USA HISTORY

Which argument was used by Supreme Court in reaching its clear and present danger ruling in Schenck v. U.S.?

(A) military is under civilian control

(B) powers are separated between federal and state governments

(C) ** constitutional rights are not absolute

(D) constituion provides for equal protection under the laws

Concept note-1: -In Schenck v. United States, Charles Schenck was charged under the Espionage Act for mailing printed circulars critical of the military draft. Writing for a unanimous Court, Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes upheld Schenck’s conviction and ruled that the Espionage Act did not conflict with the First Amendment.

Concept note-2: -Which argument was used by the Supreme Court in reaching its “clear and present danger” ruling in Schenck v. United States (1919)? Constitutional rights, such as free speech, are not absolute.

Concept note-3: -The clear and present danger test was not accepted by a majority of the Supreme Court until Herndon v. Lowry (1937), when Justice Owen J. Roberts invoked it while rejecting the bad tendency test as an appropriate standard for identifying the protections of the First Amendment.

Concept note-4: -United States, legal case in which the U.S. Supreme Court ruled on March 3, 1919, that the freedom of speech protection afforded in the U.S. Constitution’s First Amendment could be restricted if the words spoken or printed represented to society a “clear and present danger.”