Charles Evans Hughes, De Jonge v. Oregon — Opinion of the Court
“ While the States are entitled to protect themselves from the abuse of the privileges of our institutions through an attempted substitution of force and violence in the place of peaceful political action in order to effect revolutionary changes in government, none of our decisions goes to the length of sustaining such a curtailment of the right of free speech and assembly as the Oregon statute demands in its present application. ”
Charles Evans Hughes, De Jonge v. Oregon — Opinion of the Court
“ Freedom of speech and of the press are fundamental rights which are safeguarded by the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment of the Federal Constitution. Gitlow v. New York, supra, p. 666; Stromberg v. California, supra, p. 368; Near v. Minnesota, 283 U.S. 697, 707; Grosjean v. American Press Co., 297 U.S. 233, 243, 244. The right of peaceable assembly is a right cognate to those of free speech and free press, and is equally fundamental. As this Court said in United States v. Cruikshank, 92 U.S. 542, 552:The very idea of a government, republican in form, implies a right on the part of its citizens to meet peaceably for consultation in respect to public affairs and to petition for a redress of grievances. ”
Charles Evans Hughes, De Jonge v. Oregon — Opinion of the Court
“ The greater the importance of safeguarding the community from incitements to the overthrow of our institutions by force and violence, the more imperative is the need to preserve inviolate the constitutional rights of free speech, free press and free assembly in order to maintain the opportunity for free political discussion, to the end that government may be responsive to the will of the people and that changes, if desired, may be obtained by peaceful means. ”
