Jefferson: a free press will (eventually) overcome "false facts"
Michael Warren
![Michael Warren]()
Michael Warren
Hall of Fame Judge; co-Founder, Patriot Week; Constitutional Law Professor; Host and Producer at Patriot Lessons: American History & Civics Podcast; Business Court Judge
"the experiment [freedom of speech] is noted, to prove that, since truth and reason have maintained their ground against false opinions in league with false facts, the press, confined to truth, needs no other legal restraint; the public judgment will correct false reasonings and opinions, on a full hearing of all parties; and no other definite line can be drawn between the inestimable liberty of the press and its demoralizing licentiousness. If there be still improprieties which this rule would not restrain, its supplement must be sought run the censorship of public opinion." Thomas Jefferson, Second Inaugural Address, March 4, 1805.
Jefferson's admonition is wise counsel today. Both of his Inaugural Addresses are timeless and timely. Amazing how the wisdom of the Founding Fathers is still vibrant hundreds of years later.
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Senior Associate Librarian at University of Michigan-Flint
8 年"Would he if I told him, would Napoleon, would Napoleon ... Let me recite what history teaches. History teaches. " Rather inciteful poem. (Thank you, Gertrude Stein.) https://www.english.upenn.edu/~jenglish/Courses/Spring02/104/steinpicasso.html
Author, Self-Employed
8 年Nothing changes. With our obsession with the present I always find I can look to the past and see the same patterns, the same responses, the same human nature and know that 'this, too, will pass'. But why do we never learn???
Investor
8 年What happens when the media is the main source of fake news?
Owner at O'Ryan Research & Information
8 年Amusing, coming from Jefferson since he used James Thomson Callender to use 'false facts' in order to attack Adams.