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| Pamphlet telling the public to resist the draft. |
Charles Schenck and Elizabeth Baer distributed leaflets telling people to peacefully resist the draft, since they believed it violated the Thirteenth Amendment. Both Schenck and Baer were convicted of violating the Espionage Act of 1917 and appealed to the court by saying that the statute violated the First Amendment. The court upheld that the First Amendment was not actually violated, and defined, for the first time, the "clear and present danger" doctrine. Justice Oliver Wendall Holmes compared it to shouting "Fire!" in a crowded theatre, which would cause massive amounts of panic and destruction.
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Peter Zenger also went on trial for speaking out
against the government. In this case, he was
acquitted and became the defining factor
in free speech.
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