Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. served on the U.S. Supreme Court when several laws were passed that restricted freedom of speech; this was a time when people spoke against the government and its choice to go to war.
For years, the Supreme Court did not defend people’s right to free speech. Then Holmes came up with a test that would shape how the First Amendment would protect people from facing criminal charges when they violated laws regarding what could be said and printed.
Holmes himself voted several times that certain things people said were not protected under the First Amendment. His views changed with the clear and present danger test in his opinion written on the Schenk v. United States case in 1919. After that, he began using the test to voice his opinions on who should be protected by the First Amendment. He eventually earned the nickname “The Great Dissenter” for several famous dissenting opinions he wrote against the majority of Supreme Court votes….