...to the charge of seditious libel. As Sir William Blackstone put it, 'the liberty of the Press . . . consists in laying no previous restraints upon publications,...not in freedom from censure for criminal matter when published'?4 The potential criminality of particular pieces of writing was premised on an indefinite...

...liberty of the press, properly understood, is by no means infringed or violated. The liberty of the press is indeed essential to the nature of a free state:...criminal matter when published. Every freeman has an undoubted right to lay what sentiments he pleases before the public: to forbid this, is to destroy...

...press. The liberty deemed to be established was thus described by Blackstone: The liberty of the press is indeed essential to the nature of a free state;...criminal matter when published. Every freeman has an undoubted right to lay what sentiments he pleases before the public; to forbid this is to destroy...

...was thus described by Blackstone: The liberty of the press is indeed essential to the nature of the free state; but this consists in laying no previous...criminal matter when published. Every freeman has an undoubted right to lay what sentiments he pleases before the public; to forbid this, is to destroy...

...expressed as a prohibition against censorship in the form of prior constraint: The liberty of the press is indeed essential to the nature of a free state;...but this consists in laying no previous restraints on publications, and 212 not in freedom from censure for criminal matter when published (Blackstone...

...— Blackstone's Commentaries — supported this view. Liberty of the press, it said, consisted only "in laying no previous restraints upon publications,...freedom from censure for criminal matter when published" (Blackstone 2:113). At the time of the Expositor incident, the Illinois Supreme Court had not interpreted...

...primary rights, though in his discussion of public wrongs he explains that: The libem of the press is indeed essential to the nature of a free state: but this consists in laying no prei inm restraints upon publications, and not in freedom from censure fur criminal matter when published...

...University Press), Cambridge Mass, 1960) at 274. 46 (1765, Book IV) 151-52. 'The liberty of the press is indeed essential to the nature of a free state;...but this consists in laying no previous restraints on publications and not in censure for criminal matter when published. Every free man has an undoubted...

...Commentaries, a four-volume compendium of English common law. As Blackstone put it: The liberty of the press is indeed essential to the nature of a free state, but this consists in laying no previous restraint upon publications, and not in freedom from censure for criminal matter when published. Every...

...seditious libel was fully compatible with a proper notion of a free press: "The liberty of the press is indeed essential to the nature of a free state;...freedom from censure for criminal matter when published. . . . Thus the will of individuals is still left free; the abuse only of that free-will is the object...