Hi. We're going to start the course by looking at the where the First Amendment
comes from; where the ideas behind the First Amendment
originated in old British law and how it evolved to become the First Amendment
we know today. So this is the text of the First Amendment and we'll look at it a
little bit. There are five different rights announced in this
amendment, in these 45 words. It's part of the Bill of Rights that was adopted in
1791. We'll talk more about that in the next video, but what I wanted to talk
about in this video is where these words came from -- where, more
importantly, where the ideas behind these words came from and how freedom of
speech and these other freedoms that are in the First Amendment was a reaction to
what had happened in England before the American Revolution. all right so I'm going to
take you back to London in the 16th century, 15th, 16th century. London was
a relatively small city, although still the biggest city in the world. And you
know this was an era of kings and knights and vassals and a very, almost
feudal society. In that society reputation was very important. This is
epitomized in the scene that I have a separate video
posted of a scene from Othello, Shakespeare's play in which one of the
characters talks about the importance of reputation in that society. Before you
watch the video, what happened in the prior scene was that there was a
military victory and they have a party or big celebration feast. One of
the general's lieutenant's gets drunk. The King gets upset -- Othello, who was
acting as the leader gets upset, and basically fires him for being drunk. And
this is the scene that immediately following that where he's asking his friend
Iago for advice. In true Shakespearean fashion Iago is actually plotting
against him, and so the recommendation that he gives him: go see Desdemona, who
was Othello's wife. Iago will then go to Othello and say, "Look, he's fooling around
with your wife." That's the Shakespearean part of it. But what's important as you
watch the video is the importance of reputation and how it is considered in that
era, in that day. So you might want to pause this and go watch that video or
you can continue and we'll look at more of the British law regarding reputation.
The the most important reputation of course was of the king. And if you said STOPPED HERE
something about ban about the king that arguably hurt his reputation or made him
look bad this is what happened to you you were brought to this room which was
in the houses of parliament called the Star Chamber it was called the Star
Chamber because of the pattern of the ceiling this is an example of it this is
a the Star Chamber Sartain were the star chamber I'm
talking about it doesn't exist anymore but this is a star chamber just give me
an idea you see little stars in the ceiling and that's what this room was
known for so you were brought to the star chamber and it was a court room but
we win recognize it as a court room in any modern sense
there was a judge but you were you were not allowed a lawyer you were not
allowed to bring witnesses you were not allowed to basically prove anything the
only real question if you were brought here was whether you have said what you
were alleged to have said and that was it basically everyone brought here was
found guilty and we'll talk about looking one particular case to give an
idea of what kind of punishments people taught for when they did come to this
room so william prynne was a he was you know he was a lawyer he was also a
highly religious man and he thought that theatre and drama were immoral that
acting and portraying someone else was immoral unfortunately for him well he so
he wrote a book called the players scourge or the actors tragedy in which
he inveighed against theater and saying it was immoral and corrupt etc
unfortunately for him the Queen of England was Henrietta Maria who had been
you know brought to marry the King of England in arranged marriage which is
what was done back then was perfectly for royalty and she had brought with her
the the French idea of theater and pantomime and acting and was doing shows
and plays at the court at the Royal Court of a--the at the palace william
prynne therefore was considered by him writing this book saying that such
activities were immoral to have insulted the queen and therefore of course
insulted the king he was brought to the star chamber and was sentenced I mean
there was really no trial like I said he was found guilty and
sentenced to being disbarred sent to the Tower of London which was the prison in
London back then and fined several hundred pounds which you know money
which is a fair amount of money back then and he was ordered they the other
punishment was they boxed his ears which meant cutting off the bottom portion
like the ear lobe of his ears so although that happened he went to the
tower alone he was a prisoner at the Tower of London he continued writing
however and said something l wrote something else that was considered an
insult to the king so it was once again report to the Star Chamber found guilty
and his further sentence was to cut off the remainder of his years or at least a
substantial part of them the point of this story is this was the punishment
this was what could happen to you or would happen to you more precisely if
you were accused of labelling the king because there really was no defense
against it you were accused you were brought to the star chamber you were
sentenced and the sentences were carried out that is legacy of libel in British
common law now the star chamber and after the Glorious Revolution Parliament
which had been dissolved on the the prior King was restored and held what
was called the Long Parliament and this is what this is meshing of and in 1641
the Parliament abolished the star chamber so that you know the abuses that
the star chamber had done finally were recognised and the star chamber itself
you know as an institution was abolished in 1641
that may be seen as a slow as a strike towards freedom of speech but only two
years later Parliament passed laws recording requiring licensing of the
press in other words in order to have a printing press you had to have a license
from the king from the government so there was still strict controls about
printing and what you would say about the government of the King but at least
the really abusive process of the Star Chamber had been abolished so these are
the types of libel that existed under British common law there was seditious
libel which is what we were just talking about which was against the crown
against the King there was blasphemy which was against them
he is the Church of England which because the Church of England is led by
the King is similar to seditious libel in a way there was obscenity they
doubled obscenity and more at any immorality or immoral speech as a kind
of libel and then there was what meat we more commonly think of his libel today
which is private libel one person saying something about another person that
hurts their reputation now seditious libel blasphemy these
other things would be dealt with in the star chamber or VISAA either King
directly private libel was dealt with in kind of book one private way which is by
dueling this is the famous duel between ours in their Hamilton and Aaron Burr
which was also the result of insults between the two of them also politics a
bunch of other things but this was the traditional way that you resolve the
libel case is you challenged the person the the even well depending on the
circumstances one would challenge another to a duel and it was part of the
honor to actually participate in the duel having
their own ways out but there were informal rules about it all I'm gonna do
an honor and procedure and things like that but this was the traditional way
that libel was dealt with in this era so it was a good thing that the courts kind
of took it over by the 17 I'm sorry by the 1660s it was well established that
you could bring a libel case in the courts in the court system and this was
reflected in the work of Sir William Blackstone William Blackstone was a
lawyer and a judge who wrote a series of books today we would call them
encyclopedia called commentaries on the law of England and the volume cover vol
4 talks about a number of personal injuries and he talks about libel in
this in this volume and this is a quote from what he writes about libel but the
important part to keep that to notice it says it is immaterial with respect to
the essence of a libel whether the matter of it be true or false what that
means is that if you libel someone if you make a statement about them that
hurts their reputation it doesn't matter under British law at the time whether
it's a true statement or a false statement in fact he later on says that
if it's true that makes it worse of a crime so this is a criminal this is a
criminal matter we're talking about that makes it worse of a crime because if
it's true it really hurts the person's reputation that was and that was the law
that was what the British law said so if you said something about someone that
hurt their reputation and they could they allege that have heard their
reputation and have to prove it at the time that was libel and you could be
held found guilty for libel and son life now this will change in the United
States and in the next video we'll talk about the sanger case which marked a
major threshold in the rejection of the British this libel law and the
development of a different concept of what speech should be a should be and
should not be allowed
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