Suspension of Disbelief

Ask Americans to enumerate their civil liberties and they instinctively turn to freedom of speech and the press. Many assume that these freedoms have been enjoyed more or less continuously since 1791, when the Bill of Rights was ratified. In fact, for much of our history numerous legal and extralegal obstacles have confronted dissenters hoping to publicize their views, hold meetings, picket and distribute literature. Consciousness of the importance of free speech developed gradually and unevenly. In Perilous Times, Geoffrey R. Stone offers a compelling account of a crucial part--but only a part--of this checkered history.

Stone's focus is free speech in wartime, and it is not a happy story. Time and again, war has led to serious restrictions on civil liberties. The book examines six historical moments during which the government has tried to punish individuals for their beliefs--the "quasi-war" with France of the late 1790s; the Civil War; World War I; World War II; the cold war; and Vietnam. For each episode, Stone sketches the cast of characters involved in free-speech cases and provides detailed examination of debates over the proper limits of civil liberties in wartime. A professor at the University of Chicago Law School, Stone makes his sympathies clear at the outset: "dissent in wartime can be the highest form of patriotism." Governments, unfortunately, rarely see it that way.

Each of Stone's episodes bears lessons for the present. He begins in 1798, when the Administration of John Adams, faced with the threat of war with France and a growing Jeffersonian opposition at home, moved to silence political dissent. The Alien Act allowed the President to deport foreigners he deemed dangerous. The Sedition Act essentially made it illegal to criticize the government. Most of the seventeen people indicted under its provisions were Jeffersonian editors, including Matthew Lyon, a Vermont Congressman who published the Scourge of Aristocracy and Repository of Important Political Truths. Lyon received a $1,000 fine and a four-month jail sentence.

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