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Presentation
Talking Insurrection
University of West Florida
Seligman First Amendment Lecture Series, Lecture (Voices of Pensacola, Pensacola, FL, 02/15/2023)
Appears in Seligman First Amendment Lecture Series
Abstract
Dr. Graber is a regents professor of government at the University of Maryland. He is recognized as one of the leading scholars in the country on constitutional law and politics.
Section Three of the Fourteenth Amendment declares “No person shall . . . have any office . . . under the United States, or under any State,” who having previously taken an oath . . as an officer of the United States . . . to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies therein." Courts in the contemporary United States have disqualified under Section 3 persons who physically participated in the Jan. 6, 2021 insurrection, but have so far refrained from disqualifying persons who merely supported or encouraged that insurrection.
This talk explores the scope of Section Three disqualification for insurrectionary speech in light of the predominant understandings of free speech and insurrection at the time Section Three was ratified. Evidence suggests that during the Civil War and Reconstruction most legal authorities did not think the First Amendment protected speech encouraging or supporting an insurrection, and that persons who engaged in such speech were disqualified from present and future office under Section Three. The talk will conclude with a discussion of whether and to what extent we ought to be guided by Civil War understandings in a time when constitutional protections for free speech are much broader and the constitutional understanding of participating in an insurrection much narrower.
Details
- Title
- Talking Insurrection
- Resource Type
- Presentation
- Event
- Seligman First Amendment Lecture Series, Lecture (Voices of Pensacola, Pensacola, FL, 02/15/2023)
- Contributors
- Della A Scott-Ireton (Contributor) - University of West Florida, College of Arts, Social Sciences, and HumanitiesDavid P Ramsey (Contributor) - University of West Florida, College of Arts, Social Sciences, and HumanitiesEsploro Admin (General Contributor)
- Publisher
- University of West Florida
- Format
- mp4
- Grant note
- This lecture series is made possible by a generous gift from the Jane G. and Fred K. Seligman Endowment. As a Jewish émigré from Nazi Germany in 1934, Fred Seligman cherished the freedoms protected by the First Amendment of the United States Constitution.
- Copyright
- © The University of West Florida, 2023. All Rights Reserved. Permission granted to the University of West Florida Libraries by the author to digitize and/or display this information for non-profit research and educational purposes. Any reuse of this item in excess of fair use or other copyright exemptions requires the permission of the copyright holder.
- Identifiers
- 99380188295606600
- Academic Unit
- Reubin O'D. Askew Department of Government ; FPAN; College of Arts, Social Sciences, and Humanities
- Language
- English