Michael Haddam

speaker

274 appearances 1 recordings 1 series first heard Jan 2026 last heard 22 Jan

Michael Haddam’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.

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Recordings per month over the last 12 months — 1 in all, peaking in Jan 2026 with 1.

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American History Hit · Origins of the First Amendment · 22 Jan 2026 podcast

Just because you make a law doesn't necessarily mean that it's all settled.

That happens through a process, and incorporation happens through a process.

So subsequent cases over the next –

I don't know, 50, 60 years would incorporate amendments from the Bill of Rights sort of one by one based on, you know, which sort of test cases were brought.

Right.

In fact, the First Amendment is one of the last of the amendments that have been incorporated to be incorporated, which didn't really happen until the early 20th century.

in a famous case called Gitlo v. New York.

Well, it's because – in part because of the Espionage Act and the Sedition Act, which – from 1917 to 1918, which basically sought to crack down on dissent against joining the war, right?

There's a story in my book about –

How the first person to make a film about the American Revolution in 1917 was imprisoned under the Espionage Act because the courts judged that the film contained anti-British sentiment.

Interesting.

Right?

So there was a real crackdown on dissent against the war through the Espionage Act and the Sedition Act.

And so this is really the first attempts by the federal government to initiate these kinds of direct attacks.

direct suppression of speech laws really since the Alien and Sedition Acts.

Yeah, so these were some essentially socialist protesters circulating leaflets and pamphlets and whatnot.

And what's important about Schenck is, one, that it upheld the Espionage Act as constitutional.

It also introduced this idea that you mentioned, this measure of a clear and present danger.

So the justice who writes the decision is Oliver Wendell Holmes.

And he says that the question in every case is whether the words are used in such circumstances as to create a clear and present danger.

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