Gitlow v. New York

The Court upheld a criminal anarchy conviction but held for the first time that the First Amendment applies to the states through the Fourteenth Amendment.

Overview

Benjamin Gitlow, a socialist assemblyman, was convicted for publishing a manifesto advocating revolutionary socialism. The Court affirmed, finding that states may punish advocacy of violent overthrow, but the opinion declared that freedom of speech and of the press are among the fundamental personal rights protected by the due process clause from impairment by the states. Incorporation of the First Amendment began with Gitlow and expanded over the following decades until the entire Bill of Rights applied to the states. Justice Holmes's dissent objected that the manifesto presented no clear danger, foreshadowing later doctrine.