.” He further challenged America to respect the “dignity and worth of all human personality” and to live up to the ideal that “all men are created equal.”

King clarifies that equality does not mean that every musician is a Mozart or every philosopher an Aristotle, but that all men are “equal in intrinsic worth.” He points to the Biblical concept of imago dei . He states, “[T]are no gradations in the image of God. Every man from a treble white to a bass black is significant on God’s keyboard, precisely because every man is made in the image of God. He ends his sermon with these powerful words,

We have a dream. It started way back in 1776, and God grant that America will be true to her dream. I still have a dream this morning that truth will reign supreme and all of God’s children will respect the dignity and worth of human personality. And when this day comes the morning stars will sing together and the sons of God will shout for joy.

Read Martin Luther King Jr.'s full sermon here .

15. Ronald Reagan, “Address to the Nation on Independence Day” July 4, 1986

In this speech Reagan recalls the moment of the signing of the Declaration,

Fifty-six men came forward to sign the parchment. It was noted at the time that they pledged their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honors. And that was more than rhetoric; each of those men knew the penalty for high treason to the Crown. ``We must all hang together,'' Benjamin Franklin said, ``or, assuredly, we will all hang separately.'' And John Hancock, it is said, wrote his signature in large script so King George could see it without his spectacles. They were brave. They stayed brave through all the bloodshed of the coming years. Their courage created a nation built on a universal claim to human dignity, on the proposition that every man, woman, and child had a right to a future of freedom.

Reagan also talked about the beautiful friendship between Thomas Jefferson and John Adams. He noted how they died on the same day, July 4 th , exactly 50 years after the signing of the Declaration of Independence. It was their first gift to us, Reagan said.

My fellow Americans, it falls to us to keep faith with them and all the great Americans of our past. Believe me, if there's one impression I carry with me after the privilege of holding for 5 ½ years the office held by Adams and Jefferson and Lincoln, it is this: that the things that unite us -- America's past of which we're so proud, our hopes and aspirations for the future of the world and this much-loved country -- these things far outweigh what little divides us. And so tonight we reaffirm that Jew and gentile, we are one nation under God; that black and white, we are one nation indivisible; that Republican and Democrat, we are all Americans. Tonight, with heart and hand, through whatever trial and travail, we pledge ourselves to each other and to the cause of human freedom, the cause that has given light to this land and hope to the world.

You can watch Ronald Reagan's speech here or read Reagan's speech here .

About Hillsdale in D.C.

Hillsdale in D.C. is an extension of the teaching mission of Hillsdale College to Washington, D.C. Its purpose is to teach the Constitution and the principles that give it meaning. Through the study of original source documents from American history—and of older books that formed the education of America’s founders—it seeks to inspire students, teachers, citizens, and policymakers to return the America’s principles to their central place in the political life of the nation.

About Hillsdale College

Hillsdale College is an independent liberal arts college located in southern Michigan. Founded in 1844, the College has built a national reputation through its classical liberal arts core curriculum and its principled refusal to accept federal or state taxpayer subsidies, even indirectly in the form of student grants or loans. It also conducts an outreach effort promoting civil and religious liberty, including a free monthly speech digest, Imprimis , with a circulation of more than 5.7 million. For more information, visit hillsdale.edu .

Keyword: Freedom

Freedom is part of the inherited Old English vocabulary. It derives from free , and many of its most important uses are in compounds, collocations, phrases, and constructions determined by its relationship with this adjective. From its earliest his­tory it has defined the rights and privileges of a free individual, and the state of having such rights and privileges, in early use especially in contrast with slavery or serfdom, but increasingly seen as liberty from despotic or autocratic control. It is in­structive to compare freedom with the semantically close liberty. Liberty is a borrowing from French and in turn from Latin, and is first found in lC14. As a simple uncompounded word, its core meanings overlap almost completely with those of freedom . Both words are used to denote both “freedom to act” and “freedom from despotism.” This broad synonymy has held true from the early modern period onward.

Both words have singular and plural uses, although in the case of liberty these are usually more restricted semantically; compare, e.g., “hard-won freedoms” with “to take liberties.” Special countable uses of liberty also occur in legal usage, as e.g., with reference to a liberty granted by a sovereign.

In non-countable uses the two words overlap very considerably, although freedom is more frequent with reference to specific actions performed without (or only with legally or technically restricted) restraint, as in “freedom of speech,” “the freedom of his remarks,” “freedom of movement,” “the freedom of his brush strokes”; many such uses are clearly nominalizations of expressions with the adjective free , especially free speech . Similarly, free from is the model for freedom from (persecution, harm, taxes, etc.). In some cases, questions of alliteration and/ or prosody have clearly shaped choices between the two words. Hence liberation struggles are typically conducted by freedom fighters , probably on account of alliteration and prosody; hence also such collocations as the fight for freedom , those who are fighting for freedom , etc.

The relative frequency of the two words, however, has shifted dramatically, and this seems to hold true both for newspapers and for general corpora representing a wide range of different genres. In C16 and C17, in spite of being a relatively recent borrowing, liberty outnumbers freedom by approximately four to one; in C18 it continues to be more frequent, but by rather less than two to one. In C19 British newspapers, liberty remains approximately twice as frequent as freedom ; in C19 US sources, liberty only very slightly outnumbers freedom , if at all. This is in contrast to lC20 and eC21 sources, in which freedom is typically about three times more frequent than liberty , in both British and US sources. Corpus searches indicate no extremely frequent collocations or compound uses that alone can account for this shift (although, e.g., academic freedom , religious freedom , individual freedom , press freedom , freedom fighter , freedom of speech , freedom of expression are all very common, as is civil liberty ).

During the course of its history, liberty shows a complex set of relationships with a number of other words ultimately from the same derivational group, which characteristically have connections with aspects of radical politics in their early use. An interesting question is whether any of these associations have contributed to the decreasing frequency of liberty relative to freedom .

From the early modern period libertine (with its derivatives libertinism and libertinage ) is found in English as a borrowing from French and Latin, ultimately showing, like liberty , a derivative formation from Latin liber , “free.” As both noun and adjective the word has important early uses denoting a free-thinker , especially in religion, although in later use lack of restraint in moral life, especially with regard to sexual morality, becomes the dominant meaning. In early use, the relationship between the terms liberty and libertinism is ambiguous: sometimes liberty is identified as the aim of libertines , sometimes liberty is the ideal condition to be protected from the excesses of libertinism ; the latter seems to have become more dominant over time.

The positive connotations of liberty in C18 are reflected by the frequency of defense of liberty , which is found only sparingly in the early modern period (when defense of freedom is found hardly at all). Defense of liberty continues to be more common than defense of freedom in C19, although again this situation is reversed in contemporary usage. The range of conflicts in which both phrases have been employed for propaganda purposes is huge. In C20 the Cold War collocation the Free World (now frequently, albeit most often tacitly, redefined in the context of the “War on Terror”) may be a factor favoring defense of freedom , although this must be seen in the context of the general increase in frequency of freedom relative to liberty over time. The recent past has additionally seen, for example, Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan.

In lC18 we find a very strong association of liberty ’s French equivalent liberté with the Revolutionary motto liberté, égalité, fraternité. Liberty also has a prominent use in the US Declaration of Independence (“Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness”), as well as the US Constitution. In C19 (and later) Anglophone discourse, freedom has at least the capacity for uses dissociated from the radical associations of liberty , however. Arguably these uses occur in the tradition of nationalistic accounts of early English history, in which the freedom of the Anglo-Saxon churl is stressed as an inherited fundamental aspect of English society stretching back into the mists of an early Germanic inheritance (following an analysis abandoned by more recent historians).

In C19 both liberalism and libertarianism take on political meanings starkly opposed to conservatism , although a “liberal” position is also eschewed by many on the more radical left. As Williams notes, association with the broader use of the word liberal, and hence connotations of “wishy-washiness” or excessive generosity, probably have a part to play here. The derivational relationship is clearest and strongest in the case of libertarianism , although this is also the term that has achieved much less extensive general currency.

In mC20 liberty shows a further derivational relationship with liberation , and is used in relation to post-colonialism, theology, and women’s and gay liberation. However, as noted, those engaged in such liberation struggles are typically freedom fighters . Further, close stylistic and linguistic analysis of the use of either liberty or freedom (or, as frequently today, liberty and freedom ) in different contexts may yield interesting insights into the influences and sympathies of particular individuals or groups.

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Overview of Freedom of Expression at Stanford

Stanford is committed to freedom of expression, free inquiry, and the open exchange of ideas as fundamental values for the university’s academic mission. This website furnishes interim guidance on the application of freedom of expression principles in different contexts around campus. While the guidance is intended to provide greater clarity about current policies and procedures, some of these policies will continue to be evaluated by university administration as well as the Faculty Senate’s Ad Hoc Committee on University Speech, with input and consultation across our community.

Stanford has long supported academic freedom and freedom of expression, from the 1974 Statement on Academic Freedom through more recent reaffirmations by university leaders of far-reaching support for speech (for example, the President and Provost’s letter to admitted undergraduates and Jenny Martinez’s memo to the Stanford Law School of March 2023). In May of 2024, the Faculty Senate unanimously approved a new Statement on Freedom of Expression drawing on this tradition. 

Statement on Freedom of Expression at Stanford Stanford is profoundly committed to freedom of expression, free inquiry, and the open exchange of ideas. Freedom of expression is a fundamental value for the university’s knowledge-bearing mission, alongside the inclusion of all viewpoints and the promotion of rigorous and reasoned academic debates. The freedom to explore and present new, unconventional, and even unpopular ideas is essential to the academic mission of the university; therefore, Stanford shall promote the widest possible freedom of expression, consistent with the university’s legal and moral obligations to prevent harassment and discrimination. Accordingly, university policies must not censor individuals’ speech based on the content of what is expressed, except in narrow circumstances. At the same time, Stanford’s educational role as well as its academic and legal obligations differ across locations and contexts on campus, such as spaces open to all community members, classrooms, and dormitories. Community members also have varying privileges and responsibilities in different contexts. Likewise, legal rights and obligations pertain in different ways to community members depending on whether they are acting as students, teachers, staff, or faculty members. The principles of freedom of speech and expression will be understood in light of these variations across contexts and roles. The campus disruption policy furnishes an example of how some of these distinctions may be drawn.

The interpretations of the policies and procedures collected on this website are meant to maximally protect community members’ rights to free expression, with limits imposed only when allowing such expression would infringe on the rights of others or impede the university’s core academic operations. In particular, they provide that the university generally should not make distinctions about what is allowed based on the viewpoint of speech. The university’s time, place, and manner rules are meant to provide ample outlets for expression of the widest range of views on campus, and also to protect the rights of other students (as well as faculty and staff) to attend classes, study in libraries, work in labs and offices, hear speakers, have spaces to express their own viewpoints, and have places for rest and respite in dormitories and residences. At the same time, prohibitions on harassment protect the equal rights of others to access education consistent with federal civil rights laws such as Title VI and Title IX. In addition, the university prohibits legally unprotected speech such as true threats and incitement to imminent violence.

Speech that is controversial and even deeply offensive to some must be protected as part of our commitment to the open exchange of ideas and avoidance of institutional orthodoxy. As the Faculty Senate resolution recognized, however, not all speech is appropriate at all times and places on campus. Protests are an important part of political speech in a democracy, and multiple spaces on campus are available for protests. However, protest activity should not disrupt the university’s ability to carry out its core educational functions, such as through a disruption to a class, event, or lab work that impedes the rights of students attending the class or event or working in the lab to pursue their goals, or the ability of faculty and staff to complete their work. Likewise, a poster that might offend some members of the community may be placed in various locations around campus but not on the dormitory door of a person being targeted by the speech. Student musicians playing on stage at a planned event at noon on a Saturday may operate at higher volume than the same musicians at 2 a.m. outside a residence or at 2 p.m. on a Tuesday in the area immediately outside a building where classes are being held. These are just a few examples of the different contexts in which campus speech occurs. The pages of this website provide more examples , but the expression of ideas is so central to the university’s mission that it is actually impossible to catalog all the different times and places where it might occur; instead, we have general rules that are meant to be applied consistent with our overall mission of research and education and the commitment to free expression that mission requires.

There are hard questions of both policy and practicality in trying to craft rules that protect the right of everyone on campus to speak and learn in an atmosphere of openness and curiosity; we invite further dialogue with the campus community in the coming year on how further to improve our policies to create an atmosphere of vigorous and constructive discourse at Stanford.

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Your Rights to Free Speech in Public Schools

Public school students in K-12 schools do not lose their right to free speech when they enter the school building. At the New York Civil Liberties Union, we believe that the First Amendment protects students’ right to learn, including the right to receive information, share ideas, and have a free and open exchange about race, gender, and our shared history.

The answers below provide an overview of students’ free speech rights in school and suggestions for how young people and their allies can advocate to stop censorship in New York classrooms.

Free Speech in the Classroom

Do i have the right to speak freely and express myself in school.

Yes. You do not lose the right to freedom of speech just because you are a student, and your school cannot stop you from expressing yourself peacefully. Many different kinds of expression are protected, including what you say, what you do, and what you wear.

Can my school limit my ability to express myself at school?

Sometimes, yes. The school can censor your speech if it could cause a “substantial disruption” to the school environment. This means that there is a good chance that what you say or do will get in the way of classroom or school activities. Your school does not have to show that your speech actually caused a “substantial disruption.” They just have to show that they had a good reason for thinking that it would.

Courts have found that it is not substantial disruption where students are simply discussing what the student did or said. But courts have found that speech is a substantial disruption if school staff are pulled away from their regular activities to address the harm the speech caused or if the speech is violent or threatening to members of the school community.

Your school can also make any rule it wants that places limits on student speech without singling out any one student or message. Dress codes are a good example. Dress codes are legal as long as they apply the same to everyone. However, schools cannot create rules for clothing worn by girls but not by boys and vice versa, and they cannot block students from wearing clothes with some messages but not others.

Can my school censor my speech because it is inappropriate?

Yes, your school can stop you from using language that is inappropriate for school. This includes anything explicitly sexual or that is sexually suggestive. For example, a student can get in trouble for alluding to sex in a school speech. Your school can also stop you from saying anything that supports people using drugs or alcohol.

Can the school censor what I say or do in school activities?

Yes, schools can create many more rules for how students express themselves in “school-sponsored” activities. “School-sponsored” speech is anything that other people would think the school approved or supported, even if the school doesn’t support or approve of it. This includes both regular classroom activities and clubs that are run by a teacher or staff member. For example, the school can censor the student newspaper if it is created under adult supervision or a student concert, play, or art show if it is organized by school staff. In some circumstances, a class assignment or presentation can be considered school-sponsored speech, including comments on a website like Blackboard or Canvas.

There are some limits on these rules for “school-sponsored” speech. First, schools can only censor student speech if they have a good reason that is based on the school’s teaching and learning goals or school policies.

Second, any rule for “school-sponsored” speech has to apply the same to all speech. Let’s say that you love dogs, but another student in your class loves cats. Your teacher also loves cats but hates dogs. The teacher can’t let the pro-cat student share pro-cat beliefs but stop you from talking about how much you love dogs.

Can school officials prevent me from expressing my opinion on controversial topics?

It depends. Your school can stop you from sharing controversial opinions in “school-sponsored” activities if people would think your school approved or supported those opinions. However, they cannot allow some students to express controversial opinions but not others. For example, school officials could not stop students from hanging a poster saying, “Black Lives Matter” but allow other students to hang a poster saying, “Blue Lives Matter.”

It is different outside of these “school-sponsored” activities. Your school cannot stop you from expressing an opinion just because the school finds it too controversial. It can only censor your speech if it has a good reason to believe that your opinion will cause a “substantial disruption.”

Can school officials limit the ideas I express in a classroom presentation or assignment?

It depends. Generally, classroom assignments or presentations are considered “school-sponsored” speech because they are assigned and supervised by school staff and are designed to teach particular information or skills. Therefore, teachers can generally decide the topic of the assignment and place limits on student speech as long as they have a good reason to do so.

There are, however, some exceptions. Schools cannot discipline or censor students who express their opinions because their viewpoint is unpopular or because the teacher disagrees with it. In most cases, comments you make in an open-ended classroom discussion can only be censored if it caused (or could have caused a) a “substantial disruption.”

Access to Learning

Do i have a right to be taught with diverse and inclusive materials.

While there is no legal right to a diverse and inclusive curriculum, New York’s Board of Regents, which oversees the public school system, strongly supports it and has adopted guidelines to make sure that school districts provide curriculum that affirms student identities and develops students’ ability to connect with people with different life experiences.

Schools can violate civil rights laws by censoring books or curriculum materials that discuss the history and experiences of people who have been discriminated against, or by stoppingdiscussion about discrimination against people of color and LGBTQIA+ people. This is true even if a school district says they are banning materials because they are inappropriate or sexually explicit if you can prove that the district’s stated reason is “pretextual” or in other words, made-up. Schools are legally responsible for making sure that classrooms are inclusive for all students and they cannot ban materials that accurately show or analyze topics related to race, gender, or sexual orientation simply because of pressure from parents or community members.

Can my school ban books or other materials in the school library?

It depends. There is no legal right to have a particular book in the school library and schools are allowed to pick and choose what to include. However, once a book has been selected, schools cannot remove it from the library just because they dislike it or disagree with the opinions of the author. Also, schools cannot remove books just because of the race or identity of the author. That said, schools can still remove school library books if they have a good reason that is based on their teaching and learning goals for students. For example, a school can remove a book because of factual inaccuracies or because it is outdated.

Many school districts have policies that establish a process that they must follow to remove a book from the curriculum or library. It is important that school districts follow these procedures carefully when making a decision. If districts don’t follow their established process, it could be evidence that they removed the book because they didn’t agree with the author’s ideas or opinions. To learn more, check your district’s web site or policy manual. If you know of a book ban at your school or in your district, reach out to the New York Civil Liberties Union at [email protected] .

What can I do if I think my curriculum or library books are being removed inappropriately?

First, check your district’s web site or policy manual to see if they have a process for handling complaints about academic or library materials. In some districts, parents and students may be able to serve on the committee that reviews these complaints and makes recommendations about whether books should be removed. While it varies from district to district, this committee usually makes a recommendation to the superintendent, who makes a final decision.

If your superintendent has decided to remove a book or material and you disagree, you can usually appeal their decision to the school board. Districts frequently have a time limit for filing an appeal, so act fast. In addition to filing an appeal, you can mobilize students, parents, and community members to let the school board know you don’t want censorship in your school. You could speak at board meetings, collect signatures for a petition, or ask people to call or email school board members.

If the school board also votes to remove the book, then you can appeal to the Commissioner of Education. The Commissioner of Education is in charge of the New York State Education Department and supervises schools across the state. You must file an appeal within 30 days of the school board’s decision to remove the book. While you can file these appeals on your own, it is a good idea to work with a lawyer who is familiar with the process. If you need help finding someone, contact us at the New York Civil Liberties Union ( [email protected] ).

My district hasn’t banned any books and I want to make sure it doesn’t happen in the future. What can I do now?

You can advocate for strong policies that commit your district to providing diverse and inclusive materials and establish clear and complete steps for reviewing and responding to any complaints. The New York Civil Liberties Union has a model policy you can share with your school district. We have also created a cover letter you can send to your school board members explaining what the policy is and why it is important.

Can I read or talk about a banned book on school grounds?

Yes. Reading or talking about a banned book is the same as doing or saying anything else at school. It is not “school-sponsored” speech because the book is not part of any classes or school activities. This means that you are allowed to read or discuss the book as you wish. You can only get in trouble if you cause a “substantial disruption.” Your school banning a library book does not change your own right to have it. All it means is that the school itself cannot buy or display the book.

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Your rights to wear a mask in new york, know your rights: students in higher education & the first amendment, your rights as a transgender, gender-nonconforming, nonbinary, or intersex student, speaking out as a public employee.

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The Ruling Elites Create an Orwellian Reinterpretation of Human Rights

Through Orwellian Newspeak, ordinary words like “liberty,” “justice,” and “equality”—values that most people would support—have been subverted and harnessed to promote socialism.

By Wanjiru Njoya

September 18, 2024

Ludwig von Mises depicts the aim of revolutionary socialism as: “to clear the ground for building up a new civilization by liquidating the old one.”

One of the main strategies in liquidating a civilization involves dismantling its legal and philosophical foundations.

This role is fulfilled by activists who embark upon “sabotage and revolution” by subverting the meaning of words :

“The socialists have engineered a semantic revolution in converting the meaning of terms into their opposite.”

George Orwell famously called this subversive language “Newspeak.”

Peter Foster describes Newspeak as “a sort of totalitarian Esperanto that sought gradually to diminish the range of what was thinkable by eliminating, contracting, and manufacturing words.” 

Mises explains that dictators express their ideas in Newspeak precisely because, if they did not, nobody would support their schemes:

In the proliferation of Newspeak, the reinterpretation of “human rights” has proved to be one of the most powerful weapons of sabotage and revolution.

Activists have seized control of a vast empire of international law, NGOs, and human rights charities with a global network of staff who monitor respect for “human rights.”

They wield their significant influence in the human rights industry to undermine human liberty by redefining the meaning of “human rights” to denote the antidiscrimination principle.

Under the banner of equality and nondiscrimination, they restrict free speech and other human liberties.

In other words, the doctrine of “human rights” now denotes the precise opposite: the destruction of human liberty.

The “human right” to non-discrimination

Human rights no longer mean what many might suppose: the right to life, liberty, and property.

The vast corpus of human rights in international law has been categorized by Karel Vašák into three: civil-political, socio-economic, and collective-developmental.

These categories are said to encompass negative rights (things the state must not do, such interfering with life, liberty, or property), positive rights (things the state must do, for example, provide citizens with food, shelter, education, healthcare, etc.), and rights of solidarity between citizens such as wealth redistribution through social welfare schemes and equal participation in economic progress through measures such as the minimum wage or equal pay.

Human rights organizations monitor progress against these categories and ensure that the legal system works in favor of socialist goals and against liberty.

For example, the United Nations human rights program educates the public on the need to eradicate “hate speech” and interprets “equal protection” of the law, as a fundamental human right, to mean protection from hate speech. The UN says :

From that description, it can be seen that the UN takes a concept which is well-established in the criminal law, namely, prohibiting incitement to violence, and links it to notions of incitement to discrimination and incitement to hostility, which have never before been recognized as crimes.

They annex discrimination and hostility to the charge of inciting violence because, if they did not, it would be immediately clear to everyone that criminalizing “discrimination” or “hostility” amounts to nothing less than Newspeakian crimethink .

The meaning of human rights

In his article , “There’s no such thing as Human Rights,” the British journalist Peter Hitchens argues that,

There's no such thing as Human Rights: Shocking? Yes. Provocative? Certainly. But read this powerfully perceptive argument from PETER HITCHENS, and you'll see why he believes they're not worth the paper they're written on

PETER HITCHENS: 'Let us get rid of these useless human rights, which protect us from nothing and give power to those who have not earned it'

In that context, Hitchens is referring not to the ancient liberties protected by Magna Carta , but to the Newspeakian rights now enshrined in human rights instruments, such as the UN Declaration of Human Rights and the European Convention on Human Rights.

King John is shown signing the Magna Carta (1215). Undated illustration, after a painting by Chappel

Human rights have been transformed into wooly concepts which merely reflect political and partisan demands.

Murray Rothbard avoids the ambiguity surrounding the meaning of human rights by defining them as property rights.

In the Ethics of Liberty , he explains :

Thus, the Rothbardian interpretation of human rights denotes the universal right to self-ownership and private property that vests in all human beings.

Bureaucratic reinterpretation

In practice, the meaning of human rights is subject to interpretation by courts or other law enforcement officials.

Therefore, human rights ultimately mean only what they are interpreted to mean by law enforcement, not what they may theoretically, politically, or philosophically.

Lowell B. Mason, an attorney and former chair of the Federal Trade Commission explains the significance of bureaucratic interpretation by observing wryly that:

Being well aware of this, the goal of activists is to ensure that “human rights” are interpreted so as to advance their goals. This explains the concerted efforts to depict “hate speech” as a human rights violation.

In this way the commitment of states to protecting “human rights” is transformed, through the prism of the antidiscrimination principle, into an edict to prohibit hate speech.

The word “hate” is interpreted to mean having the temerity to disagree with socialists, and similarly, the word “equality” is interpreted to mean wealth redistribution to achieve equality of material conditions.

Mason explains how it is possible for bureaucrats, charged with law enforcement, to reinterpret the Constitution to suit whatever they think the law ought to achieve.

No matter how carefully a law is drafted, it will always require interpretation, and this is where the bureaucrats strike as they purport to apply the “evolving” meaning of the Constitution.

Mason explains:

Through Newspeak, the Constitution itself has been reinterpreted, enabling socialists to claim that they support free speech and also support the prohibition of “hate speech.”

Mises explains that this subverts the concept of freedom into its very opposite:

“Freedom implies the right to choose between assent and dissent. But in Newspeak it means the duty to assent unconditionally and strict interdiction of dissent.”

In that sense, the concept of “hate speech” is not compatible with free speech.

In denoting any dissent as “hate,” it is the very negation of free speech and freedom of thought.

READ MORE: DHS to Restart Disinformation Governance Board

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How Barack Obama Learned to Give a Speech: Read An Excerpt From His Speechwriter's New Book (Excerpt)

White House speechwriter Terry Szuplat shares lessons he's learned from the former president

Official White House Photo/Pete Souza

In an exclusive excerpt from Say It Well: Find Your Voice, Speak Your Mind, Inspire Any Audience by Terry Szuplat, the White House speechwriter explores how former President Barack Obama developed his own public speaking skills.

In 1981, students at Occidental College in Los Angeles held a rally against South Africa’s brutal apartheid policy of racial segregation. The first speaker was a 19-year-old sophomore named Barack Obama . He managed to get out only a few sentences, however, before two students rushed up, pretending to be South African security forces, and dragged him away—a bit of political theater to highlight the oppression of anti-apartheid activists.

“The whole thing was a farce,” he explained years later, and his “one-minute oration” was “the biggest farce of all.” “That’s the last time you will ever hear another speech out of me,” he told a friend. “I’ve got no business speaking for Black folks.”

Decades later, as one of his speechwriters, I asked President Obama what he meant. His struggles with his racial identity — with a white mother from Kansas and a Black father from Kenya, and having been largely raised by his white grandparents — were “part of” the reason for how he felt at the rally, he told me. More, though, it was rooted in larger doubts about his place in the world and whether his voice could make a difference.

“I think the starting point for effective speaking, for me at least, and for most people who I find persuasive,” he said, “is do they have a sense of who they are and what they believe?” At the rally on campus that day, he recalled, “I was a callow youth who was trying to sort out who I was and what I believed.” The rally had given him a chance to raise his voice. But looking back on his younger self, he said, “I wasn’t ready yet.”

After college, Obama worked as a community organizer with churches on Chicago’s South Side. “At that point, I was accustomed to speaking in front of people,” he told me. “I was not naturally inclined to be nervous”— until one day when his swagger proved to be his undoing. 

The PEOPLE Puzzler crossword is here! How quickly can you solve it? Play now !

He was 24 years old, making a fundraising pitch to a conference room full of philanthropists. “I was feeling pretty cocky,” he remembered. “I had not written down my remarks. I felt like I could go into any room and just sort of wing it, which was a bad mistake.”

He started his presentation. “There are a bunch of people in suits,” he recalled. “I’m looking a little raggedy and a little out of place. About four or five minutes into my presentation, I just started freezing up. I lost my train of thought.”

“I was terrible,” he said. “I felt a little bit of flop sweat and hemmed and hawed, and got stuck, and was not particularly coherent.” I asked if he remembered how it had felt.

Harper Business

“You erase it from your mind,” he joked at first. Then he turned more pensive.

“You feel,” he said, pausing to find the words, “stupid and embarrassed.”

But then he did what any of us can do–he worked to get better.

Obama continued working as a community organizer, often speaking in church basements.

“Sometimes, I’d only have 12 people there,” he said. “But step by step, speaking to bigger audiences gave me a baseline level of comfort in communicating to folks.” As he did, he learned one of the most important lessons of communication — listening before you talk.

“The best speakers are in a conversation with their audience” — and that includes listening to what’s important to the people you’re communicating with.

“Everybody has a sacred story,” he told me, “one that gets to their essential selves. And listening to other people tell their stories helped me understand my own.”

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He also learned to become a better communicator by studying other speakers.

“You know who were good coaches for me?” he said. “All those Black pastors I was in church with … Preachers know how to preach. Just listening and hearing and watching, I soaked a lot of that in.” Of all the places where he learned to speak, listening to the pastors of Chicago, he said, “was probably the most valuable.”

A few years later, he had his first big chance to put to use what he had learned. As a 28-year-old law student and president of the Harvard Law Review, he  was asked to speak at the Law Review’s annual dinner and introduce that year’s honoree — the civil rights icon and congressman John Lewis. “He was one of my childhood heroes,” Obama told me. “I wanted to make sure that I did him justice.”

“This was the first time I gave a big public speech in front of a large group of people that I did not know, in a setting that mattered to me, on a subject that I cared about. I took a lot of time to think through what I wanted to say. I wrote out the speech. I memorized the speech. And then I delivered the speech” — brief remarks, perhaps five to seven minutes, to a few hundred people.

“It was the first time I felt like ‘I’ve got the audience, I’m moving them, I’m telling a story that resonates with them,’” he said.

Barack Obama was starting to find his voice. Over the next decade, he worked to refine it, including in the classroom. Even as he served in the Illinois State Senate, he taught classes at the University of Chicago Law School. “It’s where I learned to feel comfortable being in a dialogue with people for long stretches of time.”

That dialogue continued in his early political campaigns. “When I first started running for Congress,” he said, “I had a tendency in some settings, including debates and impromptu remarks, of not telling stories, but rather listing off talking points, factoids and policy … I still needed to learn how to make effective, impromptu speeches to larger groups of strangers in a high-pressure situation.”

Four years later — and with a lot more reps under his belt — he drew on all the lessons he’d learned as he prepared for what would be, to that point, the highest-pressure moment of his life.

At the 2004 Democratic convention in Boston, Obama took the stage — smiling, clapping, waving to the crowd — adjusted the mic, and began to speak. I was there, down on the convention floor, watching as he introduced himself to us and millions watching at home.

My father was a foreign student, born and raised in a small village in Kenya. He grew up herding goats, went to school in a tin-roof shack … While studying [in America], my father met my mother. She was born in a town on the other side of the world, in Kansas … They would give me an African name, Barack, or “blessed,” believing that in a tolerant America your name is no barrier to success.

“I stand here today, grateful for the diversity of my heritage,” he continued. “I stand here knowing that my story is part of the larger American story, that I owe a debt to all of those who came before me, and that, in no other country on earth, is my story even possible.”

At certain moments, he spoke with the rhythm of the preachers he’d heard at the pulpit. He didn’t speak at those of us in the audience, but with us — a dialogue, a conversation. Instead of ticking off wonkish talking points and factoids, he told a bigger story — his voice rising as he neared the end of his speech — about who we were as a country, our values, where we came from and where we’re going:

Yet even as we speak, there are those who are preparing to divide us … Well, I say to them tonight, there’s not a liberal America and a conservative America; there’s the United States of America. There’s not a black America and white America and Latino America and Asian America; there’s the United States of America.

I’d never heard anyone speak like this — someone who so unabashedly saw our diversity as a people not as a weakness to be exploited for political gain, but as a strength to be celebrated and nurtured; someone who didn’t just give voice to that diversity, but who embodied it, calling himself “a skinny kid with a funny name who believes that America has a place for him too.”

“There’s no question,” his adviser David Axelrod told me years later, that “Obama couldn’t have given that speech if he hadn’t thought deeply about his own identity over many years. He knew who he was, and he understood how his story shaped him.”

It turns out, Barack Obama wasn’t, as many people thought, a “naturally-gifted speaker.” After freezing up while giving that speech as a young man, he’d done what all of us can do–he put in the work and, over time, got better.

From the book SAY IT WELL: Find Your Voice, Speak Your Mind, Inspire Any Audience by Terry Szuplat. Copyright 2024 by Terry Szuplat. Reprinted by permission of HarperCollins Publishers.

Say It Well: Find Your Voice, Speak Your Mind, Inspire Any Audience by Terry Szuplat is available now, wherever books are sold.

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liberty noun 1

• Hide all quotations

Earlier version

• liberty, n.¹ in OED Second Edition (1989)

In other dictionaries

• libertẹ̄, n. in Middle English Dictionary

What does the noun liberty mean?

There are 19 meanings listed in OED's entry for the noun liberty . See ‘Meaning & use’ for definitions, usage, and quotation evidence.

liberty has developed meanings and uses in subjects including

How common is the noun liberty ?

How is the noun liberty pronounced?

British english, u.s. english, where does the noun liberty come from.

Earliest known use

Middle English

The earliest known use of the noun liberty is in the Middle English period (1150—1500).

OED's earliest evidence for liberty is from around 1384, in Bible (Wycliffite, early version) .

liberty is of multiple origins. Partly a borrowing from French . Partly a borrowing from Latin .

Etymons: French liberté ; Latin lībertāt- , lībertās .

Nearby entries

• liberticidal, adj. 1793–
• liberticide, n.¹ 1789–
• liberticide, n.² & adj. 1792–
• libertinage, n. 1611–
• libertine, n. & adj. c1384–
• libertinism, n. 1575–
• libertinity, n. 1583–
• libertinous, adj. 1632–
• libertism, n. 1652–
• libertist, n. 1826–
• liberty, n.¹ c1384–
• Liberty, n.² 1882–
• liberty, v. c1425–
• liberty act, n. 1923–
• liberty boat, n. 1837–
• liberty bodice, n. 1892–
• Liberty Bond, n. 1917–
• liberty boy, n. 1733–
• liberty cabbage, n. 1918–
• liberty cap, n. 1773–
• Liberty Corps, n. 1780–

Meaning & use

Forsoth where is the spirit of God, there is liberte [Latin libertas ] .

Þat vn-to libertee , Fro thraldam, han vs qwit.

Whosoever loketh in the parfait lawe off libertie , and continueth there in.

This spiritual liberte maketh vs not free from our obedience & dutye towarde the temporal power.

This libertie, which Christians haue, is a spirituall libertie, a heauenly liberty , a liberty of the soule..which setteth the soule at liberty from destruction.

We greatly sin, if we allow of so gross an Infringement of our Christian Liberty .

The glorious liberty of the children of God by Christ.

The boundaries of Christian liberty and Christian duty.

The liberty which Christ hath purchased for believers under the gospel, consists in their freedom from the guilt of sin, the condemning wrath of God, [etc.] .

That harmony of life with the Divine Will which brings men to a perfect liberty .

Let us turn to St Paul and try to grasp the real meaning of our Christian liberty .

The ideal of an inner liberty—from sin, or radical evil—which renders outer liberty a secondary, or even unimportant, consideration.

• liberty c1384– Theology . Freedom from the bondage or dominating influence of sin, spiritual servitude, worldly ties, etc.
• liberty 1823– Theology . Freedom from the bondage or dominating influence of sin, spiritual servitude, worldly ties, etc.

His libertee this bryd desireth ay.

Kyng lygurgus graunted a pardoun To this lady that..She was restored to her liberte .

By duresse & constreynt to put thys creature Cleerly from hys liberte .

The caytyf begger hath meate & lyberte .

He brought me forth..in to lyberte .

To proclaime libertie to the captiues.

He had his liberty upon bayle of 40000 l .

Moses and Aaron were to assure Pharaoh that God sent them, and they were in his Name to demand Liberty for the Children of Israel.

Of the very great number of debtors that were in confinement, not more than a third obtained their liberty .

They took to the castle about 800 of the gardeners.., whom by dint of threats of instant death, and promises of liberty , they forced to confess..where any property had been hid.

She gazed..on the sullen, surging waters that lay between her and liberty .

I promised to hold myself at the disposal of the investigating magistrate and was given my liberty .

The rule where a statuliber was captured and ransomed, and had to pay 10,000 sesterces for his liberty .

In addition to all the other strains they experience at the point of losing their liberty , newly admitted cons who smoke would be forced to go cold turkey.

• freedom Old English– The state or fact of not being subject to despotic or autocratic control, or to a foreign power; civil liberty; independence.
• freeship a1225–75 Freedom, liberty. Obsolete .
• freelage c1225– = freedom , n. (in various senses); esp. (in later use) the freedom of a borough (see freedom , n. II.14b).
• franchise c1300–1648 Freedom; exemption from servitude or subjection. Obsolete .
• liberty c1405– Freedom or release from slavery, bondage, or imprisonment.
• largesse 1487–1765 Freedom, liberty (to do something); frequently in at one's largesse , at liberty; at one's own discretion; (cf. at one's large ). Obsolete .

This world hadde hym [ sc. Holofernes] in awe For lesynge of richesse of libertee .

Lyberte shold not be wel sold for alle the gold and syluer of all the world.

To defende the libertie of the common weale.

The Prize which We now..play for is The Liberty of the Subject.

They..vindicate that liberty left them as an inheritance by their Ancestours, from the incroachments..of the Court of Rome.

The Liberty of Man, in Society, is to be under no other Legislative Power, but that established by Consent in the Commonwealth.

Those who would give up essential Liberty , to purchase a little temporary Safety , deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.

You hope, Sir, that I think the French deserving of Liberty ? I certainly do.

Be careful, gentlemen, not to suffer liberty to degenerate into licence, or anarchy to take place of order.

The modern spirit of liberty is the love of individual independence.

Eliot died, the first martyr of English liberty , in the Tower.

The Americans of 1776, although predominately English by blood, fought their own kinsmen to establish their liberty .

A Liberal of the old tradition.., always on the side of the under-dogs, the liberty of the small nations, and humanitarian ideals.

Of course, the Poles in London had not Churchill's heavy burden in trying..to save as much liberty and territory as he could for Poland.

The issue is a simple one of self-determination, democracy and liberty . The people of Gibraltar show no desire whatsoever for closer links with Spain.

• liberty c1405– Freedom from arbitrary, despotic, or autocratic control; independence, esp. from a foreign power, monarchy, or dictatorship. Cf. civil liberty , n. 2.
• civil liberty 1614– Freedom of the individual within society; spec. the liberty to which all members of a community or society are entitled within the bounds of laws…

He kepte his liberte To do justice and equite.

I me reioysed of my libertee That selde tyme is founde in mariage.

It lay not in his liberte No wher to gon.

Suche as writeth in ryme use in this thyng their lyberte .

A man is Master of his libertie .

The Idea of Liberty , is the Idea of a Power in any Agent to do or forbear any Action.

This heat opposes the Liberty of Circulation..by the extraordinary Rarefaction it produces in the Blood.

Thought, word, and deed, his liberty evince, His freedom is the freedom of a prince.

I've liberty now—not under the pennant—do as I like.

We have a glorious liberty in England of owning neither dictionary, grammar nor spelling-book.

The liberty of the wild bee.

The lower part [of the corset] was tightly laced and the upper part left loose, giving full liberty to lungs and stomach.

The masses of the people had little liberty or opportunity for individual initiative.

Liberty was always more important than anything else. He once figured that he could support himself by working only six weeks a year.

‘Islamic dress’ can mitigate the difficulties girls encounter in urban environments;..it can paradoxically offer them more liberty of movement.

• freedom Old English– The state of being able to act without hindrance or restraint; liberty of action. Frequently with to and infinitive.
• freeness late Old English– The quality or state of being free (in various senses of the adjective); freedom.
• liberty a1393– The condition of being able to act or function without hindrance or restraint; faculty or power to do as one likes.
• licence ?a1400– Liberty of action conceded or acknowledged; an instance of this.
• wilfulness c1460–1553 Liberty to do what one will; free will or choice; voluntary action. Obsolete .
• deliverance 1488–1550 Scottish . Freedom or permission to depart; the completion of a task entitling one to this. Obsolete .
• immunity 1549–1680 Freedom from ordinary restraints; undue liberty, licence. Also: an instance of this. Obsolete .
• latitude 1605– Freedom from narrow restrictions; width or liberality of construction or interpretation; tolerated or permitted variety of action or opinion.
• voluntariness 1612– The state or condition of being voluntary, free, or unconstrained; absolute freedom or liberty in… Of actions.
• liberum arbitrium 1642– Free choice; freedom of will.
• free agency a1646– The state or fact of being a free agent; the capacity to act without restriction or constraint; freedom of thought, action, or movement.
• libertinism 1649– Freedom of action; unrestrained liberty.
• unrestrainedness 1698–
• unrestraint 1755– The state or quality of being unrestrained; freedom from restraint.
• relaxity 1759– The state of being relaxed; an instance of this.
• head 1804– Freedom of action or manoeuvre. See also earlier to give (a horse) his (also her, its, etc.) head at phrases P.4e.ii, to take head (see phrases…
• laissez-aller 1818– Absence of restraint; unconstrained ease and freedom.
• unrestrictedness 1825–
• uninhibitedness 1947– Freedom from inhibitions.

Men weren wont to maken questiouns..of þe ordre of destine..and of þe lyberte of fre wille.

Wherfore in alle thinges þat reson is, in hem also is liberte of wyllynge and of nyllynge.

May these be counted for to haue free wyll and libertye ?

Of Libertie and Necessitie.

Men have but just so much, and no more moral Liberty , and power, as they have of Gods Grace to relieve their vitiated Wills.

These are Calamities which Mankind are subject to, in common with all other animal Creatures; But they are endued moreover with Reason and Liberty .

That Almighty being..without invading the liberty and free will of his creatures, can turn the passions and desires of their hearts to fulfill his own righteousness.

Were we to enter fully into the arguments here adduced for and against Liberty , we should trespass on our other engagements.

Liberty and Necessity.

While philosophical liberty consists in the exercise of one's own will, political liberty consists in security.

Such a view implies..that there is such a thing as an idea of ‘I’. Apparently this is what liberty excludes.

This liberty or freedom is also sufficient for moral approval and disapproval.

• freedom Old English– The fact of not being controlled by or subject to fate; the power of self-determination attributed to the will.
• free will 1340– The power of an individual to make free choices, not determined by divine predestination, the laws of physical causality, fate, etc. Also: the…
• arbitry c1374–1647 Power to choose or act; own will or pleasure; arbitrary will.
• advisement a1398–1590 The capacity to make decisions; free will; the fact of having decided to do something; deliberateness, intentionality. Later also: a decision; a…
• freedom of will ?c1400– Free will; the ability to choose freely.
• liberty ?c1400– Philosophy and Theology . The fact of not being controlled by or subject to fate; freedom of will. Frequently opposed to necessity . Cf. liberty of will …
• liberal arbitre ?1483–1518 Freedom of action; free will.
• contingence c1530– The coming to pass of anything without predetermination, freedom from necessity; chance; happening by chance; = contingency , n. II.3.
• indifferency a1555–1714 Indetermination of the will; freedom of choice; an equal power to take either of two courses. Obsolete .
• contingency 1561– The quality or condition of being contingent. The condition of being free from predetermining necessity in regard to existence or action; hence…
• freedom of thought 1591– Freedom to think or reason without restriction or interference; (also) free will.
• self-willingness 1591–1674 Voluntary or unconstrained action or impulse; an instance of this.
• volunt 1611 One's own will.
• voluntariness 1643– The state or condition of being voluntary, free, or unconstrained; absolute freedom or liberty in… Of persons.
• uncommandedness 1646–
• autexousy 1678 Free will.
• volency 1686–1768 The power of willing or determining to act in a certain way.
• inconditionality 1696 The quality of being unconditional.
• unconditionality a1714– The quality of being unconditional.
• indifference 1728– Indetermination of the will (cf. indifferency , n. I.3), or of a body to rest or motion; neutrality.
• volition 1738– The power or faculty of willing.
• vacancy 1754– Absence of any determining influence or factor. rare .
• voluntarity 1794–1819 Voluntariness, willingness, spontaneity.
• autonomy 1803– More generally: liberty to follow one's will; control over one's own affairs; freedom from external influence, personal independence.
• unconditionalness 1843–
• unconditionedness 1854–

For all oure libertes elike ere lante vs & paysed; And to sett him in-to seruitute a syn vs it thinke.

We haue graunted also and gyuen to all the fremen of our realme for vs and our heyres, for euermore, these lyberties vnderwryten.

He himself so iudgeth vs: eyther excluding vs from the common libertyes of mankynde, as wormes and no men; or [etc.] .

Yet we may shew the same temper..by loving our religion and liberties better than the wages of slavery and iniquity.

By the assertion and maintenance of their liberties when circumstances favored, these Maroons proved the fitness of the African for freedom.

The Woodrovian assault upon the Constitutional liberties of the citizen in the so-called espionage legislation of 1917.

It ran a railroad through our basic liberties and protections but it was such a boon for the powers that be they clung to it like molluscs.

Ȝouthe haue no liberte To specifie þat her hert wolde; Þei kepe hem cloos.

A lady callyd Curtesy, whiche graunted him lyberte to goo wher him lyst.

I will she haue hire liberte at alle leffull tymes to go in to the chapell.

For they in hart rejoysed not a lyte On hym to loke that they have lybarte .

Iulius..gave him liberte to goo vnto his frendes.

All Offices are open, and there is full liberty , from this present houre.

Youthfull men, Who giue their eies the liberty of gazing.

I enjoy Large liberty to round this Globe of Earth.

You have my full Liberty to apply it to what Purpose you please.

You have the liberty of doing so.

Bid him come in and wait for liberty to talk.

Have they no liberty , no will, no right to speak?

I'm only the captain, thirty-five shullin's a-week and liberty to put on a pea-jecket.

The liberty of an owner of land to develop and use it as he will.

If it means the liberty of affronting, calumniating and defaming one another, I, for my part, own myself willing to part with my share of it.

Those states which insisted on their liberty to secede from the Union.

• leave Old English– Permission asked for or granted to do something; authorization; spec. = leave of absence , n. 1. Without construction.
• will Old English– Consent, acquiescence, approval; favourable disposition. Usually in with a person's will . Now Scottish .
• yleave Old English–1350 Permission; leave.
• grant ?c1225–1648 Consent, permission.
• thaving ?c1225 (In 4 þafung etc.), permission, consent.
• grantise a1300–30 The action of grant , v. ; concession; permission.
• licence 1362– Liberty (to do something), leave, permission. Now somewhat rare . †Also occasionally exemption from (something). †Formerly often in licence and leave …
• grace 1389–1540 Permission to do something; leave. Obsolete .
• pardon a1425–1616 Permission, leave. Obsolete .
• liberty c1425– Freedom to do a specified thing; permission, leave. Frequently with to or (now rare ) of .
• patience c1425–1695 Indulgence; permission, leave. Chiefly in by (also with) (a person's) patience . Obsolete .
• permission 1425– The action of permitting, allowing, or giving consent; consent, leave, or liberty to do something.
• suffering c1460–1637 a. Permission. b. Tolerance. Obsolete .
• congé 1477– Leave or permission (for any act).
• legence a1500–18 = licence , n.
• withgang a1500–1808 Free course; unlimited permission, licence, toleration.
• favour 1574– Kind indulgence. Leave, permission, pardon. Chiefly in phrases, by, with (your, etc.) favour ; by the favour of . Also, under favour : with all…
• beleve 1575 = leave , n.¹
• permittance 1580– = permission , n. 1a.
• withgate 1599–1606
• passage 1622 Toleration, permission. Obsolete . rare .
• sufferage 1622–50 Permission, approval.
• attolerance 1676 Permission, allowance.
• sanction 1738– figurative . Now also in looser sense, countenance or encouragement given (intentionally or otherwise) to an opinion or practice by a person of…
• permiss Misreading, by skipping a line, of the following.
• room Old English– Opportunity or scope ( to do something); (also) leisure or time ( to do something). Also (now regional ): occasion, reason, cause. Now somewhat rare .
• leisure 1303–1640 Freedom or opportunity to do something specified or implied. Obsolete .
• free chase 1467– The right to hunt game, especially on one's own propery; an instance of this. Cf. frank-chase , n.
• scope 1534– Room for exercise, opportunity or liberty to act; free course or play. Often in phrases, to give scope (to a person or thing) ; to have or take scope …
• roomth a1540– Sufficient space or scope for or to do something. Now rare .
• swinge 1542–1687 Freedom of action, free scope, licence; liberty to follow one's inclinations: = swing , n.² I.5. to have or take one's swinge , to give (a person or th …
• swing 1584– Freedom of action, free scope: = swinge , n.¹ 2; esp. in to take, have one's (full) swing , to allow oneself every freedom, indulge oneself to the…
• blank charter 1593 A document given to the agents of the crown in Richard II.'s reign, with power to fill it up as they pleased; hence figurative liberty to do as one…
• freedom 1623– In extended use: unrestricted use of or access to something; the free run of a place.
• field 1639– As a mass noun: scope, opportunity; extent of material for some specified action or operation. Frequently with for .
• play 1641– Free action; freedom, opportunity, or room for action; scope for activity.
• range 1793 Opportunity or scope for ranging about; liberty to range. Cf. free range , n. & adj.
• expatiation a1848– The action of walking abroad, or wandering at large; also, an instance of the same. literal and figurative . Also, opportunity or room for…
• leaveway 1890– A degree of freedom; scope, leeway.
• open slather 1919– open slather ( Australian and New Zealand colloquial ), freedom to operate without interference, a free-for-all.
• headroom 1932– figurative and in extended use: scope or opportunity for freedom of action, upward movement, etc.

He hath euermore had the liberty of the prison.

He desyres not to be at libertye , but to have the libertye of the house.

I was freed from the Cage..and had the liberty of the dungeon.

I might be more happy in this Solitary Condition, than I should have been in a Liberty of Society.

They allowed him the liberty of the town.

He was now provided with a good house and the liberty of a manor.

I was allowed the liberty of the village.

There was one superb black and white Angora cat which had the liberty of the shop and was not confined in a cage.

So he was accorded war prisoner status and promptly given liberty of the grounds.

The crammed-in passengers having been given the liberty of the quarterdeck, for light and exercise.

• liberty a1616– Unrestricted use of or access to a specified thing; free run of a place.
• run 1755– With of . Free and unrestricted use of or access to something; free range of a place. Also in extended use. Usually with the .

They shall be allowed to complete the remainder of the aforesaid time of liberty .

The seaman ashore on liberty .

Has not that very much arisen from the practice of British sailors being permitted to visit Canton in large bodies together on liberty ?

Breaking liberty , not returning at the appointed time.

We have had a ‘big liberty ’ in Panama City. Liberty at large I think they called it.

The Enterprise seemed deserted, haunted, surreal, with its crew on liberty and its lights dimmed.

Liberty for sections 2 and 4 will commence at 0900 and will expire onboard at 1700 this afternoon.

• shore leave 1593– Leave of absence granted to a sailor to go on shore.
• liberty 1758– Nautical . Leave of absence; shore leave. Frequently in on liberty .
• run 1821– With postmodifying adverbial phrase. Nautical . A period spent at leisure; a brief period of shore leave, as run ashore , run in port , etc. (also…
• shore liberty 1906– = shore leave , n.
• beacher 1946– Used occasionally in various (chiefly slang ) senses (see quots.).

Will, Wantonnes, Renon and Libertee .

Libertie , plucks Iustice by the nose.

The Mountain Nymph, sweet Liberty .

Liberty ..no tint of words can spot thy snowy mantle.

O Liberty ! with profitless endeavour Have I pursued thee.

Liberty never wore a more unamiable countenance than among these burghers, who abused the strength she gave them.

Such a spirit is Liberty . At times she takes the form of a hateful reptile.

Liberty !.. Rise to thy height upon zenith-borne wings!

All the boys are hep to do their damndest..to defend Miss Liberty 's rep.

Well, that's what happened to America, man. Liberty 's become a whore, and we're all taking an easy ride.

Stop the rape of Liberty .

Let us never forget Sept. 11, 2001 The day that Liberty wept.

• liberty 1508– With capital initial. Liberty personified, esp. as a woman.

Set hym in a delyte of lyberte . Wherby wyth lenynge to hys owne wyt, he myght reken euery thyng good or bad as hymselfe wold accompte yt.

Iohn the Baptist, whom Herode..had beheaded for the libertie of his tonge.

They charge vs..with libertie and licenciousnesse.

At this part of our seruice in holinesse, we demeane our selues with such libertie (nay licentiousnes rather) that holy it may be, but sure seruice it is not.

A Captain that very well understood..the pest of great Bodies to be sloath and liberty , which debauch Souldiers from their Duty.

The Poem [ sc. Virgil's Aeneid ] is still more Wonderful, since without the Liberty of the Grecian Poets, the Diction is so Great and Noble, so Clear..that [etc.] .

I made answer, by reproving that lady for believing, or speaking with such liberty of you.

No prosecutions, no criminal Informations followed the liberty and the boldness of the language then employed.

Would I not be using liberty , unwarrantable liberty , should I take it at once and just as I am?

The Queen realised that she had less to fear from the favourite, who always treated her with becoming respect and humility, than she had from the disgraceful liberty of the Royal Princesses.

• licence c1450– Excessive liberty; abuse of freedom; disregard of law or propriety; an instance of this.
• misgovernance c1460–1525 Lack of restraint; excess, intemperance. Obsolete .
• liberty 1529– Speech or action going beyond the bounds of propriety or custom; presumptuous behaviour; licence. Now rare .
• licentiousness 1553– Disregard of law, morality, or propriety; outrageous conduct. Now rare .
• loose 1593–1796 A state or condition of looseness, laxity, or unrestraint; hence, free indulgence; unrestrained action or feeling; abandonment. Chiefly in at (a or …
• licentiateness 1656

Yf at vnwares my tonge hath stollen a libertie in talkynge the thynge that hathe offended the eares of you [French Ie ne sçache, ma Dame, auoir de ma vie dementy ma parolle par vn fait contraire de ce que me fera vne fois sorty de ma bouche, & moins auoir vsé d'aucune sorte façon de faire en descourtoisie ] .

Nimble Iuglers..Disguised Cheaters, prating Mountebankes; And manie such like liberties of sinne.

These liberties are not sufferable in the freest conversations, they draw on other more dangerous liberties.

Using no other Liberties besides that of expunging certain Passages.

If I allow Captain Macheath some trifling Liberties .

Those who may venture on liberties with the men of far-gone times which to the historian are forbidden.

Thucydides has rarely..allowed himself liberties not to be found somewhere in other writers.

It is to do your duty and cultivate your mind. Also to cultivate other people's, you know, which I think is rather a liberty .

What a liberty . If the doctor comes round and sees you two eating winkles across my bed, what's he going to think?

It is in the Tudor style with some typical liberties in the Arts and Crafts taste.

That was quite a liberty , you know, walking out like that.

Al other castels, maners, lordesshipes, possessions, fraunchies, and libertees , that thei haddene of the kynge's gyft atte that same daye.

Þe lawis & þe libertes of holy chirche.

That he be disfraunchised of his libertees .

The Romains had gyuen such franches and liberties to the Iewes.

I thought meet to passe ouer the antiquitie of..Douer, with the liberties thereof.

The Heluetians did bestow the liberties of their citie vpon Lewis the eleuenth.

They haue chose a Consull, that will from them take Their Liberties .

After long debate what to do with the Lords in point of our libertys now.

We enjoy not only the Immunities and Liberties of natural Subjects born in the Realm of England, but have some additional ones granted and affirmed to us by a Royal Charter.

A liberty to hold pleas in a court of one's own.

The liberties of the commons were crushed at the fatal battle of Villalar.

A promise on the part of the King..that in future the customary privileges, franchises, and liberties of the barons shall not be infringed.

A King may grant a liberty to unload upon the bank of a port without the owner's consent.

Feudal tenures, obligations, honors, and liberties are portrayed in Britannia as elements of the social constitution.

• liberty 1399– Chiefly in plural . A privilege, immunity, or right enjoyed by prescription or grant. Cf. franchise , n. I.2a, I.2b. Now chiefly historical .

Als ferre as he may be the lawe of his land or by his prerogatif or libertee .

So as hit hath evere be thair liberte et fredom, that thar sholde no statut no lawe be made of lasse than they yaf ther to their assent.

Then had the Lord of Meth the same Royall libertie in that Territory.

Many men of good quality haue attained by chance..within Mannors of their owne liberty of keeping Law dayes.

A grant of liberty , from Queene Mary to Henry Ratcliffe.

Grant to be held by inheritance and with perpetual liberty .

The Duke..demised to H. Hudson, of Whitley, for 12 years, all the limestone quarries..with liberty to break ground, and dig and win limestones.

Most of them [ sc. burghs] were..granted liberty to have a market, and given authority to have a gild merchant.

• freedom Old English– Exemption from a service, obligation, charge, or duty; the state of being so exempted; an instance of this; an immunity, a privilege. Cf. franchise …
• privilege Old English– Ecclesiastical Law . A special ordinance issued by the Pope, granting exemption from certain civil or canon laws in the execution of a particular…
• liberty 1404– As a mass noun: immunity, exemption, or privilege possessed by an individual or corporation. Now rare .
• freedomship 1583– The fact of possessing freedom (in various senses).
• franchisement 1781–92 A privilege. Obsolete .

With Inne the Rewme weren late many hundredis and libertes and ffraunchises annexed to the shires, ffor the which the shereves weren charged in a certeyn somme ffor alle the shire.

Who so euer they be that fle vnto the temple at Ierusalem or within the liberties thereof [Latin in omnibus finibus ejus ] .

To distraine the goods of any Irish, being found within their liberty , or but passing thorough their townes.

If there the Sherif or his Officer, shall enter the Liberty , and execute any processe there, the Lord of the Liberty , shall have an action of the case against him.

The Bayliffs of the Liberty of Caln and Worthe, who returned no Answer.

I will begin the Experiment in the Liberty of St. Patrick's.

This county..is divided into four hundreds and one liberty .

The worthy knight demanded..what she meant by strolling into his liberty at that hour of the night.

The liberties of the corporation [of Carlisle] extend a few yards without the site of the city walls.

When a large district comprising several manors was held by a single lord in whom was vested by grant or long usage the complete jurisdiction of the hundred, the district was called a liberty or honour .

The liberties are merged for all purposes of the Act into the administrative county.

The theater was built in 1576 in the fields in St. Leonard's parish, in the liberty of Holywell in Shoreditch.

They were sitting on stones outside some of the thatched houses in the liberties .

The Isle of Ely was a liberty and almost a County Palatine in which for many purposes the Bishop had the authority otherwise reserved for the King.

It was definitely within the liberty of the Cathedral, exempt from the city's jurisdiction.

• land and lede Old English–1500 plural . In the alliterative phrase land and lede , i.e. land and vassals or subjects.
• regiment a1393–1693 A place or area considered as being under a particular rule; a kingdom, province, domain, district. Also in extended use. Obsolete .
• franchise a1400– A geographic area of varied nature and extent in which an individual or corporation could, through grant or long usage, exercise public…
• right ?a1400–1794 A territory, estate, dominion. In later use: ( U.S. ) a defined share of the land at the disposal of a town. Obsolete .
• obeisance 1419–1616 The sphere of a person's rule; a district under a person's authority or jurisdiction; a dominion. Cf. obedience , n. I.2b. Obsolete .
• liberty ?1435– A district subject to a particular jurisdiction. Now chiefly historical . In England and Ireland: an area of local administration distinct from…
• English pale c1453– With the . In France: the territory of Calais, an area of English jurisdiction and colonization from 1347 to 1558. Cf. pale , n.¹ I.4d.
• pale c1453– A district or territory within determined bounds, or subject to a particular jurisdiction. See also English pale , n.
• English pale a1549– With the . In Ireland: that part of the island (varying in extent at different times) over which English jurisdiction was established. See pale , n.¹ …
• judgement 1617 A district or community under a particular jurisdiction. Cf. jurisdiction , n. 3. Obsolete . rare .
• command 1621– The district under a commander; or, more generally, under the lordship of anyone.
• commandment 1632 A district under command. Obsolete .
• bourne 1818– Realm, domain. Obsolete .
• Crown land 1849– Frequently in form crownland . Any of the administrative provinces of the Austrian Empire or (1867–1919) most of their successors in the…
• rulership 1882– A region under the control of a ruler; a province.
• overseas territory 1900– A territory (such as a country, province, colony, etc.) under the sovereignty or control of another; = dependent territory , n.
• territory a1398– The land or district lying round a city or town and under its jurisdiction; spec. = territorium , n. Also: the land attached to a temple, monastery…
• freedom 1423– †A city or corporation possessing such immunity ( obsolete ); the district over which the immunity extends; the liberties (see liberty , n.¹ II.6c). Now…
• terroir a1460–83 Land, territory. Cf. territory , n.¹ 1a. Obsolete .
• territor 1466–1757 = territory , n.¹ 1.
• field a1533– The territory belonging to or associated with a city or town. Now rare ( historical in later use).
• lowy 1576– A liberty ( liberty , n.¹ II.6c.i) that extends around a castle, abbey, or similar, usually for about a league.
• nomarchy 1656 Each of various administrative divisions of a country. Obsolete . rare .
• territorium 1720– The area of land surrounding and within the boundaries of a Roman city, municipium , etc., and under its jurisdiction. Also more generally: the…

Within þe said citee and libertee of þe same.

Commaundement gyven to the Surgeons of this Citie, that they..dwell within the libertie of this Citie.

Within and without the Walls of the City of London, and in the Liberties and Nine out Parishes.

An Ancient Office..hath been Established and Used within this City and Liberties thereof..for all Publick Sales of Goods.

Great Numbers of idle, vagrant, and disorderly Persons, do Daily wander up and down the Streets, Lanes, and publick Markets of this City, and the Liberties thereof.

Lord Lieutenant and Custos Rotulorum of the County of Middlesex, and City and Liberty of Westminster.

The offices of Dombey and Son were within the liberties of the city of London, and within hearing of Bow Bells.

The Liberties of the City and the out-parishes were covered with aggregates of houses.

The gates closed the walled city within itself from sunset till sunrise, leaving the liberties unprotected.

Any townsman or ‘fforener’ found forestalling any corn within the liberty of the city should forfeit 6 s . 8 d . on each occasion.

The mayor ordered all householders and shopkeepers in the city and liberties to clean the street in front of their places every day.

• ward 1377– An administrative division of a borough or city; originally, a district under the jurisdiction of an alderman; now usually, a district which elects…
• liberty 1455– A district subject to a particular jurisdiction. Now chiefly historical . The district outside a city over which its jurisdiction extends. Also in p …
• overward 1485– The upper part of an administrative ward or district; (also) †the upper ward of a forest ( obsolete ).
• out-parish 1577– A parish lying outside the walls or municipal boundaries of a city or town, but for some purposes regarded as belonging to it. Also: a remote or…
• aldermanry 1598– A district of a borough having its own alderman; a ward, esp. a ward in the City of London.
• city ward 1640– A ward or district of a city.
• in-parish a1676 A parish within city or borough bounds.
• out-ward 1701– An outlying ward; a ward outside the original bounds of a borough, spec. (now historical ) a ward in the city of New York.

Carter, who did therein summon the Adventurers to meet within the Liberties of the Fleet (in which he is a Prisoner).

This was an action on a bond assigned by the sherriff..conditioned, that Joel Ely ..should not depart the liberties of said prison.

The Rules are a certain liberty adjoining the prison, and comprising some dozen streets in which debtors who can raise money to pay large fees..are permitted to reside.

The defendant may give notice that..such prisoner voluntarily returned to the jail from which he escaped, or within the liberties thereof.

Water could be had by digging a well which ought to be within the liberties of the prison.

Vanderbank was so deeply in debt..that he was arrested several times and obliged to live within the Liberties of the Fleet.

Brown estimates that by 1740 over 6,600 marriages a year were taking place in the Liberties , the vast majority of them blatantly irregular in form.

The Apuy must be made in the True place, where it ought to be, which is about Ones Little Fingers breadth beyond the Liberty, on both sides of the Bitt.

A Gorge de Pigeon, or Canon mouth with the Liberty after the form of a Pigeons Neck; whose liberty will a little disengage his Tongue.

Several other sorts [of bit-mouth] ; all with different Liberties for the Tongue , or without Liberty.

The mouth-piece should have a liberty for the tongue , so that the bit may take effect upon the bars of the mouth. The size of this liberty, or port as it is called, should depend upon the size of the tongue of the horse.

The mouth-piece usually has the form shown in Fig. 88, B, with a port or liberty of the tongue .

• cannon ?1561– A horse's bit in which the mouthpiece, sometimes consisting of two parts, is smooth and rounded; this mouthpiece or either of its two parts. Cf. canno …
• cheek ?1561– Either of the vertical bars of a horse's bit, attached to either side of the bit-mouth.
• port ?1561– Equestrianism . The upward curve in the mouthpiece of a curb or Pelham bit.
• player 1566– A metal attachment on a horse's bit (see quots. 1566, 1993). Now rare .
• upset mouth 1566–1607 = upset , n. I.3a. Obsolete .
• bit-maker 1574– General use as a modifier (in sense III.9a); also with agent nouns, forming compounds in which bit expresses the object of the underlying verb, as in…
• rowel 1590– A knob on the mouth bar of a horse's bit.
• mouth 1607– Horse Riding . The part of a bit which crosses the horse's mouth; = mouthpiece , n. 1b.
• upset 1607–1720 A curved part of a bridle-bit, fitting over the tongue of the horse. Obsolete . (Cf. upset , adj. 1b.)
• liberty 1667– More fully liberty of the tongue . An upward curve in the mouthpiece of a horse's bit; = port , n.³ I.3. Now rare .
• cannon-mouth 1696 a. The mouth of a cannon ( cannon , n.¹ I.1a); †b. the mouthpiece of a horse's cannon-bit ( obsolete ).
• mouthpiece 1728– Something placed in, against, or near the mouth. Horse Riding . The part of a bit which crosses the horse's mouth.
• top-roll 1728– Some part of a bridle-bit.
• bit ring 1842– Either of the rings at either end of some forms of bit ( bit , n.¹ III.9a), to which the reins and cheekpieces may be attached.
• cheekpiece 1864– Either of the vertical bars of a horse's bit, attached to either side of the bit-mouth; = cheek , n. II.7b.
• branch 1884– In Architecture the rib of a Gothic vault; in Zoology (see quot. 1881); in Mechanics the beam or axle of a pump or similar machine; also, a bolt or…

Decision will be made later on how many of these 500 will be Libertys , how many will be tankers, and how many will be the standard types of fast cargo vessels.

The superstructure of a Liberty now takes a couple of days to move into place and assemble.

The first of the Liberties to be scrapped, the Banvard was delivered into service on April 8, 1943.

This hack work is done at the moment very largely by the Liberties , of which about 700 of the original 2,700 are still in active service.

Every Liberty was indistinguishable from her hundreds of sister ships.

• liberty 1941– With capital initial. = Liberty ship , n.
• Liberty ship 1941– A type of mass-produced merchant vessel made by the United States during the Second World War (1939–45).

Whanne þei wern at her liberte..allone prively, Þis Anthenor..Gan his purpos..expresse.

Yf I nowe had her at my liberte I shold make her to deye a cruell deth.

The shireffe..maie awarde a Capias ad satisfaciendum..or elles a Fieri fac. at libertie of the partie pursuant.

They take this for a great benefite of God, to haue all at their awne libertie .

It is at the Libertie of the wife to have dower.

'Tis at their Liberty whether they will do any Works of Mercy and Charity or not.

• at the liberty of c1425–1698 at the liberty of : in the power of; at the disposal of. Obsolete .
• in a person's hand c1430– in a person's hand (also in hand ): (with reference to the leading or control of a person or animal) by the hand, with a lead, etc.
• in hand 1999– in a person's hand (also in hand ): (with reference to the leading or control of a person or animal) by the hand, with a lead, etc.

Licour..Lothneth tongis, & doth hem loude carp And causeth hem to walke at liberte..Wiþoute avys or discrecioun.

Painefull to get, but lost at libertie .

Eueryche from oþer to be sette a-sonder, Þat þei myȝt, for more comodite, Eche be hem silfe werke at liberte.

Ye may to-gedre speke What-so yow list at good liberte.

He beyng in so grete glorye aboue and at all lyberte.

More pitty that the Eagle should be mewed, While keihts and bussards prey at liberty .

They..had rather haue their iudgements at libertie in differences of readings, then to be captiuated to one.

Who dar'd not to arrest any of them singly, the two remaining being at liberty .

Conscience is then generally at Liberty and Acts without Restraint.

Sir, said the under keeper [of the jail] , there are few men now at liberty wealthier than this Gentleman.

‘If you knew it was coming,..why didn't you tell a chap?’ ‘I was not at liberty ,’ said Mr. Snape, looking very wise.

His right arm was at liberty .

He lived half at liberty about camp until our collection grew so that it was necessary to cage him.

Society was not going to gain by leaving Lee Otis at liberty .

His task was to check that another Abwehr agent, codenamed Tate by MI5, was still at liberty operating independently.

• at large c1391– At liberty, free; without restraint or check. †at more large : at greater liberty ( obsolete ).
• at one's large c1405–1613 at one's large : at liberty; cf. phrases P.1a. Obsolete .
• at liberty c1425– Not imprisoned or confined; unrestricted, free. In early use also †at all (also good) liberty .
• at one's largesse 1487–1765 Freedom, liberty (to do something); frequently in at one's largesse , at liberty; at one's own discretion; (cf. at one's large ). Obsolete .
• at more large 1523 At liberty, free; without restraint or check. †at more large : at greater liberty ( obsolete ).

That euery freman be at liberte to bye and selle eueri w t other.

The Lord openeth the prison for them that they may be at libertie to fulfil their function.

When..I was at liberty to reflect upon that Adventure, I found in it great causes of affliction.

The Reader is at Liberty what to Believe and what Not.

Some particular Matters, which I am not at Liberty to report.

After..I was at liberty to contemplate, more fully, the physiognomy of the figures before me, I soon discovered three or four faces which varied essentially from the rest.

If they should accord with the spirit of your very valuable Journal, you are at full liberty to insert them.

He is quite at liberty to think so.

In the seclusion of the outback they are at liberty to revert to grossness unspeakable.

The name of which I am not at liberty to repeat here.

Whether our heroines break out I am not at liberty to divulge.

Our lord taketh into his custodye the lytell & humble persones. I was humbled & he set me at lyberte.

Frely to sett att liberte them that are brused.

If she would apply to his request, she shoulde be.. set at liberty .

He..confessed hee would vndertake for the Wolfe, if they would set him at liberty .

He was inconstant..in setting at liberty the man who would prove his Executioner.

She was again committed to prison & convicted..& was set at liberty upon giving security to transport herself.

Its Acid being set at liberty .

The maniac appears perfectly composed..; but, if set at liberty , immediately becomes furious.

The Battersea colombophile, whose pigeons..are set at liberty and allowed to fly home.

He showed them his passe-partout and they set him at liberty at once.

He demanded that Iglesias be set at liberty .

The ninth-century abbot Smaragdus..admonishes Christians to set their slaves at liberty .

• alet Old English–1275 transitive . To allow the escape of (confined fluid); to shed (tears). Cf. let , v.¹ I.7a.
• to let free Old English–1670 To set free, liberate; also with complement, to let free , to let at large . Obsolete (but cf. to let loose at sense IV.i.19).
• unbind Old English– To set (a person) free from bonds; to restore to personal liberty in this way. Also in figurative context.
• to let out 1154– To give egress to; to cause or allow to go out or escape by an opening, esp. through a doorway (also absol. ); to set free, liberate; to release…
• loose a1225– transitive . To let loose, set free; to release (a person, an animal, or their limbs) from bonds or physical restraint.
• slake c1374–1400 To let or set loose; to set free, release. Obsolete .
• loosen 1382– transitive . To set free or release from bonds or physical restraint. Obsolete exc. poetic (rare) and dialect .
• release c1384– transitive . To make or set free; to free from restraint, confinement, or captivity; (also) to liberate from pain, an obligation, etc.
• to let go c1384– to let go . transitive . To allow to escape; to set at liberty; to lose one's hold of; to relax (one's hold); to drop (an anchor).
• unloose c1400– transitive . To release (a person, animal, limb, etc.) from confinement or physical restraint; to free. Also (esp. in early use) in figurative…
• unlock c1410– transitive . To free from restraint or captivity by undoing a lock; to let out (a prisoner, captive, etc.), to liberate.
• dissolve c1420– To loosen, unfasten, detach, release, set free. ( literal and figurative .) archaic .
• relieve c1450– transitive . Chiefly Scottish . To set free, release. Now rare .
• unloosen ?a1475– transitive . = unloose , v. (in various senses). Also intransitive (cf. unloose , v. 5).
• to set at liberty 1509– to set at liberty : to set free, to liberate.
• enlarge a1513– To set at large; to release from confinement or bondage. Somewhat archaic . Cf. French élargir .
• to let at large 1525 To set free, liberate; also with complement, to let free , to let at large . Obsolete (but cf. to let loose at sense IV.i.19).
• to let loose 1530– to let loose . To liberate, set free; now chiefly, a fierce animal or some destructive agency. Also, †to relax, loose (one's hold, control), slacken…
• to turn loose ?1566– To set free (an animal) so that it is allowed to go loose; (in extended and figurative use) to free (a person or thing) from restraint, to allow (a…
• enfranchise 1569– To release from confinement; chiefly transferred or figurative . (Frequently in Shakespeare.)
• to turn up 1573– transitive . Originally: to set free, turn loose (a person or animal). Subsequently: to discharge or release (a prisoner). Cf. main sense IV.27. Now…
• enfranch 1581–1629 = enfranchise , v.
• unkennel 1589– transitive . To release (a dog or pack of dogs) from a kennel or other place of confinement, esp. in order to pursue a fox or other quarry…
• unwind 1596– To roll, twist, or turn back the wrapping, bandaging, or covering of (a body, etc.); to unwrap. Also, to untwine thread from (a bobbin); to free…
• to cast loose c1600– transitive . to cast loose : to unfasten or let loose with force or decisiveness, set adrift; said esp. of a boat, or the like; also to cast adrift …
• disimmure 1611– transitive . To set free from confining walls; to release from imprisonment or confinement; to liberate.
• disimprison 1611– transitive . To release from imprisonment or confinement; to set at liberty. Also figurative .
• unhamper 1620– transitive . To let out of a cage or hamper.
• jail-deliver ?1632 transitive . To rescue, save, or set (a prisoner) free; to deliver from jail.
• to let abroad 1633–1727 To allow to go abroad; to permit or cause to ‘get about’. Obsolete .
• unfold 1633– To release, let go.
• disencloister 1652 transitive . To set free from cloistered confinement and seclusion.
• disencage 1654 transitive . To liberate as from a cage; to discage , v.
• discage a1657–1872 transitive . To release or let out from, or as if from, a cage; to uncage.
• disincarcerate 1665– transitive . = disimprison , v.
• eliminate 1745 transitive . To release from confinement, set free. Obsolete . rare .
• unsphere a1806– transitive . To remove (a star, etc.) from its sphere. Also in figurative context.
• unmew 1818–52 transitive . To release or set free (the soul). Cf. mew , v.³
• unbottle 1821– transitive . To extract from, or let out of, a bottle. Also figurative .
• uncage 1837– transitive . To let or take out of a cage. Also figurative .
• unbag 1854– transitive . To take or let out of a bag.
• bust 1921– spec. transitive . To break (a person) out from confinement; to free.

Their army was at liberty for further exploits.

The Malt-house is a convenient edifice to lay any materials in out of the way; for most part of it will be at liberty , except a month or two in the year.

I dressed as well as I could for shivering, and washed when there was a basin at liberty .

I have no doubt they will call: so be at liberty after twelve.

J. F. Walker and Mdlle. Amy Samwells will shortly be at Liberty . Acts consist of Jockey, Juggling Acts (Bareback), [etc.] .

At Liberty —Snake charmer or geek man; would like to join show going south.

Miss Cherrington will be at liberty in a few minutes.

At liberty once again, Barrymore accepted the lead in yet another romantic comedy.

• in (good) leisure c1315–1480 Phrases. in (good) leisure : at leisure. Obsolete .
• at leisure c1386– Phrases. at leisure : with free or unoccupied time at one's disposal; without haste, with deliberation. Also with qualifying adjectives, as all , best …
• at one's leisure 1481– Phrases. at one's leisure : when one has unoccupied time at one's disposal; at one's ease or convenience. Also with adjectives as in a.
• aspare 1653 To spare, at liberty.
• at liberty a1690– Available; unoccupied. In later use: spec. (of an actor or performer) out of work; available for employment.
• out of play 1661– (In later use perhaps influenced by sense II.9d.) out of play : not in operation or effect, inactive; (formerly also) †unoccupied, out of employment…
• in dry dock 1927– in dry dock ( figurative ): inactive, unemployed; in quarantine; in hospital. colloquial .
• out of commission 1533–1803 Of a person: no longer having or exercising authority in a particular role or office. Obsolete .

Att his owen fredam and libertee..for to mowe passe the See in parfourmyng of the said avowe.

Thow shalt no thyng do..But at thyn owne lyberte.

Wherof my seyd chauntry priest to be one of them at his liberte .

To..were his bonet on his hed..aswel in our presence as elleswhere, at his libertie .

You might at your owne libertie commit spiritual whordom with Idols, Images, & the Masse.

He cannot at his libertie travell to goe whether he pleaseth, being as it were a prisoner within the limits of his country.

• after a person's will Old English–1891 after a person's will (also after will ): according to one's own or another person's choice or intention; according to one's own or another person's…
• by one's will Old English–2018 by one's own will (formerly also †by one's will ): with one's consent, or of one's own free will, willingly; according to one's desire, if one had…
• self-willes Old English–1380 Voluntarily, of one's own accord.
• to one's will Old English–1875 to one's will (also to will ): as one wants, as one chooses, purposefully; at one's disposal; to one's liking; = at a person's will at phrases P.2d…
• a-will c1275 At one's will, to one's pleasure or satisfaction.
• at will c1300–1929 Chiefly without possessive, as at will . According to one's desire, as one wishes or likes; esp. (used predicatively or as complement, of wind or…
• at one's (own) liberty 1426–1613 As one pleases; by one's own choice; freely. Obsolete .
• ad placitum a1556– By arbitrary application of a word or sign to a particular meaning, without a natural or logical basis. More generally: arbitrarily, as one pleases…
• at pleasure 1579– (a) With pleasure, pleased; (b) (also during pleasure ) at will, at discretion (in quots. 1692, 2003 with reference to the will of the Crown); cf…
• ad libitum 1606– = ad lib , adv. A.2.
• arbitrarily a1626– In an arbitrary manner, at will: (a) merely at will, without sufficient reason, capriciously; (b) unconstitutionally, despotically.
• ad arbitrium 1645– At or according to one's will or pleasure; as one pleases; arbitrarily.
• arbitrariously 1653–78 = arbitrarily , adv.
• discretionally 1655– At one's own or another's discretion; discretionarily.
• voluntarily 1676 At will, at pleasure; extempore. Obsolete . rare .
• discretionarily 1681– In a discretionary manner; at one's own or another's discretion.
• antecedently 1682 Without cause, arbitrarily. Obsolete . rare .
• discretionary ?1707–51 At one's own or another's discretion; discretionarily. Obsolete .
• ad lib 1791– In general use: to whatever extent, or in whatever manner, one desires.
• at one's own sweet will 1802– Dear to the person himself or herself; usually sarcastically , ‘pet’, ‘precious’: chiefly qualifying self or will . at one's own sweet will : just as…
• at choice 1817– †to be at one's choice : to act as one chooses, do as one pleases ( obsolete ). at choice : at pleasure. to have one's choice : to have the right or…
• at all will 1825 Chiefly without possessive, as at will . According to one's desire, as one wishes or likes; esp. (used predicatively or as complement, of wind or…
• at no allowance 1858– at no allowance : without stint, freely. Now Scottish .

Were I at my lyberte as I was.

But for to..byleue that al is trewe that is conteyned herin, ye be at your lyberte.

A man is not atte hys owne lyberte that byndeth hym self to another.

I wil be at my owne libertie, to do what me lust my self.

Alicia Warner de Rushmere ffrely beeinge at her liberty confessed that she had enterteined certeine euill sperits.

Virgil represents her [ sc. Fury] in Chains thus... Petronius describes her at her Liberty , thus.

He is at his Liberty , in such Cases, and may act according to his own Discretion.

That the bonds they then bore were only to prevent their flight; that they should be at their liberty where they were going.

He told me I was at my liberty and so we parted.

He was abroad each morning by five o'clock, and was at all times at his liberty .

He was..no sooner at his liberty than he sent to his brother Ethan a formal challenge to single combat with pistols.

I can move around in the house at my liberty .

The false lybertie of wyll and the ouermoche truste that we haue in our selfe be moche contrary to the heuenly vysytacyons.

Many men utturly take away the lyberty of wyl.

Liberty of Will , franc Arbitre .

Being endowed by God..with a Liberty of Will , to chuse the one, and to refuse the other.

Supreme of gifts which God..gave Of his free bounty..Was liberty of will .

These terms are supposed to involve..the Liberty of the Will .

Only thus may one attain to freedom and live in the liberty of the will .

He follows his school in explaining the entry of original sin as a corollary to the liberty of the will .

The veridicality of natural belief in liberty of will .

Also euery person hauing voices in Parlement: hath free libertie of speach to speak his minde, oppinion and iudgement to any matter proponed.

Justice it self cannot deny me liberty of speech before sentence.

The distinction is also one of the chief pillars of the liberty of speech without doors, and of the liberty of the press.

Liberty of thought and liberty of speech are the gift of my Creator. From him I hold them, not from man nor from society.

Already the liberty of speech of the bishops and clergy had been seriously menaced.

Whilst thus eager to persecute Papists, the Commons were very zealous for liberty of speech for themselves.

As Americans we are committed to our liberties, to our liberty of speech above all.

They redemed libertie of conscience with the bondage of the bodie.

To suffer euerie man to leaf at libertie of conscience .

Quhy in the beginning of your new Euangell preached ye libertie of conscience .

That he woulde suffer them to inioy the libertie of their conscience .

In the treaty of Passaw was granted Liberty of Conscience to the Professors of the Augustane Confession.

The King, as you have heard, repeated his Declaration of Liberty of Conscience .

A promise which is not repugnant to liberty of conscience , but which may operate as a security for the Constitution.

Liberty of conscience has become a law of modern thought.

Admit the claims of Protestants and freethinkers to liberty of conscience , and what would remain to the Pope?

His noble plea for Christian liberty of conscience .

It is a quite intolerable invasion of individual liberty of conscience that any third party should seek to dictate to a woman on a matter of such importance.

Religious toleration and liberty of conscience also play a crucial historical role in Rawlsian liberalism.

• liberty of conscience a1555– Freedom to follow one's own beliefs in matters of religion and morality, esp. when regarded as a right.
• freedom of conscience ?c1400– Freedom to follow one's own beliefs in matters of religion and morality, esp. when regarded as a right.
• freedom of religion 1573– Freedom to practise the religion of one's choice, esp. when regarded as a right.

He that in fewe dayes before had by newe authoritie confirmed the libertie of Religion permitted by his Edicts of pacification.

Hee exclameth against the Emperor Theodosius, as if he had given toleration & free liberty of Religion to Arians, Eunomians, Manichees, Marcionites, Valentinians, & Montanists.

Unless this liberty of religion is the inherent right of every man, in every age and nation, it can never be the right of any man in any.

The liberty of religion was now placed in imminent hazard, both from popular outrage and from state encroachments.

Ever since he was a youth of eighteen he had joyfully dreamed of such a religious refuge for those who were persecuted. now his colony was to have liberty of religion .

The principle of the liberty of religion precludes any operation of any type of distinction between religions.

To which purpose shall he so far prevayle with his Lord BB. that we may enjoy, the use of our books, the liberty of the presse , [etc.] .

A seasonable memorial..upon the liberties of the presse and pulpit.

An apology for the liberty of the press .

The Liberty of the Press , which being the chief Bulwark and Support of Liberty in general, hath been constantly looked on with an evil Eye by wicked Ministers.

The liberty of the press is indeed essential to the nature of a free state; but this consists in laying no previous restraints upon publications, and not in freedom from censure for criminal matter when published.

He said, he should always consider the liberty of the press as a national evil, while it enabled the vilest reptile to soil the lustre of the most shining merit.

The liberty of the press consists, in a strict sense, merely in an exemption from the superintendence of a licenser.

Those who are greatest foes to him, by reason of his despotic action, by reason of his curtailment of all liberty of the press .

It has been pointed out over and over again,..that the licence of the Press is not the liberty of the Press .

There was, therefore, no reason why restriction of the liberty of the Press should be avoided.

A new public sphere and social power protected by freedom of speech, liberty of the press , and freedom of association.

• liberty of the press 1633– Freedom to print and publish anything without interference or censorship, esp. when regarded as a right; cf. freedom of the press n. at freedom , n. …
• freedom of the press 1646– Freedom to print and publish anything without interference or censorship, esp. when regarded as a right.
• free press 1679– A press having the freedom to operate without interference or censorship; (also) freedom of the press.
• press freedom 1705–

Why hath a Will a liberty of Spontaneity to some Objects, but because the Understanding represents them as good pro hic & nunc ?

When an Agent is free from an outward Necessity, or a Necessity of Force; but yet what it chuses, it is under an inward or natural Necessity to chuse; this Freedom..is called a Liberty of Spontaneity , or Voluntariness.

That we have the liberty of spontaneity is certain from experience, and must be allowed by all who hold not man to be a mere machine.

The liberty of spontaneity remains—the sinner pleases to sin. But the liberty of deliberate election between the spiritually right and the spiritually wrong is clean gone.

Especial attention should be drawn to two discourses on freedom of the will under the two aspects of ‘liberty of choice’ and ‘ liberty of spontaneity ’.

Determinists and others have traditionally thought they could have some liberty of spontaneity or other without the embarrassment of liberty of indifference.

Upon Adam's first transgression, that grand Liberty of Indifferency equally to Good or Evil began first to discover it self.

He [ sc. God] limits the Acts of his Power by all his Moral Perfections, and by his liberty of Indifferency .

In such cases there is a liberty of indifferency in the divine Being it self; he is perfectly free to act either thus, or thus.

What some have seemed to contend for under the Notion of free Will, viz. a Liberty of Indifferency ..is contrary to the general Law of Nature.

He [ sc. Locke] assents to a liberty of indifferency .

In the first edition he [ sc. Locke] had criticized the liberty of indifferency .

The liberty of indifference is with respect to some particular good Things, which may be variously represented, so as to cause inclination or aversion.

We cannot help thinking that there is some inconsistency in our author's representing the liberty of indifference as an active faculty of chusing to act contrary to motives.

The ‘free will’ against which he contended is a liberty of indifference ; a self-determining power, by which the will may choose without any motive or object.

In order to refute this idea of the liberty of indifference , it is not necessary to prove that it is impossible: it suffices to show that it is useless.

A freedom opposed to the mere causeless liberty of indifference which the Epicureans upheld.

Hume's second line of attack on liberty of indifference is the more practical one that we need predictability in human affairs in order to make our decisions.

How then can the confinement be relaxed, unless it be by encreasing the already too great liberty of association ?

Both countries have inserted in their charter—‘Liberty of worship for all’; but in France this has become almost a dead letter, from the want of liberty of association .

The most notable fact in the modern life of the Englishman, is the liberty of association which he enjoys.

M. Rocco, Minister of Justice, pointed out the difficulty hitherto of limiting liberty of association , because politicians in the past had held the theory of an unlimited liberty.

Such organizations may take for granted post-1994 democratic freedoms such as liberty of association , speaking out, taking action, and so on.

If she take the lyberty to walk, shee giueth other occasion to speake, & your selfe to sigh.

Mæcenas took the Liberty to tell him that [etc.] .

They took a liberty to compound and piece together creatures of allowable formes into mixtures inexistent.

You take the Liberty of saying what you please; you talk of being robbed, no body has robbed you that I know of.

Catullus..took the Liberty to call the Nobleman Bastard.

As the names..do by no means suit their colors, we have taken the liberty of changing them to others more congruous.

I will..take the liberty to give them..my opinion.

The only objection to the title ‘Scandinavian’ is its length, on which account I shall take the liberty to shorten it to ‘Scandian’.

I'm taking the liberty again of sending you a set of proofs of a new novel.

We might even take the liberty to say that he should never have been accepted in Rotary.

My assistant manager took the liberty of entering her room and removing a letter she was writing.

• to be (so) bold c1385– Phrases. to make (so) bold , to be (so) bold : to venture, presume so far as, take the liberty ( to do a thing). †to make or be bold with ( obsolete ): to…
• to take (a or the) boldness 1526–1680 to take (a or the) boldness : to venture, to take the liberty ( to do a thing). Obsolete or dialect .
• to take the (also a) liberty (to do something) 1582– to take the (also †a) liberty (to do something) : to be so presumptuous as (to do something); to venture (to do something) without first asking…
• to make (so) bold a1616 Phrases. to make (so) bold , to be (so) bold : to venture, presume so far as, take the liberty ( to do a thing). †to make or be bold with ( obsolete ): to…
• free 1889 intransitive . To make free, take liberties with . Obsolete . rare .
• to make or be bold with c1385– Phrases. to make (so) bold , to be (so) bold : to venture, presume so far as, take the liberty ( to do a thing). †to make or be bold with ( obsolete ): to…

They haue taken a liberty, they delight in wickednes, and followes the lusts and affections of their own hearts.

He..would little perplex his thought for the obduring of nine hunderd and ninety such as will daily take wors liberties .

Though the Verses end with the same Sound sometimes, yet generally they took a Liberty.

Mr. Dryden.. takes great Liberties with the Authors he translates.

The first Foot of the first Line..is defective by two short Syllables; which is a Liberty seldom taken.

The creature [ sc. a cat] soon began to take liberties , and in less than a week after my arrival at the cottage, generally mounted on my back, when it saw me reading or writing.

He thought I was taking some undue liberty with his dignity.

Excuse me, Your Majesty, For taking of The liberty, But marmalade is tasty, if It's very Thickly Spread.

Most uncommonly for our times, it [ sc. a production of Molière's Misanthrope ] does not take a single outrageous liberty.

I will admit barnies with the Law, when some copper starts taking liberties .

• to take liberties (or a liberty) 1594– To go beyond the bounds of propriety, custom, or convention; to behave or act presumptuously. Also with with .

She takes her liberty with Subject or Foreigner, African or European at her will.

The poor Man had taken a little Liberty with a Wench.

The prisoner came into her room..and began taking those liberties with her that constituted the crime.

The boxer beat the fellow for taking liberties with his mistress.

I never did.. take indecent liberties with the producent.

She was much inclined to think herself a fast girl, with whom gentlemen thought it proper to take liberties .

A scene in which he is wrongfully accused of ‘taking a liberty’ with one of the female guests.

The story of a crude adult taking liberties with a child.

Pronunciation

• ð th ee
• ɬ rhingy ll

Some consonants can take the function of the vowel in unstressed syllables. Where necessary, a syllabic marker diacritic is used, hence <petal> /ˈpɛtl/ but <petally> /ˈpɛtl̩i/.

• a trap, bath
• ɑː start, palm, bath
• ɔː thought, force
• ᵻ (/ɪ/-/ə/)
• ᵿ (/ʊ/-/ə/)

Other symbols

• The symbol ˈ at the beginning of a syllable indicates that that syllable is pronounced with primary stress.
• The symbol ˌ at the beginning of a syllable indicates that that syllable is pronounced with secondary stress.
• Round brackets ( ) in a transcription indicate that the symbol within the brackets is optional.

View the pronunciation model here .

* /d/ also represents a 'tapped' /t/ as in <bitter>

Some consonants can take the function of the vowel in unstressed syllables. Where necessary, a syllabic marker diacritic is used, hence <petal> /ˈpɛd(ə)l/ but <petally> /ˈpɛdl̩i/.

• i fleece, happ y
• æ trap, bath
• ɑ lot, palm, cloth, thought
• ɔ cloth, thought
• ɔr north, force
• ə strut, comm a
• ər nurse, lett er
• ɛ(ə)r square
• æ̃ sal on

Simple Text Respell

Simple text respell breaks words into syllables, separated by a hyphen. The syllable which carries the primary stress is written in capital letters. This key covers both British and U.S. English Simple Text Respell.

b, d, f, h, k, l, m, n, p, r, s, t, v, w and z have their standard English values

• arr carry (British only)
• a(ng) gratin
• o lot (British only)
• orr sorry (British only)
• o(ng) salon

Date of use

Variant forms.

• Middle English lybarte
• Middle English–1500s liberte , libertee , lyberte
• Middle English–1600s liberti , libertie
• Middle English–1500s ; 1700s lybertee
• 1500s libartie , libartye , lybartye , lybertie , lyberty , lybertye
• 1500s–1600s libertye
• 1500s– liberty
• 1900s– libertys (plural, in sense II.8 )
• pre-1700 lebarte , leberte , leberttie , leiberti , liberte , libertee , libertie , libertye , lyberte , lybertie
• pre-1700 ; 1700s– liberty

liberty is one of the 5,000 most common words in modern written English. It is similar in frequency to words like marketing , plasma , pose , sugar , and yard .

It typically occurs about 30 times per million words in modern written English.

liberty is in frequency band 6, which contains words occurring between 10 and 100 times per million words in modern written English. More about OED's frequency bands

Frequency of liberty, n.¹ , 1750–2010

* Occurrences per million words in written English

Historical frequency series are derived from Google Books Ngrams (version 2), a data set based on the Google Books corpus of several million books printed in English between 1500 and 2010.

The overall frequency for a given word is calculated by summing frequencies for the main form of the word, any plural or inflected forms, and any major spelling variations.

For sets of homographs (distinct entries that share the same word-form, e.g. mole , n.¹, mole , n.², mole , n.³, etc.), we have estimated the frequency of each homograph entry as a fraction of the total Ngrams frequency for the word-form. This may result in inaccuracies.

Frequency of liberty, n.¹ , 2017–2023

Modern frequency series are derived from a corpus of 20 billion words, covering the period from 2017 to the present. The corpus is mainly compiled from online news sources, and covers all major varieties of World English.

Smoothing has been applied to series for lower-frequency words, using a moving-average algorithm. This reduces short-term fluctuations, which may be produced by variability in the content of the corpus.

Compounds & derived words

• All compounds & derived words
• Curated compounds
• liberty , v. c1425– transitive. English regional (Wiltshire). To allow to run freely. Now rare.
• enliberty , v. c1500 transitive. To put within the ‘liberty’ or absolute control of; to give up entirely.
• natural liberty , n. 1561– The freedom which a person or animal possesses in nature; spec. the state in which human beings are free to act as they think fit, unhindered by laws…
• civil liberty , n. 1596– Liberty in civil (as opposed to spiritual or ecclesiastical) life. Cf. civil, adj. A.II.13. Obsolete.
• libertyless , adj. 1643– Without liberty (also as n. with the).
• liberty post , n. 1647–1856 A post marking the boundary of a city's liberties (liberty, n.¹ II.6c.ii).
• libertism , n. 1652– Free-thinking in religion; antinomianism; = libertinism, n. 1.
• personal liberty , n. 1655– The freedom of an individual to act as he or she wishes.
• gospel-liberty , n. 1687–
• liberty-monger , n. 1702–
• liberty man , n. 1705– Nautical. A sailor having leave to go ashore. Cf. liberty, n.¹ I.3c.
• Liberty Party , n. 1705– Any of various parties supporting or fighting for liberty; spec. (in the United States) a political party which campaigned for the abolition of…
• liberty boy , n. 1733– Chiefly with capital initial in the first element. A member of a disorderly gang of weavers from the Coombe area of Dublin. Now historical.
• liberty ticket , n. 1758– A document declaring that a sailor has leave to go ashore.
• liberty tree , n. 1765– Sometimes with the. The name given to a tree in Boston from which effigies were hung during protests against the Stamp Act in 1765.
• tree of liberty , n. 1765– A tree (or a pole) planted in celebration of a revolution or victory securing liberty (chiefly in reference to the French Revolution); also…
• liberty pole , n. 1769– A tall mast or staff with a Phrygian cap or other symbol of liberty on the top.
• liberty cap , n. 1773– A European toadstool, Psilocybe semilanceata, having a distinctive pointed grey-brown cap on a long narrow stem, and containing the hallucinogenic…
• liberty hall , n. 1773– A (notional) place where one may do as one likes.
• liberty-loving , adj. 1773–
• Liberty Corps , n. 1780– (In Dublin) a working-class volunteer militia led by James Napper Tandy (1737–1803).
• Liberty Volunteers , n. 1780– Any of various volunteer groups or militias formed to promote or defend liberty.
• libertarian , n. & adj. 1789– Philosophy. A person who holds the doctrine that human beings possess free will. Cf. determinist, n.
• liberticide , n.¹ 1789– Destruction or removal of liberty.
• liberticide , n.² & adj. 1792– A destroyer of liberty.
• liberticidal , adj. 1793– Destructive of liberty.
• liberty-liquor , n. 1813–67 Extra rations of alcohol.
• liberty day , n. 1821– A day on which part of a ship's crew has leave to go ashore.
• liberty-taking , adj. & n. 1822–
• liberty-wife , n. 1825 A mistress.
• libertist , n. 1826– An advocate or defender of liberty.
• liberty boat , n. 1837– A boat carrying sailors who have leave to go ashore.
• liberty horse , n. 1853– A circus horse which performs without a rider; cf. liberty act, n.
• liberty bodice , n. 1892– A close-fitting sleeveless under-bodice with reinforcing strips, originally designed to give more freedom of movement than a corset, and typically…
• shore liberty , n. 1906– = shore leave, n.
• Liberty Bond , n. 1917– Any of a series of interest-bearing war bonds issued by the U.S. government in 1917–18; cf. Liberty Loan, n.
• Liberty Loan , n. 1917– a. A loan raised by the Russian provisional government in 1917 following the February Revolution; b. each of the four issues of Liberty Bonds made by…
• liberty cabbage , n. 1918– Sauerkraut.
• liberty act , n. 1923– A circus act performed by riderless horses; cf. liberty horse, n.
• Liberty ship , n. 1941– A type of mass-produced merchant vessel made by the United States during the Second World War (1939–45).

Entry history for liberty, n.¹

liberty, n.¹ was revised in November 2010.

liberty, n.¹ was last modified in September 2024.

oed.com is a living text, updated every three months. Modifications may include:

• further revisions to definitions, pronunciation, etymology, headwords, variant spellings, quotations, and dates;
• new senses, phrases, and quotations.

Revisions and additions of this kind were last incorporated into liberty, n.¹ in September 2024.

Earlier versions of this entry were published in:

OED First Edition (1902)

• Find out more

OED Second Edition (1989)

• View liberty, n.¹ in OED Second Edition

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Citation details

Factsheet for liberty, n.¹, browse entry.

A business journal from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania

How Tone of Voice and Delivery Shape Presidential Campaigns

September 17, 2024 • 5 min read.

A politician's non-verbal cues can sway voters just as much as their words, according to research co-authored by Wharton's Dean Knox.

• Public Policy

In high-stakes presidential campaigns, every word a candidate utters matters. Speeches are often meticulously crafted and polished by teams of expert speechwriters. However, focusing solely on the words may not be enough to sway voters. According to a recent study co-authored by Dean Knox , Wharton professor of operations, information and decisions, together with Taylor Damann and Christopher Lucas of Washington University in St. Louis, the non-verbal elements of speech — such as tone of voice, pitch, and delivery — also play a key role in shaping voter perceptions and decisions.

Knox and his co-authors pored over 100 U.S. presidential campaign speeches to understand the impact of these non-verbal cues. Their findings suggest that how something is said can be just as important as what is said. This insight is particularly relevant as America approaches another presidential election, with global attention focused on the outcome of the November vote.

Knox explained: “People have been using spoken language to persuade others for centuries, shaping how we think, feel, and understand things. It’s not just about the words we choose, but also how we say them — our tone, emphasis, gestures, and facial expressions all play a big part in how our speech affects others.”

Tone of Voice and Delivery Can Dramatically Alter Voter Perception

The study’s implications are important, especially as it reveals that a candidate’s voice significantly influences voters’ perceptions of their passion, trustworthiness, and persuasiveness. Through two carefully designed experiments, the researchers demonstrated that subtle changes in vocal delivery could dramatically alter how a candidate is viewed by the electorate.

In the first experiment, the team played different variations in how candidates delivered key catchphrases for voters. In the second, they tested the influence of different vocal styles on listeners, using voice actors to control speech delivery. These experiments showed that using pauses, changes in pitch, and varying speech rhythms could capture attention and build anticipation, ultimately shaping how voters perceive a candidate’s energy and sincerity.

“Our tone, emphasis, gestures, and facial expressions all play a big part in how our speech affects others.” — Dean Knox

For example, a candidate who speaks with a varied pitch and strategic pauses might be perceived as more passionate and trustworthy compared to one who delivers a speech in a flat, monotonous tone. However, Knox cautioned that these perceptions may not necessarily reflect a candidate’s actual competence or integrity. “Since these vocal cues can be trained, they might influence our cognitive biases, especially during an election year, leading voters to potentially make skewed judgments,” he warned.

The study’s findings are not only important for voters but also for the candidates themselves, this year’s Democratic contender Kamala Harris and Donald Trump, a Republican. By understanding the impact of vocal style, candidates can learn to communicate more effectively with voters while staying true to their policy messages, the paper said. This insight might be particularly valuable for women candidates, who, according to the study, might face harsher judgments if they fail to communicate effectively.

Reassessing the Nuances of Voice in Political Communication

The research from Knox, Damann, and Lucas breaks new ground in understanding the nuances of political communication. While past studies have shown that voters prefer candidates with voices that are lower pitched, the co-authors found that other aspects, such as faster speech and more varied intonation, have an even greater impact on voter perception.

“Journalists and political strategists often highlight how important a candidate’s delivery is,” said Knox. “Our research shows that if you ignore those non-verbal elements, you end up with a skewed view of how effective a speech really is.”

The study was not without its challenges. The authors acknowledged the difficulty in measuring and understanding all the ways vocal style affects listeners, given the constantly evolving methods and tools used in such research.

Furthermore, previous studies on this topic have yielded conflicting results. Knox noted that adding basic audio measures, like average pitch, to text-based studies might seem helpful, but it can actually be misleading. Changes in pitch often affect other factors, such as volume, which in turn can influence how listeners react.

“Our research shows that if you ignore those non-verbal elements, you end up with a skewed view of how effective a speech really is.” — Dean Knox

A New Approach to Studying Speech

To overcome these challenges, Knox, Damann, and Lucas developed an alternative method by comparing pairs of speech excerpts with identical words but different vocal styles. For example, they examined political speeches where candidates repeated the same catchphrases, sometimes with more energy and sometimes more flatly. However, they found that this method couldn’t fully separate the impact of individual elements like pitch and speed.

As a solution, they directly manipulated elements of speech, such as volume, using audio-editing software. While this allowed researchers to isolate the effect of specific speech elements, it had its own limitations, as it couldn’t fully capture the natural nuances of human speech. To address this, the researchers also enlisted 10 voice actors to naturally vary the tone and speed of speeches, offering a closer approximation to real-life speech, albeit with less control.

“The combination of artificial and natural adjustments provided a fuller understanding of how speech impacts listeners,” Knox said.

This approach opens up new avenues for exploring the role of AI-generated speech in political communication — a fascinating research question that remains to be fully explored.

As voters head to the polls in November, this study serves as a reminder that the power of speech extends far beyond the words themselves. The way a candidate speaks — through tone, pitch, and delivery — can significantly shape public perception and, ultimately, the outcome of an election.

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