Early 1800s Newspaperman William Hunter Was a British Soldier’s Son Who Built Early America
History Unplugged Podcast
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The History of the First Amendment
It's easy to think that constitutional protections come fully formed at the beginning of the United States. This isn't the case, there's the Bill of Rights, but then you have decades and then later centuries of constitutional case law as well. Newspapermen were regularly prosecuted for libel for making statements under the English common law. People are sort of groping in the dark, seeing how far they can go before they bump into something.
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