“I read "no law . . . abridging" to mean no law abridging.”

— Hugo Black

Concurring opinion, Smith v. California, 361 U.S. 147 (1959).
Context: The First Amendment's language leaves no room for inference that abridgments of speech and press can be made just because they are slight. That Amendment provides, in simple words, that "Congress shall make no law... abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press." I read "no law... abridging" to mean no law abridging.

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "I read "no law . . . abridging" to mean no law abridging." by Hugo Black?

Hugo Black26

U.S. Supreme Court justice 1886–1971

Related quotes

“Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of production and trade…”

Ayn Rand book Atlas Shrugged

Source: Atlas Shrugged

“The legislature of the United States shall pass no law on the subject of religion nor touching or abridging the liberty of the press.”

Charles Cotesworth Pinckney (1746–1825) American politician

Resolution offered in the Philadelphia Convention, May 29, 1787. The United States Constitution was enacted without any protection for religion or the press, but with the understanding that a Bill of Rights would shortly be enacted to address these concerns.

“I would have these good people to recollect, that the laws of this country hold out to foreigners an offer of all that liberty of the press which Americans enjoy, and that, if this liberty be abridged, by whatever means it may be done, the laws and the constitution, and all together, is a mere cheat; a snare to catch the credulous and enthusiastic of every other nation; a downright imposition on the world.”

William Cobbett (1763–1835) English pamphleteer, farmer and journalist

Source: Life and Adventures of Peter Porcupine (1796), P. 59.

“Only the emergency that makes it immediately dangerous to leave the correction of evil counsels to time warrants making any exception to the sweeping command, "Congress shall make no law…abridging the freedom of speech."”

Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. (1841–1935) United States Supreme Court justice

250 U.S. at 630-31.
1910s, Abrams v. United States, 250 U.S. 616 (1919)

“The wife is a piece of property, acquired by contract; she is part of your furniture, for possession is nine-tenths of the law; in fact, the woman is not, to speak correctly, anything but an adjunct to the man; therefore abridge, cut, file this article as you choose; she is in every sense yours.”

Honoré de Balzac book Physiology of Marriage

La femme est une propriété que l'on acquiert par contrat, elle est mobilière, car la possession vaut titre; enfin, la femme n'est, à proprement parler, qu'une annexe de l'homme; or, tranchez, coupez, rognez, elle vous appartient à tous les titres.
Part II, Meditation Number XII: The Hygiene of Marriage.
Physiology of Marriage (1829)