Mr. Justice Holmes

delivered the opinion of the court.

This is an indictment in three counts. The first charges a conspiracy to violate the Espionage Act of June 15, 1917, c. 30, § 3, 40 Stat. 217, 219, by causing and attempt *49 ing to cause insubordination, &c., in the military and nával forces of the United States, and to obstruct the recruiting and enlistment service of the United States, when the United States was at war with the German Empire, to-wit, that the defendants wilfully conspired to have printed and circulated to men who had been called and accepted for military.service under the Act of May 18, 1917, a document set forth and alleged to be calculated to cause such insubordination and obstruction. The count alleges overt acts in pursuance of the conspiracy, ending in the distribution of tlie document set forth. The second count alleges a conspiracy to commit an offence against the United States, to-wit, to use the mails for the transr mission of matter declared to be non-mailable by Title XII, § 2 of the Act of June 15, 1917, to-wit, the above mentioned document, with an averment of the same overt acts. The third count charges an unlawful use of the mails for the transmission of the same matter and otherwise as above. The defendants were found guilty on áll the counts. They set up the First Amendment to the Constitution forbidding Congress to make any law abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press, and bringing the case here on that ground have argued some other points also of which we must dispose.

It is argued' that, the evidence, if admissible, was not sufficient to prove that the defendant Schenck was concerned in sending the documents. According to the testimony Schenck said he was general secretary of the Socialist party and had charge of the Socialist headquarters from which the documents were sent. He identified a book found there as the minutes of the Executive Committee of the party. The book showed a resolution of August 13, 1917, that 15,000 leaflets should be printe4 on the other side of one of them in use, to be mailed to men who had passed exemption boards, and for distribu tion. Schenck personally attended to the printing, Qrj . *50 August 20 the general secretary’s report said “Obtained new leaflets from printer and started work addressing envelopes” &c.; and there was a resolve that Comrade Schenck be allowed $125 for sending leaflets through the mail. He said that he had about fifteen or sixteen thousand printed.. There were files of the circular in question in the inner office which he said were printed on the other side of the one sided circular and were there for distribution. Other copies were proved to have been sent through the mails to drafted men. Without going into confirmatory details that were proved, no reasonable man could doubt that the defendant Schenck was largely instrumental in sending the circulars about. As to the defendant Baer there was evidence that she was a member of the Executive Board and that the minutes of its transactions were hers. The argument as to the sufficiency of the evidence that the defendants conspired, to send the- documents only impairs the seriousness of the real defence.

It is objected that the documentary evidence was not admissible because obtained upon a search warrant, valid so far as appears. The contrary is established. Adams v. New York, 192 U. S. 585; Weeks v. United States, 232 U. S. 383, 395, 396. The search warrant did not issue against the defendant but against the Socialist headquarters at 1326 Arch Street and it would seem that the documents technically were not even in the defendants’ possession. See Johnson v. United States, 228 U. S. 457. Notwithstanding some protest in argument the notion that evidence even directly proceeding from the defendant in a criminal proceeding- is excluded in all pases by the Fifth Amendment is plainly unsound. Holt v. United States, 218 U. S. 245, 252, 253.

The document in question upon its first printed side recited the first section of the Thirteenth Amendment, sáid that the idea embodied in it was violated by the Conscription Act and that a conscript is little better.than a *51 convict. In impassioned language it intimated.that conscription was despotism in its worst form arid a monstrous wrong against humanity in the interest of Wall Street's chosen few. It said “Do not submit to intimidation,” but in form at least confined itself to peaceful measures such as a petition for the repeal of. the act. The other and later printed side of the sheet was headed “Assert Your Rights.” It stated reasons for alleging that any one violated the Constitution when he refused to recognize “your right to assert your opposition to the draft,” and went on “If you do not assert and support your rights, you are helping to deny or disparage rights which it is the solemn duty of all citizens and residents of the United States to retain.” It described the arguments on the other side as coming from cunning politicians and a mercenary capitalist press, and even silent consent to the. conscription law as helping to support an infamous conspiracy. It denied the power to send our citizens away to foreign shores to shoot up the. people of other lands, and added that words could not express the condemnation such cold-blooded ruthlessness deserves, &c., &c., winding up “You must do your share to maintain, support and uphold the rights of the people of this country.” Of course" the document would not have been sent unless it had been intended to have some effect, and we do not see what effect j it could be expected to have upon persons subject to the) draft except to influence them to obstruct the carrying of it out. The defendants do not. deny that the jury might find against them on this point.

But it is said, suppose that that was the tendency of this circular, it is protected by the First Amendment to the Constitution. Two of the strongest expressions are said to be quoted respectively from well-known public men. It well may be that the prohibition of laws abridging the freedom of speech is not confined to previous restraints, although to prevent them may have been the *52 plain purpose, as intimated in Patterson v. Colorado, 205 U. S. 454, 462. We admit that in many places and in ordinary times the defendants in saying all that was said in the circular would have been within their constitutional rights. But the character of every act depends upon the circumstances in which it is done. Aikens v. Wisconsin, 195 U. S. 194, 205, 206. The most stringent protection of free speech would not protect a man in falsely shouting fire in a theatre and causing a panic. It does not even protect a man from an injunction against uttering words that may have all the effect of force. Gompers v. Bucks Stove & Range Co., 221 U. S. 418, 439. The question in every case is whether the words used are used in such circumstances and are of such a nature as to. create a clear and present danger that they will bring about the substantive evils that Congress has a right to prevent. It is a question of proximity and degree. When’ a nation is at war many things that might be said in time of peace are such a hindrance to its effort that their utterance will not be endured so long as men fight and that no Court could regard them as protected by any constitutional right. It' seems to be admitted that if an actual obstruction of the recruiting service were proved, liability for words that produced that effect might be enforced. The statute of 1917 in § 4 punishes conspiracies to obstruct as well as actual obstruction. If the act, (speaking, or circulating a paper,) its tendency and the intent with which it is done áre the same, we perceive no ground for saying that success' alone warrants making the act a crime. Goldman v. United States, 245 U. S. 474, 477. Indeed that case might be said to dispose of the present contention if the precedent covers all media concludendi. But as the right to free speech was not referred to specially, we have thought fit to ádd a few words.

It was' not argued that a conspiracy to obstruct the draft was neb-within-uñe words of the Act of 1917. The *53 words are “obstruct the recruiting o.r enlistment service,” and it might be suggested that they refer only to making it hard to get volunteers. Recruiting heretofore usually having been accomplished by getting volunteers the word is apt to call up that method only in our minds. But recruiting is gaining fresh supplies for the forces, as well by draft as otherwise. It is put. as an alternative to enlistment or voluntary enrollment in this act. The fact that the Act of 1917 was enlarged by the amending Act of May 10, 1918, c. 75, 40 Stat. 553, of course, does not affect the present indictment and would not, even if the former act had been repealed. Rev. Stats., § 13.

Judgments affirmed.

Mr. Justice Holmes

delivered the opinion of the court.

This is an indictment under the Espionage Act of June 15, 1917, c. 30, § 3, 40 Stat. 217, 219, as amended by the Act of May 16, 1918, c. 75, § 1, 40 Stat. 553. It has been cut down to two counts, originally the third and fourth. The former of these alleges that on or about June 16,1918, at Canton, Ohio, the defendant caused and incited and attempted to cause and. incite insubordination, disloyalty, mutiny and refusal of duty in the military and naval forces of the United States and with intent so to do delivered, to ah assembly of people, a public speech, set forth. The fourth count alleges that he obstructed and attempted. to obstruct the recruiting and enlistment service of the United States and to that end and with that intent delivered the same speech, again set forth. There was a demurrer to the indictment on the ground that the statute is unconstitutional as interfering with free speech, contrary to the First Amendment, and to the several counts as insufficiently stating the supposed offence. This was overruled, subject to exception. There were other exceptions to the admission of evidence with which we shall deal. The defendant was found guilty and was sentenced to ten years’ imprisonment on each of the two counts, the punishment to run concurrently on both.

The main theme of the speech was socialism, its growth, and a prophecy of its ultimate success. With that we havé nothing to do, but if a part or the manifest intent of the *213 more general utterances was to encourage those present to obstruct the recruiting service and if in passages- such encouragement was directly given, the immunity of the general theme may not be enough to protect the speech. The speaker began by saying that he had just returned from a visit to .the workhouse in the neighborhood where three of their most loyal comrades were paying the penalty for their devotion to the working class — these being Wagenknecht, Baker and Ruthenberg, who had been convicted of aiding and abetting another in failing to register for the draft. Ruthenberg v. United States, 245 U. S. 480. He said that he had to be prudent and might'' not be able to say all that he thought, thus intimating to his hearers that they might infer that he meant more, but he did say that those persons were paying the penalty for standing erect and for seeking to pave the way to better conditions for all mankind. Later he added further eulogies and said that he was proud of them. He then/ expressed opposition to Prussian militarism in a way that naturally might have been thought to be intended to include the mode of proceeding in the United States.

After considerable discourse that it is unnecessary to follow, he took up the case of Kate Richards O’Hare, convicted of obstructing the enlistment service, praised her for her loyalty to socialism and otherwise, and said that she was convicted on false testimony, under a ruling that would seem incredible to him if he had not had some experience with a Federal Court. We mention this passage simply for its connection with evidence put in at the trial. The. defendant spoke of other cases, and then, after dealing with Russia, said that the master class has always declared the war and the subject class has always fought the battles that the subject class has hád nothing to gain and all to lose, including their lives; that the. working class, who furnish the corpses, have never yet had a voice in declaring war and have never -yet had a voice in deciar *214 ing peace.. “You have your lives to lose; you certainly ought to have the right to declare war if you consider a war necessary.”. The defendant next mentioned Rose Pastor Stokes, convicted of attempting to cause insubordination and refusal of . duty in the military forces of the United States and obstructing the recruiting service. He said that she went out to . render her service to the cause, in this day of crises, and they sent her to the penitentiary for ten years; that she had said no more than the speaker had said that afternoon; that if she was guilty so was he,, and that he would not be cowardly enough to plead his innocence; but that her'message that opened the eyes of the people must be suppressed, and so, after a mock trial before a packed jury and a corporation tool on the bench, she was sent to the penitentiary for ten years.

There followed personal experiences and illustrations of the growth of socialism, a glorification of minorities, and a prophecy of the success of the international socialist crusade, with the interjection that “you need to know that you áre fit for something better than slavery and cannon fodder.” The rest of the discourse had only the indirect though not necessarily ineffective bearing on the offences alleged that is to be found in the usual contrasts between capitalists and laboring men, sneers at the advice to cultivate war gardens, attribution to plutocrats of the high price of coal, &c., with the implication running through it all that the working men are not concerned in the war, and a final exhortation “Don’t worry about the charge of treason to your masters; but be concerned about the treason that involves yourselves.”. The defendant addressed the jury himself, and while contending that his speech did not warrant the charges said “I have been accused of obstructing the war. I admit it. Gentlemen, I abhor war. I would oppose the war if I stood alone.” The statement was not necessary to warrant the jury in finding that one purpose of the speech, whether incidental *215 or not does not matter, was to oppose not only war in general but this war, and that the opposition was so expressed that its natural and intended effect would be to obstruct recruiting. If that was intended and if, in all the 'circumstances, that would be its probable effect, it would not be protected by reason of its being part of a general program and expressions of a general and conscientious belief.

The chief defences upon which the defendant seemed willing to rely were the denial that we have dealt with and that based upon the First Amendment to the Constitution, disposed of in Schenck v. United States, ante, 47. His counsel questioned the sufficiency of the indictment. It is sufficient in form. Frohwerk v. United States, ante, 204. The most important question that remains is raised by the admission in evidence of the record of the conviction of Ruthenberg, Wagenknecht and Baker, Rose Pastér Stokes, and Kate Richards O’Hare. The defendant purported to understand the grounds on which these persons were imprisoned and it was proper to show what those grounds were in order to show what he was talking about, to explain the true import of his expression of sympathy and to throw light on the intent of the address, so far as the present matter is concerned.

There was introduced also an “Anti-war Proclamation and Prograni” adopted at' St. Louis in April, 1917, coupled with testimony that about an hour before his speech the defendant had stated that he approved of that platform in spirit and in substance. The defendant referred to it in his address to the jury, seemingly with satisfaction and willingness that it should be considered in evidence. But his. counsel objected and has argued against its admissibility, at some length. This document contained the usual suggestion that capitalism was the cause of the war and that our entrance into it “was instigated by the predatory capitalists in the United States.’’ vit alleged that the war *216 of the United States against Germany could not “be justified even on the plea that it is a war in defence of American rights or American 'honor.’” It said “We brand the declaration of war by our Government as a crime against the people of the United States and against the nations of the world. In all modem history there has been no war móre unjustifiable than the war in which we are about to engage.” Its first recommendation was, “continuous, active, and public opposition to the war, through demonstrations, mass petitions, and all other means within our power.” Evidence that the defendant accepted this view and this declaration of his duties at the time that he made his speech is evidence that if in that speech he used words tending to obstruct the recruiting service he meant that they should' have that effect. The principle is too well established and too manifestly good sense to need citation of the books. We should add that the jury were most carefully instructed that they could not find the defendant guilty for advocacy of any of his opinions unless the words used had as their natural' tendency and reasonably probable effect to obstruct the recruiting service, &c., and unless the defendant had the specific intent to do so in his mind.

Without going into further particulars we are of opinion that the verdict on the fourth count, for obstructing and attempting to obstruct the recruiting service of the United States, must be sustained. Therefore it is less important to consider whether that upon the third count, for causing and attempting to causé insubordination, &c., in the military and naval forces, is equally impregnable. The jury were instructed that for the purposes of the statute the persons designated by the Act of May 18, 1917, registered and enrolled under it, and thus subject to be called into the active service, were a part of the military forces of the United States. The Government presents a strong argument from the history of the statutes that the instruction *217 was correct and in accordance with established legislative usage. We see no sufficient reason for differing from the conclusion but think it unnecessary to discuss the question in detail.

Judgment affirmed.

*654 Mr. Justice Sanford

delivered the opinion of the Court.

Benjamin Gitlow was indicted in the Supreme Court New York, with three others, for the statutory crime of criminal anarchy. New York Penal Laws, §§ 160, 161. 1 He was separately tried, convicted, and sentenced to imprisonment. The judgment was affirmed by the Appellate Division and by the Court of Appeals. 195 App. Div. 773; 234 N. Y. 132 and 539. The case is here on writ of error to the Supreme Court, to which the record was remitted. 260 U. S. 703.

The contention here is that the statute, by its terms and as applied in this case, is repugnant to the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Its material provisions are:

Ҥ 160. Criminal-anarchy defined. Criminal anarchy is the doctrine that organized government should be overthrown by force or violence, or by assassination of the executive head or of any of- the executive officials of government, or by any unlawful means. The advocacy of such doctrine either by word of mouth or writing is a felony.

“ § 161. Advocacy of criminal aiiarchy. Any person who:

“ 1. By word of'mouth or writing advocates, advises or teaches the duty, necessity or propriety of overthrowing or overturning organized government by force or. violence, or by assassination of the executive head or of any of the executive officials of government, or by any unlawful means; or,

“2: Prints, publishes, edits, issues or knowingly circulates, sells, distributes or publicly displays any book, paper, document, or written or printed matter in any *655 form, containing or advocating, advising or teaching the doctrine that organized government should be overthrown by force, violence or any unlawful means .. : . ,

“ Is guilty of a felony and punishable ” by imprisonment or fine, or both. '

The indictment was in two' counts. The first charged that the defendant had advocated, advised and taught the duty, necessity and propriety of overthrowing and overturning organized government by force, violence and unlawful means, by certain writings therein set forth entitled “The Left Wing Manifesto”; thé second that he had printed, published and knowingly circulated and distributed a certain paper called “ The Revolutionary Agé,” containing the writings set forth in the first count advocating, advising and teaching the doctrine that organized government should be overthrown by force, violence and unlawful means.

The following facts were established on the trial by undisputed evidence and admissions: The defendant is a member of the Left Wing Section of the Socialist Party, a dissenting branch or faction of that party formed in opposition to its dominant policy of “ moderate Socialism.” Membership in both is- open to aliens as well as citizens. The Left Wing Section was organized nationally at a conference in New York City in June, 1919, attended by ninety delegates from twenty different States: The conference elected a National Council, of which thé defendant was a member, and left to it-the adoption of a “Manifesto.” This was published in The Revolutionary Age, the official organ of the. Left Wing. The defendant was on the board of managers of the paper and was its business, manager. Hé arranged for the printing of the paper and took to the printer the manuscript of- the first issue which contained the Left Wing Manifesto, and also a Communist Program and a Program of the Left- Wing that had been adopted by the conference. Sixteen thousand *656 copies were printed, which were delivered at the premises in New York City used as the office of the Revolutionary Age and the headquarters of the Left Wing, and occupied by the defendant and other officials. These copies were paid for by the defendant, as business manager of the paper. Employees at this office wrapped and mailed out copies of the paper under the defendant’s direction; and copies were sold from this office. It was admitted that the defendant signed a card subscribing to the Manifesto and Program of the Left Wing, which all applicants were required to sign before being admitted to membership; that he went to different parts qf the State to speak to branches of the Socialist Party about the principles of the Left Wing and advocated their adoption; and that he was responsible for the Manifesto as it appeared, that “he knew of the publication, in a general way and he knew of its publication afterwards, and is responsible for its circulation.”

There was no evidence of any effect resulting from the publication and circulation of the Manifesto.

No witnesses were offered in behalf of the defendant.

Extracts from the Manifesto are set forth in the margin. 2 Coupled with a review of the rise of Socialism, it *657 condemned the dominant “ moderate Socialism ” for its recognition of the necessity of the democratic parliamentary state;.repudiated its policy of introducing Socialism by legislative measures; and advocated, in plain and unequivocal language, the necessity of accomplishing the “ Communist Revolution ” by a militant and “ revolutionary Socialism ”, based on “ the class struggle ” and mo *658 bilizing the “ power of the proletariat in action,” through mass industrial revolts developing into, mass political strikes and “ revolutionary mass action ”, for the purpose of conquering and destroying the parliamentary state and establishing in its place, through a “ revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat ”,' the system of Communist Socialism. The then recent strikes in Seattle and Winnipeg 3 were cited as instances of a development already verging on revolutionary action ánd suggestive of prole *659 tarian dictatorship, in which the strike-workers were “ trying to usurp the functions of municipal government ”; and revolutionary Socialism, it was urged, must use these mass industrial revolts to broaden the strike, make it 'general and militant, and develop it into mass political strikes and revolutionary mass action for the annihilation of the parliamentary state.

At the outset of the trial the defendant’s counsel objected to the introduction of any evidence under the *660 indictment on the grounds that, as a matter of law,' the Manifesto “is not in contravention of the statute,” and that “ the statute is in contravention of ” the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. This objection was denied. They also moved, at the close of the evidence, to dismiss the indictment and direct an acquittal “ on the grounds stated in the first objection to evidence ”, *661 .and again on the grounds that “ the indictment does not .charge an offense” and the evidence “does not show an offense.” These motion's were also dénied.

The court, among other things, charged the jury, in substance,- that they must determine what was the intent, purpose and fair meaning of the Manifesto; that its words must be taken in their ordinary meaning, as they would be understood by people whom it might reach; that a mere statement or analysis of social and economic facts and historical incidents, in the nature of an essay, accompanied by prophecy as to the future course of-events, but with no teaching, advice or advocacy of action, would not constitute the advocacy, advice or teaching of a doctrine for the overthrow of government within the meaning of the statute; that a mere statement that unlawful acts might accomplish such a purpose would be insufficient, unless there was a teaching, advising and advocacy of employing such unlawful acts for the purpose of overthrowing government; and that if the jury had a reason-, able doubt that the Manifesto did teach, advocate or advise the duty, necessity or propriety of using unlawful means for the overthrowing of organized government, the defendant was entitled to an acquittal.

The defendant’s counsel submitted two requests to charge which embodied in substance the statement that to constitute criminal anarchy within the meaning of the statute it was necessary that the language used or published should advocate, teach or advise the duty, necessity or propriety of doing “some definite or immediate apt or acts ” of force, violence or unlawfulness directed .toward the overthrowing of organized government. These were denied further than had been charged; Two other requests to charge embodied in substance the statement that to- constitute guilt the language used or published must be “reasonably and ordinarily calculated to incite certain persons” to acts of force, violence.or unlawfulness, *662 with the object of overthrowing organized government. These were also denied.

The Appellate Division, after setting forth extracts from the Manifesto and referring to the- Left Wing and Communist Programs published in the same issue of the Revolutionary Age, said: 4 “It is perfectly plain that the plan and purpose advocated .... contemplate the overthrow and destruction of the governments of the United States and of all the States, not by the free action of the majority of the . people through the ballot box in electing representatives to authorize a change of government by amending or changing the Constitution, . . . but by immediately organizing the industrial proletariat into militant Socialist unions and at the earliest opportunity through mass strike and force and violence, if necessary, compelling the government to cease to function, and then through a proletarian dictatorship, taking charge of and appropriating'all property and. administering it and governing through such dictatorship until such time as the proletariat is permitted to. administer and govern it. . . . The articles in question are .not a discussion of ideas and theories. They advocate a doctrine deliberately determined upon and planned for militantly disseminating a propaganda advocating that it is the. duty and necessity of the proletariat engaged in industrial pursuits’to organize to such.an extent that, by massed strike, th'e wheels of government may ultimately be stopped and the government overthrown . . .”

The Court of Appeals held that the Manifesto “ advocated the overthrow of this government by violence, or by unlawful means.” 5 In.one of the opinions represent *663 ing the views of a majority of the court, 6 it was said: “It will be seen . . . that this defendant through the manifesto ... advocated the destruction of the state and the establishment of the dictatorship of the proletariat: . . . To advocate . . . the commission of this conspiracy or action by mass strike whereby government is crippled, the administration of justice paralyzed, and the health, morals and welfare of a community endangered, and this for the purpose of bringing about a revolution in the state, is to- advocate the overthrow of organized government by unlawful means.” In the other 7 it was said: “As we read this manifesto . . . we feel entirely. clear that the jury were justified in rejecting the, view that it was a mere academic, and harmless discussion of the advantages of communism and advanced socialism” and “in regarding it as a justification and advocacy of action by one class which would destroy the rights of all other classes and overthrow the state itself by use of revolutionary mass strikes. It is true that there is no advocacy in specific terms of the use of . . . force or violence. There was no need to be. Some things are so commonly incident to others that they do not need to be mentioned when the underlying purpose is described.”

And both the Appellate Division and the Court of Appeals held the statute constitutional.

The specification of the errors relied on relates solely to the specific rulings of the trial court in the matters hereinbefore set out. 8 The correctness of the verdict is not *664 questioned, as the case was submitted to the jury. The sole contention here is, essentially, that as there was no evidence of any concrete result flowing from the publication of the Manifesto or of circumstances showing the, likelihood of such result, the statute as construed and applied by the trial court penalizes the mere utterance, as such, of “ doctrine ” having no quality of incitement, without regard either to the circumstances of its utterance or to the likelihood of unlawful sequences; and that, as the exercise of the right of free expression with relation to government is only punishable “ in circumstances involving likelihood of substantive evil,” the statute contravenes the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The argument in support of this contention rests primarily upon the following propositions: 1st, That the “ liberty ” protected by the Fourteenth Amendment includes the liberty of speech and of the press; and 2nd, That while liberty of expression “ is not absolute,” it may be restrained “ only in circumstances where its exercise bears a causal relation with some substantive evil, consummated, attempted or likely,” and as the statute “ takes no account of circumstances,” it unduly restrains this liberty and is therefore unconstitutional

The precise question presented, and the only question which we can consider under this writ of error, then is, whether the statute, as construed and applied in this case by the state courts, deprived the defendant of his liberty of expression in violation of the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.

The statute does not penalize the utterance or publication of abstract “ doctrine ” or academic discussion having no quality of incitement to any concrete action. It is not aimed against mere historical or philosophical essays. It does not restrain the advocacy of changes in the form of government by constitutional and lawful means. What it prohibits is language advocating, advising or teaching *665 the overthrow of organized government by unlawful means. .These words imply urging to action. Advocacy is defined in the Century Dictionary as: “1. The act of pleading for, supporting, or recommending; active espousal.” It is not the abstract “ doctrine ” of overthrowing organized government by unlawful means which is denounced by the statute, but the advocacy of action for the accomplishment of that purpose. It was so construed and applied by the trial judge, who specifically charged the jury that: “A mere grouping of historical events and a prophetic deduction from them would neither constitute advocacy, advice or teaching of a doctrine for the overthrow of government by force, violence or unlawful means. [And] if it were a mere essay on the subject,’ as suggested by counsel, based upon deductions from alleged historical events, with no teaching, advice or advocacy of action, it would not constitute a violation of the statute. .. . .”

The Manifesto, plainly, is neither the statement of abstract doctrine nor, as suggested by counsel, mere prediction that industrial disturbances and revolutionary mass strikes will result spontanéously in an inevitable process, of evolution in the economic system. It advocates and urges in fervent language mass'action which shall progressively foment industrial disturbances and through political mass strikes and revolutionary mass action overthrow and destroy organized parliamentary government. It concludes with a call to action in these words:- “ The proletariat revolution and the Communist reconstruction of society — the struggle for these — is now indispensable. . . . The Com'munist International calls the proletariat of the world to the final struggle!”' This is not the expression of philosophical abstraction, thf mere prediction of future events; it' is* the language of direct incitement. /

The means advocated for bringing about the destruction of organized parliamentary government, namely, mass in *666 dustrial revolts usurping the functions of municipal government, political mass strikes directed against the parliamentary state, and revolutionary mass action for its final destruction, necessarily imply the use of force and violence, and in their essential nature are inherently unlawful in a constitutional government of law and order. That the jury were warranted in finding that the Manifesto' advocated not merely the abstract doctrine of overthrowing organized government by force, violence and unlawful means, but action to that end, is clear.

For present purposes we may and do assume that freedom of speech and of the press — which are protected by the First Amendment from abridgment by Congress— are among the fundamental personal rights and “ liberties ” protected by the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment from impairment by the States. We do not regard the incidental statement in Prudential Ins. Co. v. Cheek, 259 U. S. 530, 543, that the Fourteenth Amendment imposes no' restrictions on the States concerning freedom of speech, as determinative of this question. 9

It is a fundamental principle, long established, that the freedom of speech and of the press which is secured by the Constitution, does not confer an absolute right to speak or publish, without responsibility, whatever one may choose, or an unrestricted and unbridled license that gives immunity for every possible use of language and prevents the punishment of those who abuse this freedom. 2 Story on the Constitution, 5th ed., § 1580, p. 634; Robertson v. Baldwin, 165 U. S. 275, 281; Patterson v. Colorado, 205 U. S. 454, 462; Fox v. Washington, 236 *667 U. S. 273, 276; Schenck v. United States, 249 U. S. 47, 52; Frohwerk v. United States, 249 U. S. 204, 206; Debs v. United States, 249 U. S. 211, 213; Schaefer v. United States, 251 U. S. 466, 474; Gilbert v. Minnesota, 254 U. S. 325, 332; Warren v. United States, (C. C. A.) 183 Fed. 718, 721. Reasonably limited, it was said by Story in the passage cited, this freedom is an inestimable privilege in a free government; without such limitation, it-might become the scourge of the republic.

That a State in the exercise of its police power may punish those who abuse this freedom by utterances inimical to the public welfare, tending to corrupt public morals, incite to crime, or disturb the public peace, is not open tp question. Robertson v. Baldwin, supra, p. 281; Patterson v. Colorado, supra, p. 462; Fox v. Washington, supra, p. 277; Gilbert v. Minnesota, supra, p. 339; People v. Most, 171 N. Y. 423, 431; State v. Holm, 139 Minn. 267, 275; State v. Hennessy, 114 Wash. 351, 359; State v. Boyd, 86 N. J. L. 75, 79; State v. McKee, 73 Conn. 18, 27. Thus it was held by this Court in the Fox Case, that a State may punish publications advocating and encouraging .a breach of its criminal laws;, and, in the Gilbert Case, that a State may punish-utterances teaching or advocating that its citizens should not assist the United States in prosecuting or carrying on war with its public enemies.

And, for yet more imperative reasons, a State may punish utterances endangering the foundations of organized government and threatening its overthrow by unlawful means. These imperil its own existence as a constitutional State. Freedom of speech and press, said Story (supra) does not protect disturbances to the public peace or the attempt to subvert the government. It does not protect publications or teachings which tend to subvert or imperil the government or to impede or hinder it in the performance of its governmental duties. State v. *668 Holm, supra, p. 275. It does not protect publications, prompting the overthrow of government by force; the punishment of those who publish articles which tend to destroy organized society being essential to the security of freedom and the stability of the State. People v. Most, supra, pp. 431, 432. And a State may penalize utterances which openly advocate the overthrow of the representative and constitutional form of government of the United States and the several States, by violence or other unlawful means. People v. Lloyd, 304 Ill. 23, 34. See also, State v. Tachin, 92 N. J. L. 269, 274; and People v. Steelik, 187 Cal. 361, 375. In short this freedom does not deprive a State of the primary and essential right of self preservation;-which, so long as human governments endure, they cannot be denied. Turner v. Williams, 194 U. S. 279, 294. In Toledo Newspaper Co. v. United States, 247 U. S. 402, 419, it was said: “The safeguarding and fructification of free and constitutional institutions is the very basis and mainstay upon which the freedom of the press rests, and that freedom, therefore, does not .and cannot be held to include the right virtually, to destroy such institutions.”

By enacting the present statute the State has determined, through its legislative body, that utterances advocating the overthrow of organized government by force, violence and unlawful means, are so inimical to the general welfare and involve such danger of substantive evil that they may be penalized in the exercise of its police power. That determination must be given great weight. Every presumption is to be indulged in favor of the validity of the statute. Mugler v. Kansas, 123 U. S. 623, 661. And the case is to be considered “in the light of the principle that the State is primarily the judge of regulations required in the interest of public safety and welfare; ” and that its police “ statutes may only be declared unconstitutional where they aré arbitrary or unreason *669 able attempts to exercise authority vested in the State in the public interest.” Great Northern Ry. v. Clara City, 246 U. S. 434, 439. That utterances inciting to the overthrow of organized government by unlawful means, present a sufficient danger of .substantive evil to bring their punishment within the range of legislative discretion, is clear. Such utterances, by their very nature, involve danger to the public peace and to the security of the State. They threaten breaches of the peace and ultimate revolution. And the immediate danger is none the less real and substantial, because the effect of a given utterance cannot be accurately foreseen. The State cannot reasonably be required to measure the danger from every such utterance in the nice balance of a jeweler’s scale. A single revolutionary spark may kindle a fire that, smouldering for a time, may burst into a sweeping and destructive conflagration. It cannot be said that the State is acting arbitrarily or unreasonably when in the exercise of its judgment as to the measures necessary to protect the public peace and safety, it seeks to extinguish the spark without waiting until it has enkindled the flame or blazed into the conflagration. It cannot reasonably be required to .defer the adoption of measures for its own peace and safety until the revolutionary utterances lead to actual disturbances of the public peace or imminent and immediate danger of its own destruction; but it may, in the exercise of its judgment, suppress the threatened danger in its incipiency. In People v. Lloyd, supra, p. 35, it was aptly said: “ Manifestly, the legislature has authority to forbid the advocacy of a doctrine designed and intended to overthrow the government without waiting until there is a present and imminent danger of the success of the plan advocated. If the State were compelled to wait until the apprehended danger became certain, then its right to protect itself would come into being simultaneously with the overthrow of the government, when there *670 would be neither' prosecuting officers nor courts for the enforcement of the law.”

We cannot hold that the present statute is an arbitrary or unreasonable exercise of the police power of the State unwarrantably, infringing the freedom of speech or press; and we must and do sustain its constitutionality.

This being so it may be applied to every utterance— not too trivial to be beneath the notice of the. law — which is of such a character and used with such intent and purpose as to bring it within the prohibition of the statute. This principle is illustrated in Fox v. Washington, supra, p. 277; Abrams v. United States, 250 U. S. 616, 624; Schaefer v. United States, supra, pp. 479, 480; Pierce v. United States, 252 U. S. 239, 250, 251; 10 and Gilbert v. Minnesota, supra, p. 333. In other words, when the legislative body has determined generally, in the constitutional exercise of its discretion, that utterances of a certain kind involve such danger of substantive evil that they' may be punished, the question whether any specific utterance coming within the prohibited class is likely, in and of itself, to bring about the substantive evil, is not open to consideration. It is sufficient that the statute itself be constitutional and that the use of the language comes within its prohibition.

It is clear that the question in such cases is entirely different from that involved, in those cases where the statute merely prohibits certain acts involving the danger of substantive evil, without any reference to language itself, ,and it is sought to apply its provisions to language *671 used by the defendant for the purpose of bringing about the prohibited results. There, if it be contended that the statute cannot be applied to the language .used by the defendant because of its protection by.the freedom of speech or press, it must necessarily be found, as an original question, without any previous determination by the legislative body, whether the specific language used involved such likelihood of bringing about the substantive evil as to deprive it of the constitutional protection. In such cases it has been held that the general provisions of the. statute may be constitutionally applied to the specific utterance of the defendant if its natural tendency and probable effect was to bring about the substantive evil which the legislative body might prevent. Schenck v. United States, supra, p. 51; Debs v. United States, supra, pp. 215, 216. And the general statement in the Schenck Case (p. 52) that the“ question in every case is whether the words are used in such circumstances and are of such a nature as to create a clear and present danger that they will bring about the substantive evils,” — upon which great reliance is placed in the defendant’s argument — was manifestly intended, as shown by the context, to apply only in cases of this class, and has no application to those like the present, where the legislative body itself has previously determined the danger of substantive evil arising from utterances of a specified character.

The defendant’s brief does not separately discuss any of the rulings of the trial court. It is only necessary to say that, applying the general rules already stated, we find that none of them involved any invasion of the constitutional rights of the defendant. It was not necessary, within the meaning of the statute, that the defendant should have advocated “ some definite or immediate act or acts ” of force, violence or unlawfulness. It was sufficient if such acts were advocated in general terms; and it was not essential that their immediate execution should *672 have been advocated. Nor was it nécessary that the language should have been “reasonably and ordinarily calculated to incite certain persons ” to acts of force, violence or unlawfulness. The advocacy need not be addressed to specific persons. Thus, the publication and circulation of a newspaper article may be an encouragement or endeavor to persuade to murder, although not addressed to any person in particular. Queen v. Most, L. R., 7 Q, B. D. 244.

We need not enter upon a consideration of the English common law rule of seditious libel or the Federal Sedition Act of 1798, to Which reference is made in the defendant’s brief. These are so unlike the present statute, that we think the decisions under them cast no helpful light upon the questions here.

And finding, for the reasons stated, that the statute is not in itself unconstitutional, and that it has not been applied in the present case in derogation of any constitutional right, the judgment of the Court of Appeals is

Affirmed.

Mr. Justice Brandéis and I are of opinion that this judgment should be reversed. The general principle of free speech, it seems to me, must be taken to be included in the Fourteenth Amendment, in view of the scope that has been given to the word ‘ liberty ’. as there used, although perhaps it may be accepted with a somewhat larger latitude of interpretation than is allowed to Congress by the sweeping language that governs or ought to govern the laws of the United States. If I am right, then I think that the criterion sanctioned by the full Court in Schenck v. United States, 249 U. S. 47, 52, applies. “ The question in every case is whether the words used are used in such circumstances and are of such a nature as to create a clear and present danger that they will bring about the substan *673 tive evils that [the State] has a right to prevent.” It is true that in my opinion this criterion was departed from in Abrams v. United States, 250 U. S. 616, but the convictions that I expressed in that case are too deep for it to be possible for me as yet to believe that it and Schaefer v. United States, 251 U. S. 466, have settled the law. If what I think the correct test is applied, it is manifest that there was no present danger of an attempt to overthrow the government by force on the part of the admittedly small minority who shared the defendant’s views. It is said that, this manifesto was more than a theory, that it was an incitement. Every idea is an incitement. It offers itself for belief and if believed it is acted on unless some other belief outweighs it or some failure of energy stifles the movement at its birth. The only difference between the expression of an opinion and an incitement in the narrower sense is the speaker’s enthusiasm for the result. Eloquence may set fire to reason. But whatever may be thought of the redundant discourse before us it had no chance of starting a present conflagration. If in the long run the beliefs expressed in proletarian dictatorship are destined to be accepted by the dominant forces of the community, the only meaning of free speech is that they should be given their chance and have their way.

If the publication of this document had been laid as an attempt to induce an uprising against government at once and not at some indefinite time in the future it would have presented a different question. The object would have been one with which the law might deal, subject to the doubt whether there was any danger that the publication could produce any result, or in other words, whether it was not futile and too remote from possible consequences. But the indictment alleges the publication and nothing more.

LEARNED HAND, District Judge

(after stating the facts as above).

[1] It is well settled that this court has jurisdiction to review the act, of the postmaster. School of Magnetic Healing v. McAnnulty, 187 U. S. 94, 23 Sup. Ct. 33, 47 L. Ed. 90; Post Publishing Co. v. Murray, 230 Fed. 773, 145 C. C. A. 83; Bruce v. United States, 202 Fed. 98, 120 C. C. A. 370; United States v. Atlanta Journal, 210 Fed. 275, 127 C. C. A. 123. If it appears that his proposed official course is outside of the authority conferred upon him by law, the court cannot escape the duty of so deciding, just as in the case of any other administrative officer. Noble v. Union River Logging Co., 147 U. S. 165, 13 Sup. Ct. 271, 37 L. Ed. 123; Gegiow v. Uhl, 239 U. S. 3, 36 Sup. Ct. 2, 60 L. Ed. 114. However, again, as in the case of other such officers, the postmaster’s decision is final if there be any dispute of fact upon which his decision may rest, and even where it must turn upon a point of law, it has a strong presumption of validity. *538Bates & Guild Co. v. Payne, 194 U. S. 106, 24 Sup. Ct. 595, 48 L. Ed. 894; Public Clearing Plouse v. Coyne, 194 U. S. 497, 24 Sup. Ct. 789, 48 L. Ed. 1092. In this case there is no dispute of fact which the plaintiff can successfully challenge except the meaning of the words and pictures in the magazine. As to tírese tire query must be: What is the extreme latitude of the interpretation which must be placed upon them, and whether that extremity certainly falls outside any of the provisions of the act of June 15, 1917. -Unless this be true, the decision of the postmaster must stand. It will be necessary, first, to interpret the law, and, next, the words and pictures.

It must be remembered at the outset, and the distinction ist of critical consequence throughout, that no question arises touching the waif powers of Congress. It may be that Congress may forbid tire mails to any matter which tends to discourage the successful prosecution of the war. It may be that the fundamental personal rights of the individual must stand in abeyance, even including the right of the freedom of the press, though that is not here in question. Ex parte Jackson, 96 U S. 727, 24 L. Ed. 877; Re Rapier, 143 U. S. 110, 12 Sup. Ct. 374, 36 L. Ed. 93. It may be that tire peril of war, which goes to tire very existence of the state, justifies airy measure of compulsion, any measure of suppression, which Congress deems necessary to its safety, tire liberties of each being in subjection to the liberties of all. The Regal Tender Cases, 12 Wall, 457. It may be that under tire war power Congress may mobilize every resource of men and materials, without impediment or limitation, since the power includes all means which are the practice of nations in war. It would indeed not be necessary, perhaps in ordinary cases it would not be appropriate, even to allude to such putative incidents of the war power, but it is of great consequence at the present time with accuracy to define the exact scope of tíre question at bar, that no implication may arise as to any limitation upon the absolute and uncontrolled nature of that power. Here is presented solely the question of how far Congress after much discussion has up to the present time seen fit to exercise a power which may extend to measures not yet even considered, but necessary to the existence of the state as such. Every one agrees that the exercise of such power, however wide it may be, rests in Congress alone, at least subject to such martial law as may rest with the President within the sphere of military operations, however broadly that may be defined. The defendant’s authority is based upon the act of Congress, and the intention of that act is the single measure of that authority. If Congress has omitted repressive measures necessary to the safety of the nation and success of its great enterprise, the responsibility rests upon Congress and with it the power to remedy that omission.

[2] Coming to the act itself, it is conceded that the defendant’s only direct authority arises from title 12 of the act, §§ 1 and 2. His position is that under section 1 any writing which by its utterance would infringe any of the provisions of other titles in the act becomes non-mailable. I may accept that assumption for the sake of argument and turn directly to section 3 of title 1, which the plaintiff is said to violate. That section contains three provisions. The first is, in sub*539stance, that no one shall make any false statements with intent to interfere with the operation or success of the military or naval forces of the United States or to promote the success of its enemies. The defendant says that the cartoons and text of the magazine, constituting, as they certainly do, a virulent attack upon the war and those laws winch have been enacted to assist its prosecution, may interfere with the success of the military forces of the United States. That such utterances may have the effect so ascribed to them is unhappily true; publications of this kind enervate public feeling at home which is their chief purpose, and encourage the success of the enemies of the United States abroad, to which they are generally indifferent. Dissension within a country is a high source of comfort and assistance to its enemies; the least intimation of it they seize upon with jubilation. There cannot be the slightest question of the mischievous effects of such agitation upon the success of the national project, or of the correctness of the defendant’s position.

All this, however, is beside the question whether such an attack is a willfully false statement. That phrase properly includes only a statement of fact which the utterer knows to be false, and it cannot be maintained that any of these statements are of fact, or that the plaintiff believes them to be false. They are all within the range of opinion and of criticism; they are all certainly believed to be true by the utterer. As such they fall within the scope of that right to criticise either by temperate reasoning, or by immoderate and indecent invective, which is normally the privilege of the individual in countries dependent upon the free expression of opinion as the ultimate source of authority. The argument may be trivial in substance, and violent and perverse in manner, but so long as it is confined to abuse of existing policies or laws, it is impossible to class it as a false statement of facts of the kind here in question. To modify this provision, so clearly intended to prevent the spreading of false rumors which may embarrass the military, into the prohibition of any kind of propaganda, honest or vicious, is to disregard the meaning of the language, established by legal construction and common use, and to raise it into a means of suppressing intemperate and inflammatory public discussion, which was surely not its purpose.

[3] The next phrase relied upon is that which forbids any one from willfully causing insubordination, disloyalty, mutiny, or refusal of duty in the military or naval forces of the United States. The defendant’s position is that to arouse discontent and disaffection among the people with the prosecution of the war and with the draft tends to promote a mutinous and insubordinate temper among the troops. This, too, is true; men who become satisfied that they ai'e engaged in an enterprise dictated by the unconscionable selfishness of the rich, and effectuated by a tyrannous disregard for the will of those who must suffer and die, will be more prone to insubordination than those who have faith in the cause and acquiesce in the means. Yet to interpret the word “cause” so broadly would, as before, involve necessarily as a consequence the suppression of all hostile criticism, and of all opinion except what encouraged and supported the existing policies, or which *540fell within the range of temperate argument. It would contradict the normal assumption of democratic government that the suppression of hostile criticism does not turn upon the justice of its substance or the decency and proprietj»- of its temper. Assuming that the power to repress such opinion may rest' in Congress in the throes of a struggle for the very existence of the state, its exercise is so contrary to the use and wont of our people that only the clearest expression Of such a power justifies the conclusion that it was intended.

The defendant’s position, therefore, m so tar as it involves the suppression of the free utterance of abuse and criticism of the existing law, or of the policies of the war; is not, in my judgment, supported by the language of the statute. Yet there has always been a recognized limit to such expressions, incident indeed to the existence of any compulsive power of the state itself. One may not counsel or advise others to violate the law as it stands. Words are not only the keys of persuasion, but the triggers of action, and those which have no purport but to counsel the violation of law cannot by any latitude of interpretation be a part of that public opinion which is the final source of government in a democratic state. The defendant asserts not only that the magazine indirectly through its propaganda leads to a disintegration of loyalty and a disobedience of law, but that in addition it counsels and advises resistance to existing law, especially to the draft. The consideration of this aspect of the case more properly arises under the third phrase of section 3, which forbids any willful obstruction of the recruiting or enlistment service of the United States, but, as the defendant urges that the magazine falls within each phrase, it is as well to take it up now. To counsel or advise a man to an act is to urge upon him either that it is his interest or his duty to do it. While, of course, this may be accomplished as well by indirection as expressly, since words carry the meaning that they impart, the definition is exhaustive, I think, and I shall use it. Political agitation, by the passions it arouses or the convictions it engenders, may in fact stimulate men to the violation of law. Detestation of existing policies is easily transformed into forcible resistance of the authority which puts them in execution, and it would be folly to disregard the causal relation between tire two. Yet to assimilate agitation, legitimate as such, with direct incitement to violent resistance, is to disregard the tolerance of all methods of political agitation which in normal times is a safeguard of free government. The distinction is not a scholastic subterfuge, but a hard-bought acquisition in the fight for freedom, and the purpose to disregard it must be evident when the power exists. If one stops short of urging upon others that it is their duty or their interest to resist the law, it seems to me one should not be held to have attempted to cause its violation. If that be not the test, I can see no escape from the conclusion that under this section every political agitation which can be shown to be apt to create a seditious temper is illegal. I am confident that by such language Congress had no such revolutionary purpose in view.

It seems to me, however, quite plain that none of the language and none of the cartoons in this paper can be thought directly to counsel *541or advise insubordination or mutiny, without a violation of their meaning quite beyond any tolerable understanding. I come, therefore,. to the third phrase of the section, which forbids any one from willfully obstructing the recruiting or enlistment service of the United States. I am not prepared to assent to the plaintiff’s position that this only refers to acts other than words, nor that the act thus defined must be shown to have been successful. One may obstruct without preventing, and the mere obstruction is an injury to the service; for it throws impediments in its way. Here again, however, since the question is of the expression of opinion, I construe the sentence, so far as it restrains public utterance, as I have construed the other two, and as therefore limited to the direct advocacy of resistance to the recruiting and enlistment service. If so, the inquiry is narrowed to the question whether any of the challenged matter may be said to advocate resistance to the draft, taking the meaning of the words with the utmost latitude which they can bear.

As to the cartoons it seems to me quite clear that they do not fall within such a test. Certainly the nearest is that entitled “Conscription,” and the most that can be said of that is that it may breed such animosity to the draft as will promote resistance and strengthen the determination of those disposed to he recalcitrant. There is no intimation that, however hateful the draft may be, one is in duty bound to resist it, certainly none that such resistance is to one’s interest. I cannot, therefore, even with the limitations which surround the power of the court, assent to the assertion that any of the cartoons violate the act.

The text offers more embarrassment. The poem to Emma Goldman and Alexander Berkman, at most, goes no further than to say that they are martyrs in the cause of love among nations. Such a sentiment holds them up to admiration, and hence their conduct to possible emulation. The paragraph in which the editor offers to receive funds for their appeal also expresses admiration for them, but goes no further. The paragraphs upon conscientious objectors are of the same kind. They go no further than to express high admiration for those who have held and are holding out for their convictions even to the extent of resisting the law. It is plain enough that the paper has the fullest sympathy for these people, that it admires their courage. atid that it presumptively approves their conduct. Indeed, in the earlier numbers and before the draft went into effect the editor urged resistance. Since I must interpret the language in the most hostile sense, it is fair to suppose, therefore, that these passages go as far as to say:

“These men and women are heroes and worthy of a freeman’s admiration. We approve their conduct; we will help to secure them their legal rights. They are working for the betterment of mankind through their obdurate consciences."

Moreover, these passages, it must be remembered, occur in a magazine which attacks with the utmost violence the draft and the war. That such comments have a tendency to arouse emulation in others is clear enough, but that they counsel others to follow these examples *542is not so plain. Literally at least they do not, and while, as I have said, the words are to be taken, not literally, but according to their full import, the literal meaning is the starting point for interpretation. One may admire and approve the course of a hero without feeling any duty to follow him. There is not the least implied intimation in tírese words that others are under a duty to follow. The most that can be said is that, if others do follow, they will get the same admiration and the same approval. Now, there is surely an appreciable distance between esteem and emulation; and unless there is here some advocacy of such emulation, I cannot see how the passages can be said to fall within the law. If they do, it would follow that, while one might express admiration and approval for the Quakers or any established sect which is excused from the draft, one could not legally express the same admiration and approval for others who entertain the same conviction, but do not happen to belong to the society of Friends. It cannot be that the law means to curtail such expressions merely, because the convictions of the class within the draft are stronger than their sense of obedience to the law. There is ample evidence in history that the Quaker is as recalcitrant to legal compulsion as any man; his obstinacy has been regarded in the act, but his disposition is as disobedient as that of any other conscientious objector. Surely, if the draft had not excepted Quakers, it would be too strong a doctrine to say that any who openly admire their fortitude or even approved their conduct was willfully obstructing the draft.

When the question is of a statute constituting a crime, it seems to me that there should be more definite evidence of the act. The question before me is quite the same as what would arise upon a motion to dismiss an indictment at the close of the proof: Could any reasonable man say, not that the indirect result of the language, might be to arouse a seditious disposition, for that would not be enough, but that the language directly advocated resistance to the draft? I cannot think that upon such language any verdict would stand. Of course, the language of the statute cannot have one meaning in an indictment and another when the case comes up here, because by hypothesis, if this paper is nonmailable under section 3 of title 1, its editors have committed a crime in uttering it.

After the foregoing discussion it is hardly necessary to speak of section 2 of title 12. The plaintiff insists that refusal to comply with the provisions of the draft cannot be classed as forcible resistance; that such a refusal is, at most, only inaction, the neglect of an affirmative duty even to the extent of submitting to imprisonment. It may be plausibly contended that by forcible resistance Congress meant more than passive resistance, but even if this be not true, the result is the same, because, so construed, the section goes no further than the last phrase of section 3 of title 1 as I have construed it here. What was therefore said upon that section will serve here.

The defendant’s action was based, as I understand it, not so much upon the narrow question whether these four passages actually advocated resistance, though that point was distinctly raised, as upon the doctrine that the general tenor and animus of the paper as a whole *543were subversive to authority and seditious in effect. I cannot accept this test under the law as it stands at present. The tradition of English-speaking freedom has depended in no small part upon the merely 'procedural requirement that the state point with exactness to just that conduct which violates the law. It is difficult and often impossible to meet the charge that one’s general ethos is treasonable; such a latitude for construction implies a personal latitude in administration which contradicts the normal assumption that lav/ shall be embodied in general propositions capable of some measure of definition. The whole crux of this case turns indeed upon this thesis. I make no question of the power of Congress to establish a personal censorship of the press under the war power; tiiat question, as I have already said, does not arise. I am quite satisfied that it has not as yet chosen to create one, and with the greatest deference it does not seem to me that anything here challenged can he illegal upon any other assumption.

Finally, the question arises as to how far the earlier numbers of the paper should he considered. The theory is that the August number covertly refers to the explicit counsel of resistance in the numbers of June and July. \ priori such a reference might legitimately incorporate the earlier expressions; I do not doubt that the memory of those expressions may in fact remain in the minds of readers and that they may be revived by the sympathy and accord with conscientious objectors expressed in the August number. Yet the plaintiff is still entitled to ask, whatever the results of its past utterance may be, that some words be pointed out which by some reference fairly inferable from the words themselves relate back to earlier and more explicit statements. I think there are no words in the four passages which admit of such an interpretation.

It follows that the plaintiff is entitled to the usual preliminary injunction.

A.

A Question.

Often I wish we had a continuing census bureau to which we might apply, and have a census taken with classifications of our own choosing. I would like to know to-day. how many men and women there are in America who admire the self-reliance and sacrifice of those who are resisting the conscription law on the ground that they believe it violates the sacred rights and liberties of man. How many of the American population are in accord with the American press when it speaks of the arrest of these men of genuine courage as a ‘•round-up of. slackers”? Are there none to whom this picture of the American republic adopting towards its citizens the attitude of a rider toward cattle is appalling? I recall the Essays of Emerson, the Poems of Wait Whitman, which sounded a call never heard before in the world’s literature, for erect and insuppressible individuality, the courage of solitary faith and heroic assertion of self. It was America’s contribution to the ideals of man. It painted the quality of her culture for those in the bid world who loved her. It was a revolt of the aspiring mind against that instinctive running with custom and the support of numbers, which is an hereditary frailty of our nerves. It was a determination to worship and to love, in the living and laughing present, the same heroisms that we love when we look hack so seriously over the past.

I wonder if the number is few to whom this high resolve was the distinction of our American idealism, and who feel inclined to bow their heads to those who are going to jail under the whip of the state, because they will not do *544what they do not believe in doing. Perhaps there are enough of ns, if we make ourselves heard in voice and letter, to modify this ritual of contempt in the daily press, and induce the American government to undertake the imprisonment of heroic young men with a certain sorrowful dignity that will be new in the world.

B.

A Tribute.

Emma Goldman and Alexander Berkman Are in prison,

Although the night is tremblingly beautiful And the sound of water climbs down the rocks

And the breath of the night air moves, through multitudes and multitudes of leaves

That love to waste themselves for the sake of the summer.

Emma Goldman and Alexander Berkman Are in prison tonight,

But they have made themselves elemental forces,

Like the water that climbs down the rocks;

Like the wind in the leaves;

Like the gentle night that holds us;

They are working on our destinies;

They are forging the love of the nations;

Tonight they lie in prison.

O.

Conscientious Objectors.

We publish below a number of letters written last year from English prisons by conscientious objectors. It is as yet uncertain what treatment the United States government will mete out to its thousands of conscientious objectors, but we believe that our protestors against government tyranny will be as steadfast as their English comrades. It is not by any means as certain that they will be as polite to their guards and tormentors, but we hope they will remember that these are acting under official compulsion and not as free men.

Some discussion has arisen as to whether those whose objection to participating in war is not embodied in a religious formula, have the right to call their objection a “conscientious” one. We believe that this old-fashioned term is, however, one that fits their case. There are some laws which the individual feels that he cannot obey, and which he will suffer any punishment, even that of death, rather than recognize as having authority over him. This fundamental stubbornness of the free soul, against which all the powers of the state are helpless, constitutes a conscientious objection, whatever its original sources may be in political or social opinion. It remains to be demonstrated that a political disapproval of this war can express itself in the same heroic firmness that has in England upheld the Christian objectors to war as murder. We recommend to all who intend to stick it out to the end, a thorough reading of the cases which follow, so that they may be prepared for what is at least rather likely to happen to them.

D.

Friends of American. Freedom.

Alexander Berkman and Emma Goldman have boen arrested, charged with advocating in their paper, Mother Earth, that those liable to the military draft, who do not believe in the war, should refuse to register. That they would be arrested, on some charge, and subjected to bitter prosecution, has been inevitable ever since they appeared as the spokesmen of a working class protest against the plans of American militarism. Whatever you may think of the practicability of such a protest, you must, with their friends, pay tribute of admiration for their courage and devotion.

Alexander Berkman is one of the few men whose character and intelli-*545gencc ever stood firm through a quarter of a lifetime in prison. Emma Goldman has followed her extreme ideal of liberty for 30 years, up and down, in better places and worse than the federal penitentiary. They can both endure what befalls them. They have more resources in their souls, perhaps, as they have the support of a more absolute faith, than we have who admire them. But let us give them every chance for acquittal that the constitution of the times allow. L.ot us give them every chance to state their faith. The Masses will receive funds for this purpose.

Mr. Justice Sanford

delivered the opinion of the Court.'

By a criminal information filed in the Superior Court of Alameda County, California, the plaintiff in error was charged, in five counts, with violations of the Criminal Syndicalism Act of that State. Statutes, 1919, c. 188, p. 281. She was tried, convicted on the first count, and sentenced to imprisonment. The judgment was affirmed by the District Court of Appeal. 57 Cal. App. 449. Her petition to have the case heard by the Supreme Court1 was denied. Ib. 453. And the case was brought here on a writ of error which was allowed by the Presiding Justice of the Court of Appeal, the highest court of the State in which a decision could be had. Jud. Code, § 237.

On the first hearing in .this Court, the writ of error was dismissed for want of jurisdiction. 269 U. S. 530. Thereafter, a petition for rehearing was granted, Ib. 538; and the case was again heard and reargued both as to the jurisdiction and the merits.

The pertinent provisions of the Criminal Syndicalism Act are:

“ Section 1. The term ‘ criminal syndicalism ’ as used in this act is hereby defined as any doctrine or precept advocating, teaching or aiding and abetting the commis*360sion of crime, sabotage (which word is hereby defined as meaning wilful and malicious physical damage or injury to physical property), or unlawful acts of force and violence or unlawful methods of terrorism as a means of accomplishing a change in industrial ownership or control, or effecting any political change.

“Sec. 2. Any person who: . . . .4. Organizes or assists in organizing, or is or knowingly becomes a mem-, ber of, any organization, society, group or assemblage of persons organized or assembled to advocate, teach or aid and abet criminal syndicalism ...

“Is guilty of a felony and punishable by imprisonment.”

The first count of the information, on which the conviction was had, charged that on or about November 28, 1919, in Alameda County, the-defendant, in violation.,of the Criminal Syndicalism Act, “ did then and there unlawfully, wilfully, wrongfully, deliberately and feloniously organize and assist in organizing, and was, is, and knowingly became a member of an organization, society, group and assemblage of persons organized and assembled to advocate, teach, aid and abet criminal syndicalism.”

. It has long been settled that this Court acquires no jurisdiction to review" the judgment of a state court of last resort on a writ of error, unless it affirmatively appears on the face of the record that a federal question constituting an appropriate ground for such review was presented in and expressly or necessarily decided by such state court. Crowell v. Randell, 10 Pet. 368, 392; Railroad Co. v. Rock, 4 Wall, 177, 180; California, Powder Works v. Davis, 151 U. S. 389, 393; Cincinnati, etc. Railway v. Slade, 216 U. S. 78; 83; Hiawassee Power Co. v. Carolina-Tenn. Co., 252 U. S. 341, 343; New York v. Kleinert, 268 U. S. 646, 650.

Here the record does not show that the defendant raised or that the State courts considered or decided any *361Federal question whatever, excepting as appears in an order made and entered by the Court of Appeal after it had decided the case and the writ of error had issued and been returned to this Court. A certified copy of that order, brought here as an addition to the record, shows that it was made and entered pursuant to a stipulation. of the parties, approved by the court, and that it contains the following statement:

“ The question'whether the California Criminal Syndicalism Act . . . and its application in this case is repugnant to the provision's of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, providing, that'no state shall deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law, and that all persons shall bé accorded the equal protection, of the laws, was considered and passed upon by this Court.”

In Cincinnati Packet Co. v. Bay, 200 U. S. 179, 182, where it appeared that a federal question had been presented in a petition in error to the State Supreme Court in a case in which the judgment was affirmed without opinion, it was held that the certificate of that court to the effect that it had considered and necessarily decided this question, was sufficient to show its existence. And see Marvin v. Trout, 199 U. S. 212, 217, et seq.; Consolidated Turnpike v. Norfolk, etc. Railway, 228 U. S. 596, 599.

So — while the unusual course here taken to show that federal questions weré raised and decided below is not to be commended — we shall give effect to the order of the Court of Appeal as would be done if the statement had been made in the opinion of that court when delivered. See Gross v. United States Mortgage Co., 108 U. S. 477, 484-486; Philadelphia Fire Association v. New York, 119 U. S. 110, 116; Home for Incurables v. City of New York, 187 U. S. 155, 157; Land & Water Co. v. San Jose Ranch Co., 189 U. S. 177, 179-180; Rector v. City Deposit Bank, *362200 U. S. 405, 412; Haire v. Rice, 204 U. S. 291, 299; Chambers v. Baltimore, etc. Railroad, 207 U. S. 142, 148; Atchison, etc. Railway v. Sowers, 213 U. S. 55, 62; Consolidated Turnpike Co. v. Norfolk, etc. Railway, 228 U. S. 596, 599; Miedreich v. Lauenstein, 232 U. S. 236, 242; North Carolina Railroad v. Zachary, 232 U. S. 248, 257; Chicago, etc. Railway v. Perry, 259 U. S. 548, 551.

And here, since it appears from the statement in the order of the Court of Appeal thát the question whether the Syndicalism Act arid its application in this case was repugnant, to the due process and .equal protection clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment, was considered and passed upon by that court — this being a federal question constituting an appropriate ground for a review of ’the judgment — we conclude that this Court has acquired jurisdiction under the writ of error. The order dismissing the writ for want of jurisdiction will accordingly be set aside.

We proceed to the determination, upon the merits, of the constitutional question considered and passed upon by the Court of. Appeal. Of course our review is to be confined to that question, since it does not appear, either from the order of the Court of Appeal or from the record otherwise, that any other federal question was presented in and either expressly or necessarily decided by that court. National Bank v. Commonwealth, 9 Wall. 353, 363; Edwards v. Elliott, 21 Wall. 532, 557; Dewey v. Des Moines, 173 U. S. 193, 200; Keokuk & Hamilton Bridge Co. v. Illinois, 175 U. S. 626, 633; Capital City Dairy Co. v. Ohio, 183 U. S. 238, 248; Haire v. Rice, 204 U. S. 291, 301; Selover, Bates & Co. v. Walsh, 226 U. S. 112, 126. Missouri Pacific Railway v. Coal Co., 256 U. S. 134, 135. It is not eriough that thére may be somewhere hidden in the record a question which, if it had been raised, would have been of a federal nature. Dewey v. Des Moines, supra, 199; Keokuk & Hamilton Bridge Co. v. Illinois, supra, 634. And this necessarily excludes from our con*363sideration a question sought'to be raised for the first time by the assignments of error here — not presented in or passed upon by the Court of Appeal — whether apart from the constitutionality of the Syndicalism Act, the judgment of the Superior Court, by reason of the rulings of that court on questions of pleading, evidence and the like, operated as a denial to the defendant of due process of law. See Oxley Stave Co. v. Butler County, 166 U. S. 648, 660; Capital City Dairy Co. v. Ohio, supra, 248; Manhattan Life Ins. Co. v. Cohen, 234 U. S. 123, 134; Bass, etc. Ltd. v. Tax Commission, 266 U. S. 271, 283.

The following facts, among many others, were established on the trial by undisputed evidence: The defendant, a resident of Oakland, in Alameda County, California, had been a member of the Local Oakland branch of the Socialist Party. This Local sent delegates to the national convention of the' Socialist Party held in Chicago in 1919, which resulted in a split between the “radical” group and the old-wing Socialists. The “radicals” — to whom the Oakland delegates adhered — being ejected, went to another hall, and formed the Communist Labor Party of America. Its Constitution provided for the membership of persons subscribing to the principles of the Party and pledging themselves to be guided by its Platform, and for the formation of state organizations conforming to its Platform as the supreme declaration of the Party. In its “ Platform and Program ” the Party declared that it was in full harmony with “ the revolutionary working class parties of all countries ” and adhered to the principles of Communism laid down in the Manifesto of the Third International at Moscow, and that its purpose was “ to create a unified revolutionary working class movement in America,” organizing the workers as a class, in a revolutionary class struggle to conquer the capitalist state, for the overthrow of capitalist rule, the conquest of political power and the establishment *364of a working class government, the Dictatorship of the Proletariat, in place of the state machinery of the capitalists, which should make and enforce the laws, reorganize society on the basis of Communism and bring about the Communist Commonwealth — advocated, as the most important means of capturing state power, the‘action of the massés, proceeding from the shops -and factories, the use of the political machinery of the capitalist state being only secondary; the- organization of the workers into “ revolutionary industrial unions ”; propaganda pointing out their revolutionary nature and possibilities; and great industrial battles showing the value of the, strike as a political weapon — commended the propaganda and example of the Industrial Workers of the World and their, struggles and sacrifices in the class war — pledged support and cooperation to “ the revolutionary industrial proletariat of America ” in their struggles against the capitalist class — cited the Seattle and Winnipeg strikes and the numerous strikes all over the country “ proceeding without the authority of the old reactionary Trade Union officials,” as manifestations of the new tendency — and recommended that strikes of national importance be supported and given a political character, and that propagandists and organizers be mobilized “who can.not only teach, but actually help to put in practice the principles of revolutionary industrial unionism and Communism.”

Shortly thereafter the Local Oakland withdrew from the Socialist Party, and sent accredited delegates, including the defendant, to á convention held in Oakland in November, 1919, for the purpose of organizing a California branch of the Communist' Labor -'Party. The defendant, after taking büt a temporary membership in the Communist Labor Party, attended this convention' as a delegate and took an active part in its proceedings. She was elected a member of the Credentials. Committee, and, as its chairman, made a. report to the convention upon *365which the delegates were seated. She was also appointed a member of the Resolutions Committee, add as such, signed, the following resolution in reference to political action, among others proposed by the Committee: “ The C. L. P. of California fully recognizes the value of political action as a means of spreading communist propaganda; it insists that in proportion to the development of the economic strength of the working class, it, the working class, must also develop its political power; The C. L- P. of California proclaims and insists that the capture of political power, locally or nationally by the revolutionary working class can-be of tremendous assistance* to the workers in their struggle of '«mancipation. . Therefore, we again urge the workers who-are possessed of the right of franchise to cast their votes for the party which represents their immediate and- final interest — the C. L. P. — at all elections, being fully convinced of the utter futility of obtaining any real measure of justice or freedom under officials elected *by parties owned'and controlled by the capitalist class.” The minutes-show that this resolution, with the others proposed by the committee, was read by its chairman to the convention before the Committee on the Constitution. had submitted its report. According to the recollection of the defendant, however, she herself read this resolution. Thereafter, before the report of the Committee on the Constitution had been acted upon, the defendant was- elected an alternate member of the State Executive Committee. The Constitution, as finally read, was then adopted. This provided that the organization should be named thé Communist Labor Party of California; that it should be “af-. filiated .with ” the -Communist Labor Party of America, and subscribe to its Program, Platform and Constitution, and “ through this, affiliation ” be “ joined with the Communist International of Moscow;” and that the qualifications for membership should be those prescribed in the *366National Constitution. The proposed resolutions were later taken up and all adopted, except that on political action, which caused a lengthy debate, resulting in its defeat and the acceptance of the National Program in its place. After this action, the defendant, without, so far as appears, making any protest, remained in the convention until it adjourned. She later attended as an alternate member one or two meetings of the State Executive Committee in San José and San Francisco, and stated, on the trial, that she was then a member of the Communist Labor Party. She also testified that it was not her intention that the Communist Labor Party of California-should be an instrument of terrorism or violence, and that it was not her purpose or that of the Convention to violate any known law.

In the light of this preliminary statement, we now take up, in so far as they require specific consideration, the various grounds upon which it is here contended that the Syndicalism Act and its application in this case is repugnant to the due process and equal protection clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment.

1. While it is not denied that the evidence warranted the jury in finding that the defendant became a member of and assisted in organizing the Communist Labor Party of California, and that this was organized to advocate, teach, aid or abet criminal syndicalism as defined by the Act, it is urged that the Act, as here construed and applied, deprived the defendant of her liberty without due process of law in that it has made her action in attending the Oakland convention unlawful by reason of “ a subsequent event brought about .against her will, by the agency of others,” with no showing of a specific intent on her jpart to join in the forbidden purpose of the association, and merely because, by reason of a lack of “ prophetic ” understanding she failed to foresee the quality that others would give to the convention. The argu*367ment is, in effect, that the character of the state organization could not be forecast when she attended the convention; that she had no purpose of helping to create an. instrument of terrorism and violence; that she “took part in formulating and presenting to the convention a resolution which, if adopted, would have committed the new organization to a legitimate policy of political reform by the use of the ballot ”; that it was not until after the majority of the convention turned out to be “ contrary-minded, and other less temperate policies prevailed ” that the convention could have taken^ on the character of criminal syndicalism; and that as this was done over her protest, her mere presence in the convention, however violent the opinions expressed therein, could not thereby become a crime. This contention, while advanced in the form of a constitutional objection to the Act, is in effect nothing more than an effort to review the weight of the evidence for the purpose of showing that the defendant did not join and assist in organizing the Communist Labor Party of California with a knowledge of its unlawful character and purpose. This question, which is foreclosed by the verdict of the jury — sustained by the Court of Appeal over the specific objection that it was not supported by the evidence — is one of fact merely which is not open to review in this Court, involving as it does no constitutional question whatever. And we may add that the argument entirely disregards the facts: that the defendant had previously taken out a membership card in the National Party, that the resolution which she supported did not advocate the use of the ballot to the exclüsion of violent and unlawful means of bringing about the desired changes in industrial and political conditions; and that,-after the constitution of the California Party had been adopted, and this resolution had been voted down and the National Program accepted, she not only remained in the convention, without *368protest, until its close, but'subsequently manifested her acquiescence by attending as an alternate member of the State Executive Committee and continuing as a member of the Communist Labor Party.

2. It is clear that the Syndicalism Act is not repugnant to the due process clause by reason of vagueness and uncertainty of definition. It has no substantial resemblance to the statutes held void for uncertainty under the Fourteenth and Fifth Amendments in International Harvester Co. v. Kentucky, 234 U. S. 216, 221; and United States v. Cohen Grocery, 255 U. S. 81, 89, because not .fixing an ascertainable standard of guilt. The language of § 2, subd. 4, of the Act, under which the plaintiff in error was convicted, is clear; the definition of “ criminal syndicalism ” specific.

. The Act, plainly, meets the essential requirement of due process that a penal statute be “ sufficiently explicit to inform those who are subject to it, what conduct on their part will render them liable to its penalties,” and be couched in terms that are not “ so vague that men of common intelligence must necessarily guess at its meaning and differ as to its application.” Connolly v. General Construction Co., 269 U. S. 385, 391. And see United States v. Brewer, 139 U. S. 278, 288; Chicago, etc., Railway v. Dey, (C. C.) 35 Fed. 866, 876; Tozer v. United States, (C. C.) 52 Fed. 917, 919. In Omaechevarria v. Idaho, 246 U. S. 343, 348, in which it was held that a . criminal statute, prohibiting the grazing of sheep on any “ range ” previously occupied by cattle “ in the usual and customary use” thereof, was not void for indefiniteness because it failed to provide for the ascertainment of the boundaries of a “ range ” or to determine the length of ‘time necessary to constitute a prior occupation a “ usual ” one, this Court said: “ Men familiar with range conditions and desirojus of observing the law will have little difficulty *369in determining what is prohibited by it. Similar expressions are common in the criminal statutes of other States. This statute presents no greater uncertainty or difficulty, in application to necessarily varying facts, than has been repeatedly sanctioned by this court. Nash v. United States, 229 U. S. 373, 377; Miller v. Strahl, 239 U. S. 426, 434.” So, as applied here, the Syndicalism Act required of the defendant no “prophetic” understanding of its meaning.

And similar Criminal Syndicalism statutes of other States, some less specific in their definitions, have been held by the State courts not to be void for indefiniteness. State v. Hennessy, 114 Wash. 351, 364; State v. Laundy, 103 Ore. 443, 460; People v. Ruthenberg, 229 Mich. 315, 325. And see Fox v. Washington, 236 U. S. 273, 277; People v. Steelik, 187 Cal. 361, 372; People v. Lloyd, 304 Ill. 23, 34.

3. Neither is the Syndicalism Act repugnant to the equal protection clause, on the ground that, as its penalties are confined to those who advocate a resort to violent and unlawful methods as a means of changing industrial and political conditions, it arbitrarily discriminates between such persons and those who may advocate a resort to these methods as a means of maintaining such conditions.

It is settled by repeated decisions of this Court that the equal protection clause does not take from a State the power to classify in the adoption of police laws, but admits of the exercise of a wide scope of discretion, and avoids what is done only when it is without any reasonable basis.and therefore is purely arbitrary; and that one who assails the classification must carry the burden of showing thát.it does not rest upon any reasonable basis, but is essentially arbitrary. Lindsley v. National Carbonic Gas Co., 220 U. S. 61, 78, and cases cited.

*370A statute does not violate the equal protection clause merely because it is not all-embracing. Zucht v. King, 260 U. S. 174, 177; James-Dickinson Farm Mortgage Co. v. Harry, 273 U. S. 119. A State may properly direct its legislation against what it deems an existing evil without covering the whole field of possible abuses. Patsone v. Pennsylvania, 232 U. S. 138, 144; Farmers Bank v. Federal Reserve Bank, 262 U. S. 649, 661; James-Dickinson Mortgage Co. v. Harry, supra. The statute must be presumed to be aimed at an evil where experience shows it to be most felt, and to be deemed by the legislature coextensive with the practical need; and is not to be overthrown merely because other instances may be suggested to which also it might have been applied; that being a matter for the legislature to determine unless the case is very clear. Keokee Coke Co. v. Taylor, 234 U. S. 224, 227. And it is not open to objection unless the classification is so lacking in any adequate or reasonable basis as to preclude the assumption that it was made in the exercise of the legislative judgment and discretion. Stebbins v. Riley, 268 U. S. 137, 143; Graves v. Minnesota, 272 U. S. 425; Swiss Oil Corporation v. Shanks, 273 U. S. 407.

The Syndicalism Act is not class legislation; it affects all alike, no matter what their business associations or callings, who come within its terms arid do the things prohibited. See State v. Hennessy, supra, 361; State v. Laundy, supra, 460. And there is no substantial basis for the contention that the legislature has arbitrarily or unreasonably limited its application to those advocating the use of violent and unlawful methods to effect changes in industrial and political conditions; there being nothing indicating any ground to apprehend that those desiring to maintain existing industrial and political conditions did or would advocate such methods. That there is a wide-spread conviction of the necessity for legislation of *371this character is indicated by the adoption of similar statutes in several other States.

4-. Nor is the Syndicalism Act as applied in this case repugnant to the due process clause as a restraint of the rights of free speech, assembly, and association.

That the freedom of speech which is secured by the Constitution does not confer an absolute right to speak, without responsibility, whatever one may choose, or an unrestricted and unbridled license giving immunity for every possible use of language and preventing the punishment of those who abuse this freedom; and that a State in the exercise of its police power may punish those who abuse this freedom by utterances inimical to thfe public welfare, tending to incite to crime, disturb the public peace, or "endanger the foundations of organized government and threaten its overthrow by unlawful means, is not open to question. Gitlow v. New York, 268 U. S. 652, 666-668, and cases cited.

By enacting the provisions of the Syndicalism Act the State has declared, through its legislative body, that to knowingly be or become a member of dr assist in organizing an association to advocate, teach or aid and abet the commission of crimes or unlawful acts of force, violence or terrorism as a means of accomplishing industrial or political changes, involves such danger to the public peace and the security of the State, that these acts should be penalized in the exercise of its police power. That determination must be given great weight. Every presumption is to be indulged in favor of the validity of the statute, Mugler v. Kansas, 123 U. S. 623, 661; and it may not be declared unconstitutional unless it is an arbitrary or unreasonable attempt to exercise the authority vested in the State in the public-interest. Great Northern Railway v. Clara City, 246 U. S. 434, 439.

The essence of the offense denounced by the Act is the combining with others in an association for the ac*372complishment of the desired ends through the advocacy and use of criminal and unlawful methods. It partakes of the nature of a criminal conspiracy. See People v. Steelik, supra, 376. That such united and joint action involves even greater danger to the public peace and security than the isolated utterances and acts of individuals; is clear. We cannot hold that, as here applied, the' Act is an unreasonable or arbitrary exercise -of the police power of the State, unwarrantably infringing any right of free speech, assembly or association, or that those persons are protected from punishment by the due process clause who abuse such rights by joining and furthering an organization thus menacing the peace and welfare of the State.

We find no repugnancy in the Syndicalism Act as applied in this case to either the due process or equal protection clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment on any of the grounds upon which. its validity has been here challenged.

The order dismissing the writ of error will be vacated and set aside, and the judgment of the. Court of Appeal

Affirmed.

Mr. Justice Brandéis,

concurring.

■ Miss Whitney was convicted of the felony of assisting in organizing, in the year 1919,. the Communist Labor Party of California, of being a member of it, and of assembling with it. These acts are held to constitute a crime, because the party was formed to teach criminal syndicalism. The statute which made these acts a crime restricted the right of free speech and of assembly theretofore existing. The claim is that, the statute,'as applied, denied to. Miss Whitney the liberty guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment.

The felony which the statute created is a crime very unlike the old felony of conspiracy or the old misdemeanor *373of unlawful assembly. The mere act of assisting in forming a society for teaching syndicalism, of becoming a member of it, or of assembling with others for that purpose is given the dynamic quality of crime. There is guilt although the society may not contemplate immediate promulgation of the doctrine. Thus the accused is to be punished, not for contempt, incitement or conspiracy, but for a step' in preparation, which, if it threatens the public order at all, does so only remotely. The novelty in. the prohibition introduced is that thé statute .aims, not at the practice of criminal syndicalism, ,nor even directly at the preaching of it, but at association with those who propose to preach it.

Despite arguments to the contrary which had seemed to me persuasive, it is settled that the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment applies to matters of substantive law as well as to matters of procedure. Thus all fundamental rights comprised within the term liberty are protected by the Federal Constitution from invasion by the States. The right of free speech, the right to teach and the right of assembly are, of course, fundamental rights. See Meyer v. Nebraska, 262 U. S. 390; Pierce v, Society of Sisters, 268 U. S. 510; Gitlow v. New York, 268 U. S. 652, 666; Farrington v. Tokushige, 273 U. S. 284. These may not be denied or abridged. . But, although the rights of free speech and assembly are fundamental, they are not in their nature absolute. Their exercise is subject to restriction, if the particular restriction proposed is required in order to protect the State from destructipn or from serious injury, political, economic or moral. That the necessity which is essential to a valid restriction does not exist unless speech would produce, or is intended to" produce, a clear and imminent danger of some substantive evil which the State constitutionally may seek to prevent has been settled. See Schenck v. United States, 249 U. S. 47, 52.

*374It is said to be the function of the legislature to determine whether at a particular time and under the particular circumstances the formation of, or assembly with, a society organized to advocate criminal syndicalism constitutes a clear and present danger of substantive evil; and that by enacting the law here in question the legislature of California determined that question in the affirmative. Compare Gitlow v. New York, 268 U. S. 652, 668-671. The legislature must obviously decide, in the first instance, whether a danger exists which calls for a. particular protective measure. But where a statute is valid only in case certain conditions exist, the enactment of the statute cannot alone establish the facts which are essential to its validity. Prohibitory legislation has repeatedly been held invalid, because unnecessary, where the denial of liberty involved was that of engaging in a particular business.1 The power of the courts to. strike down an offending law is no less when the interests involved are not property rights, but the fundamental per-. sonal rights of free speech and assembly.

This Court has not yet fixed the standard by which to determine when a danger shall be deemed clear; how remote the danger may be and yet be deemed present; and what degree of evil shall be deemed sufficiently substantial to justify resort to abridgement of free speech and assembly as the means of protection. To reach sound conclusions on these matters, we must bear in mind why a State is, ordinarily, denied the power to prohibit dissemination of social, economic and political doctrine which a vast majority of its citizens believes to be false and fraught with evil consequence.

*375Those who won our independence believed that the final end of the State was to make men free to develop their faculties; and that in its government the deliberative forces should prevail over the arbitrary. They valued liberty both as an end and as a means. They believed liberty to be the secret of happiness and courage to be the secret of liberty. They believed that freedom to think as you will and to speak as you think are means indispensable to the discovery and spread of political truth; that without free speech and assembly discussion would be futile; that with them, discussion affords ordinarily adequate protection against the dissemination of noxious doctrine; that the greatest menace to freedom is an inert people; that public discussion is a political duty; and that this should be a fundamental principle of the American government.2 They recognized the risks to which all human institutions are subject. But they knew that order cannot be secured merely through fear of punishment for its infraction; that it is hazardous to discourage thought, hope and imagination; that fear.breeds repression; that repression breeds hate; that hate menaces stable government; that the path of safety lies in the opportunity to discuss freely supposed grievances and proposed remedies; and that the fitting remedy for evil counsels is good ones. Believing in the power of reason as applied through public discussion, they eschewed silence *376coerced by law — the argument of force in its worst form. Recognizing the occasional tyrannies of governing majorities, they amended the Constitution so that free speech and assembly should be guaranteed.

Fear of serious.-injury cannot alone justify suppression of free speech and assembly. Men feared witches,,, and burnt women. It is the functioif of speech to free men from the bondage of irrational fears. To justify sup-/^ pression of free speech there must be reasonable ground to fear that serious evil will result if free speech is practiced: There must be reasonable groimd to believe that the danger apprehended is imminent. There ,must be"v reasonable ground to believe that the evil to be prevented is a serious one. Every denunciation of existing law/ tends in some measure to increase the probability that there will be violation of it.3 Condonation of a breach enhances the probability. Expressions of approval add to the probability. Propagation of the criminal state of mind by teaching syndicalism 'increases it. Advocacy of law-breaking heightens it still further. But even advo-/ cacy of violation, however reprehensible morally, is not a justification for denying free speech where the advocacy falls short of incitement and there is nothing to indicate that the advocacy would be immediately acted on. The wide difference between advocacy and incitement, be-tween preparation and attempt, between assembling and conspiracy, must be borne in mind. In order to support a finding of clear and present danger it must be shown either that immediate serious violence was to be expected or was advocated, or that the past conduct furnished reason to believe that such advocacy was then contemplated.

*377Those who won our independence by revolution were not cowards.. They did not fear political change. They did not exalt order at the cost of liberty.. To courageous,' self-reliant men, with confidence in the power of free and fearless reasoning applied through the procésses of popular government, no danger flowing from speech can be deemed clear and present, unless the incidence of the evil apprehendedls so imminent that it may befall before there is opportunity for full discussion. If there be time expose through discussion the falsehood and fallacies, to avert the evil by the processes of education, the remedy. to be applied is more speech, not enforced silence. Only an emergency can justify repression. Such must be the rule if authority is to be reconciled with freedom.4 Such, in my opinion, is the command of the .Constitution. It is therefore always open to Americans to challenge a law abridging free speech and assembly by showing that there was no emergency justifying it.

Moreover, even imminent danger cannot justify resort to prohibition of. these functions essential to effective democracy, unless the evil apprehended is relatively serious. Prohibition of free speech and assembly is a measure so stringent that it would be inappropriate as the means for averting a relatively trivial harm to society. A police measure may be unconstitutional merely because the remedy, although effective as means of protection, is unduly harsh or oppressive. Thus, a State might, in the exercise of its police power, make any trespass upon the *378land of another a crime, regardless of the results or of the intent or purpose of the trespasser. It might, also, punish an attempt, a conspiracy, or an incitement to commit the trespass. But it is hardly conceivable that this Court would hold constitutional a statute which punished as a felony the mere voluntary assembly with a society formed to teach that pedestrians had the moral right to cross unenclosed, unposted, waste lands and to advocate their doing so, even if there was imminent danger that advocacy would lead to a trespass. The fact that speech is likely to result in some violence or in destruction of property is not enough to justify its suppression. There must be the probability of serious injury to the State. Among free men, the deterrents ordinarily to be applied to prevent crime are education and punishment for violations of the law, not abridgment of the rights of free speech and assembly.

The California Syndicalism Act recites in § 4:

“ Inasmuch- as this act concerns and is necessary to the immediate preservation of the public peace and safety, for the reason that at the present time large numbers of persons are going from place to place in this state advocating, teaching and practicing criminal-syndicalism, this act shall take effect upon approval by the Governor.”

This legislative declaration satisfies the requirement of the constitution of the State concerning emergency legislation. In re McDermott, 180 Cal. 783. But it does not preclude enquiry into the question whether, at the time and under the circumstances, the conditions existed which are essential to validity under the Federal Constitution. As a statute, even if not void on its face, may be challenged because invalid as applied, Dahnke-Walker Milling Co. v. Bondurant, 257 U. S. 282, the result of such an enquiry may depend upon the specific facts of the particular case. Whenever the fundamental rights of free speech and assembly are alleged to have been in*379vaded, it must remain open to a defendant to present the issue whether there actually did exist at the time a clear danger; whether the danger, if any, was imminent; and whether the evil apprehended was one so substantial as to justify the stringent restriction interposed by the legislature. The legislative declaration, like the fact that the statute was passed and was sustained by the highest court of the State, creates merely a rebuttable presumption that these conditions have been satisfied.

Whether in 1919, when Miss Whitney did the things complained of, there was in California such clear and present danger of serious evil, might have been made the important issue in the ease. She might have required that the issue be determined either by the court or the jury.' She claimed below that the statute as applied to her violated the Federal Constitution; but she did not claim that it was void because there was no clear and present danger of serious evil, nor did she request that the existence of these conditions of a valid measure thus restricting the rights of free speech and assembly be passed upon by the court or a jury. On the other hand, there was evidence on which the court or jury, might have found that such danger existed. I am unable to assent to the suggestion in the opinion of the Court that assembling with a political party, formed to advocate the desirability of a proletarian revolution by mass action at some date necessarily far in the future, is not a right within the protection of the Fourteenth Amendment. In the present case, however, there was other testimony which tended to .establish the existence of a conspiracy, on the part of members of the International Workers of the World, to commit present serious crimes; and likewise to show that such a conspiracy would be furthered by the activity of the society of which Miss Whitney was a member. Under these circumstances the judgment of the state court cannot be disturbed.

*380Our power of review in this case is limited not only to the question whether a right guaranteed by the Federal Constitution was denied, Murdock v. City of Memphis, 20 Wall. 590; Haire v. Rice, 204 U. S. 291, 301; but to the particular claims duly made below, and denied. Seaboard Air Line Ry. v. Duvall, 225 U. S. 477, 485-488. We lack here the power occasionally exercised on review of judgments of lower federal courts to correct in criminal cases vital errors, although the objection was not taken in the trial court. Wiborg v. United States, 163 U. S. 632, 658-660; Clyatt v. United States, 197 U. S. 207, 221-222. This is a writ of error to a state court. Because we may not enquire into the errors now alleged, I concur in affirming the judgment of the state court.

Mr. Chief Justice Vinson

announced the judgment of the Court and an opinion in which Mr. Justice Reed, Mr. Justice Burton and Mr. Justice Minton join.

Petitioners were indicted in July, 1948, for violation of the conspiracy provisions of the Smith Act, 54 Stat. 671, 18 U. S. C. (1946 ed.) § 11, during the period of April, 1945, to July, 1948. The pretrial motion to quash the indictment on the grounds, inter alia, that the statute was unconstitutional was denied, United States v. Foster, 80 F. Supp. 479, and the case was set for trial on January 17, 1949. A verdict of guilty as to all the petitioners was returned by the jury on October 14, 1949. The Court of Appeals affirmed the convictions. 183 F. 2d 201. We granted certiorari, 340 U. S. 863, limited to the following two questions: (1) Whether either § 2 or § 3 of the Smith *496Act, inherently or as construed and applied in the instant case, violates the First'Amendment and other provisions of the Bill of Rights; (2) whether either § 2 or § 3 of the Act, inherently or as construed and applied in the instant case, violates the First and Fifth Amendments because of indefiniteness.

Sections 2 and 3 of the Smith Act, 54 Stat. 671, 18 U. S. C. (1946 ed.) §§ 10, 11 (see present 18 U. S. C. § 2385), provide as follows:

“Sec. 2. (a) It shall be unlawful for any person— “(1) to knowingly or willfully advocate, abet, advise, or teach the duty, necessity, desirability, or propriety of overthrowing or destroying any government in the United States by force or violence, or by the assassination of-any officer of any such government;

“(2) with intent to cause the overthrow or destruction of any government in the United States, to print, publish, edit, issue, circulate,.sell, distribute, or publicly display any written or printed matter advocating, advising, or teaching the duty, necessity, desirability, or propriety of overthrowing or destroying any government in the United States by force or violence;

“(3) to organize or help to .organize any society, group, or assembly of persons who teach, advocate, or encourage the overthrow or destruction of any government in the United States by force or violence; or to be or become a member of, or affiliate with, any such society, group, or assembly of persons, knowing the purposes thereof.

“(b) For the purposes of this section, the term ‘government in the United States’ means the Government of the United States, the government of any State, Territory, or possession of the United States, the government of the District of Columbia, or the *497government of any political subdivision of any of them.

“Sec. 3. It shall be unlawful for any person to attempt to commit, or to conspire to commit, any of the acts prohibited by the provisions of this title.”

The indictment charged the petitioners with wilfully and knowingly conspiring (1) to organize as the Communist Party of the United States of America a society, group and assembly of persons who teach and advocate the overthrow and destruction of the Government of the United States by force and violence, and (2) knowingly and wilfully to advocate and teach the duty and necessity of overthrowing and destroying the Government of the United States by force and violence. The indictment further alleged that § 2 of the Smith Act proscribes these acts and that any conspiracy to take such action is a violation of § 3 of the Act.

The trial of the case extended over nine months, six of which were devoted to the taking of evidence, resulting in a record of 16,000 pages. Our limited grant of the writ of certiorari has removed from our consideration any question as to the sufficiency of the evidence to support the jury’s determination that petitioners are guilty of the offense charged. Whether on this record petitioners did in fact advocate the overthrow of the Government by force and violence is not before us, and we must base any discussion of this point upon the conclusions stated in the opinion of the Court of Appeals, which treated the issue in great detail. That court held that the record in this case amply supports the necessary finding of the jury that petitioners, the leaders of the Communist Party in this country, were unwilling to work within our framework of democracy, but intended to initiate a violent revolution whenever the propitious occasion appeared. Petitioners dispute the meaning to be drawn from the evidence, contending that the Marxist-*498Leninist doctrine they advocated taught that force and violence to achieve a Communist form of government in an existing democratic state would be necessary only because the ruling classes of that state would never permit the transformation to be accomplished peacefully, but would use force and violence to defeat any peaceful political and economic gain the Communists could achieve. But the Court of Appeals held that the record supports the following broad conclusions: By virtue of their control over the political apparatus of the Communist Political Association,1 petitioners were able to transform that organization into the Communist Party; that the policies of the Association were changed from peaceful cooperation with the United States and its economic and political structure to a policy which had existed before the United States and the Soviet Union were fighting a common enemy, namely, a policy which worked for the overthrow of the Government by force and violence; that the Communist Party is a highly disciplined organization, adept at infiltration into strategic positions, use of aliases, and double-meaning language; that the Party is rigidly controlled; that Communists, unlike other political parties, tolerate no dissension from the policy laid down by the guiding forces, but that the approved program is slavishly followed by the members of the Party; that the literature of the Party and the statements and activities of its leaders, petitioners here, advocate, and the general goal of the Party was, during the period in question, to achieve a successful overthrow of the existing order by force and violence.

*499I.

It will be helpful in clarifying the issues to treat next the contention that the trial judge improperly interpreted the statute by charging that the statute required an unlawful intent before the jury could convict. More specifically, he charged that the jury could not find the petitioners guilty under the indictment unless they found that petitioners had the intent to “overthrow . . . the Government of the United States by force and violence as speedily as circumstances would permit.”

Section 2 (a) (1) makes it unlawful “to knowingly or willfully advocate-, ... or teach the duty, necessity, desirability, or propriety of overthrowing or destroying any government in the United States by force or violence ....”; Section 2 (a) (3), “to organize or help to organize any society, group, or assembly of persons who teach, advocate, or encourage the overthrow . . . .” Because of the fact that § 2 (a) (2) expressly requires a specific intent to overthrow the Government, and because of the absence of precise language in the foregoing subsections, it is claimed that Congress deliberately omitted any such requirement. We do not agree. It would require a far greater indication of congressional desire that intent not be made an element of the crime than the use of the disjunctive “knowingly or willfully” in § 2 (a) (1), or the omission of exact language in § 2 (a) (3). The structure and purpose of the statute demand the inclusion of intent as an element of the crime. Congress was concerned with those who advocate and organize for the overthrow of the Government. Certainly those who recruit and combine for the purpose of advocating overthrow intend to bring about that overthrow. We hold that the statute requires as an essential element of the crime proof of the intent of those who are charged with its violation to overthrow the Government by force and violence. See *500Williams v. United States, 341 U. S. 97, 101-102 (1951); Screws v. United States, 325 U. S. 91, 101-105 (1945); Cramer v. United States, 325 U. S. 1, 31 (1945).

Nor does the fact that there must be an investigation of a state of mind under this interpretation afford any basis for rejection of that meaning. A survey of Title 18 of the U. S. Code indicates that the vast majority of the crimes designated by that Title require, by express language, proof of the existence of a certain mental state, in words such as “knowingly,” “maliciously,” “wilfully,” “with' the purpose of,” “with intent to,” or combinations or permutations of these and synonymous terms. The existence of a mens rea is the rule of, rather than the exception to, the principles of Anglo-American criminal jurisprudence. See American Communications Assn. v. Douds, 339 U. S. 382, 411 (1950).

It has been suggested that the presence of intent makes a difference in the law when an “act otherwise excusable or carrying minor penalties” is'accompanied by such an evil intent. Yet the existence of such an intent made the killing condemned in Screws, supra, and the beating in Williams, supra, both clearly and severely punishable under state law, offenses constitutionally punishable by the Federal Government. In those cases, the Court required the Government to prove that the defendants intended to deprive the victim of a constitutional right. If that precise mental state may be an essential element of a crime, surely an intent to overthrow the Government of the United States, by advocacy thereof is equally susceptible of proof.2

*501II.

The obvious purpose of the statute is to protect existing Government, not from change by peaceable, lawful and constitutional means, but from change by violence, revolution and terrorism. That it is within the power of the Congress to protect the Government of the United States from armed rebellion is a proposition which requires little discussion. Whatever theoretical merit there may be to the argument that there is a “right” to rebellion against dictatorial governments is without force where the existing structure of the government provides for peaceful and orderly change. We reject any principle of governmental helplessness in the face of preparation for revolution, which principle, carried to its logical conclusion, must lead to anarchy. No one could conceive that it is not within the power of Congress to prohibit acts intended to overthrow the Government by force and violence. The question with which we are concerned here is not whether Congress has such power, but whether the means which it has employed conflict with the First and Fifth Amendments to' the Constitution.

One of the bases for the contention that the means which Congress has employed are invalid takes the form of an attack on the face of the statute on the grounds that by its terms it prohibits academic discussion of the merits of Marxism-Leninism, that it stifles ideas and is contrary to all concepts of a free speech and a free press. Although we do not agree that the language itself has that significance, we must bear in mind that it is the duty of the federal courts to interpret federal legislation in a manner not inconsistent with the demands of the Constitution. American Communications Assn. v. Douds, 339 U. S. 382, 407 (1950). We are not here confronted with cases similar to Thornhill v. Alabama, 310 U. S. 88 (1940); Herndon v. Lowry, 301 U. S. 242 (1937); and De Jonge v. Oregon, 299 U. S. 353 (1937), *502where a state court had given a meaning to a state statute which was inconsistent with the Federal Constitution. This is a federal statute which we must interpret as well as judge. Herein lies the fallacy of reliance upon the manner in which this Court has treated judgments of state courts. Where the statute as construed by the state court transgressed the First Amendment, we could not but invalidate the judgments of conviction.

The very language of the Smith Act negates the interpretation which petitioners would have us impose on that Act. It is directed at advocacy, not discussion. Thus, the trial judge properly charged the jury that they could not convict if they found that petitioners did “no more than pursue peaceful studies and discussions or teaching and advocacy in the realm of ideas.” He further charged that it was not unlawful “to conduct in an American college or university a course explaining the philosophical theories set forth in the books which have been placed in evidence.” Such a charge is in strict accord with the statutory language, and illustrates the meaning to be placed on those words. Congress did not intend to eradicate the free discussion of political theories, to destroy the traditional rights of Americans to discuss and evaluate ideas without fear of governmental sanction. Rather Congress was concerned with the very kind of activity in which the evidence showed .these petitioners engaged.

III.

But although the statute is not directed at the hypothetical cases which petitioners have conjured, its application in this case has resulted in convictions for the teaching and advocacy of the overthrow of the Government by force and violence, which, even though coupled with the intent to accomplish that overthrow, contains an element of speech. For this reason, we must pay special *503heed to the demands of the First Amendment marking out the boundaries of speech.

We pointed out in Douds, supra, that the basis of the First Amendment is the hypothesis that speech can rebut speech, propaganda will answer propaganda, free debate of ideas will result in the wisest governmental policies. It is for this reason that this Court has recognized the inherent value of free discourse. An analysis of the leading cases in this Court which have involved direct limitations on speech, however, will demonstrate that both the majority of the Court and the dissenters in particular cases have recognized that this is not an unlimited, unqualified right, but that the societal value of speech must, on occasion, be subordinated to other values and considerations.

No important case involving free speech was decided by this Court prior to Schenck v. United States, 249 U. S. 47 (1919). Indeed, the summary treatment accorded an argument based upon an individual’s claim that the First Amendment protected certain utterances indicates that the Court at earlier dates placed no unique emphasis upon that right.3 It was not until the classic dictum of Justice Holmes in the Schenck case that speech per se received that emphasis in a majority opinion. That case involved a conviction under the Criminal Espionage Act, 40 Stat. 217. The question the Court faced was whether the evidence was sufficient to sustain the conviction. Writing for a unanimous Court, Justice Holmes stated that the “question in every case is whether the words used are used in such circumstances and are of such a nature as to create a clear and present danger that they will bring about the substantive evils that Congress has a right *504to prevent.” 249 U. S. at 52. But the force of even this expression is considerably weakened by the reference at the end of the opinion to Goldman v. United States, 245 U. S. 474 (1918), a prosecution under the same statute. Said Justice Holmes, “Indeed [Goldman] might be said to dispose of the present contention if the precedent covers all media concludendi. But as the right to free speech was not referred to specially, we have thought fit to add a few words.” 249 U. S. at 52. The fact is inescapable, too, that the phrase bore no connotation that the danger was to be any threat to the safety of the Republic. The charge was causing and attempting to cause insubordination in the military forces and obstruct recruiting. The objectionable document denounced conscription and its most inciting sentence was, “You must do your share to maintain, support and uphold the rights of the people of this country.” 249 U. S. at 51. Fifteen thousand copies were printed and some circulated. This insubstantial gesture toward insubordination in 1917 during war was held to be a clear and present danger of bringing about the evil of military insubordination.

In several later cases involving convictions under the Criminal Espionage Act; the nub of the evidence the Court held sufficient to meet the “clear and present danger” test enunciated in Schenck was as follows: Frohwerk v. United States, 249 U. S. 204 (1919) — publication of twelve newspaper articles attacking the war; Debs v. United States, 249 U. S. 211 (1919) — one speech attacking United States’ participation in the war; Abrams v. United States, 250 U. S. 616 (1919) — circulation of copies of two different socialist circulars attacking the war; Schaefer v. United States, 251 U. S. 466 (1920) — publication of a German-language newspaper with allegedly false articles, critical of capitalism and the war; Pierce v. United States, 252 U. S. 239 (1920) — circulation of copies of a four-page pamphlet written by a clergyman, attack*505ing the purposes of the war and United States’ participation therein. Justice Holmes wrote the opinions for a unanimous Court in Schenck, Frohwerk and Debs. He and Justice Brandéis dissented in Abrams, Schaefer and Pierce. The basis of these dissents was that, because of the protection which the First Amendment gives to speech, the evidence in each case was insufficient to show that the defendants had created the requisite danger under Schenck. But these dissents did not mark a change of principle. The dissenters doubted only the probable effectiveness of the puny efforts toward subversion. In Abrams, they wrote, “I do not doubt for a moment that by the same reasoning that would justify punishing persuasion to murder, the United States constitutionally may punish speech that produces or is intended to produce a clear and imminent danger that it will bring about forthwith certain substantive evils that the United States constitutionally may seek to prevent.” 250 U. S. at 627. And in Schaefer the test was said to be one of “degree,” 251 U. S. at 482, although it is not clear whether “degree” refers to clear and present danger or evil. Perhaps both were meant.

The rule we deduce from these cases is that where an offense is specified by a statute in nonspeech or nonpress terms, a conviction relying upon speech or press as evidence of violation may be sustained only when the speech or publication created a “clear and present danger” of attempting or accomplishing the prohibited crime, e. g., interference with enlistment. The dissents, we repeat, in emphasizing the value of speech, were addressed to the argument of the sufficiency of the evidence.

The next important case4 before the Court in which free speech was the crux of the conflict was Gitlow v. New York, 268 U. S. 652 (1925). There New York had *506made it a crime to advocate “the necessity or propriety of overthrowing . . . organized government by force . . . .” The evidence of violation of the statute was that the defendant had published a Manifesto attacking the Government and capitalism. The convictions were sustained, Justices Holmes and Brandéis dissenting. The majority refused to apply the “clear and present danger” test to the specific utterance. Its reasoning was as follows: The “clear and present danger” test was applied to the utterance itself in Schenck because the question was merely one of sufficiency of evidence under an admittedly constitutional statute. Gitlow, however, presented a different question. There a legislature had found that a certain kind of speech was, itself, harmful and unlawful. The constitutionality of such a state statute had to be adjudged by this Court just as it determined the constitutionality of any state statute, namely, whether the statute was “reasonable.” Since it was entirely reasonable for a state to attempt to protect itself from violent overthrow, the statute was perforce reasonable. The only question remaining in .the case became whether there was evidence to support the conviction, a question which gave the majority no difficulty. Justices Holmes and Brandéis refused to accept this approach, but insisted that wherever speech was the evidence of the violation, it was necessary to show that the speech created the “clear and present danger” of the substantive evil which the legislature had the right to prevent. Justices Holmes and Brandéis, then, made no distinction between a federal statute which made certain acts unlawful, the evidence to support the conviction being speech, and a statute which made speech itself the crime. This approach was emphasized in Whitney v. California, 274 U. S. 357 (1927), where the Court was confronted with a conviction under the California Criminal Syndicalist statute. The Court sustained the conviction, Justices Brandéis and Holmes *507concurring in the result. In their concurrence they repeated that even though the legislature had designated certain speech as criminal, this could not prevent the defendant from showing that there was no danger that the substantive evil would be brought about.

Although no case subsequent to Whitney and Gitlow has expressly overruled the majority opinions in those cases, there is little doubt that subsequent opinions have inclined toward the Holmes-Brandeis rationale.5 And in American Communications Assn. v. Douds, supra, we were called upon to decide the validity of § 9 (h) of the Labor Management Relations Act of 1947. That section required officials of unions which desired to avail themselves of the facilities of the National Labor Relations Board to take oaths that they did not belong to the Communist Party and that they did not believe in the overthrow of the Government by force and violence. We pointed out that Congress did not intend to punish belief, but rather intended to regulate the conduct of union affairs. We therefore held that any indirect sanction on speech which might arise from the oath requirement did not present a proper case for the “clear and present danger” test, for the regulation was aimed at conduct rather than speech. In discussing the proper measure of evaluation of this kind of legislation, we suggested that the Holmes-Brandeis philosophy insisted that where *508there was a direct restriction upon speech, a “clear and present danger” that the substantive evil would be caused was necessary before the statute in question could be constitutionally applied. And we stated, “[The First] Amendment requires that one be permitted to believe what he will. It requires that one be permitted to advocate what he will unless there is a clear and present danger that a substantial public evil will result therefrom.” 339 U. S. at 412. But we further suggested that neither Justice Holmes nor Justice Brandéis ever envisioned that a shorthand phrase should be crystallized into a rigid rule to be applied inflexibly without regard to the circumstances of each case. Speech is not an absolute, above and beyond control by the legislature when its judgment, subject to review here, is that certain kinds of speech are so undesirable as to warrant criminal sanction. Nothing is more certain in modern society than the principle that there are no absolutes, that a name, a phrase, a standard has meaning only when associated with the considerations which gave birth to the nomenclature. See American Communications Assn. v. Douds, 339 U. S. at 397. To those who would paralyze our Government in the face of impending threat by encasing it in a semantic straitjacket we must reply that all concepts are relative.

In this case we are squarely presented with the application of the “clear and present danger” test, and must decide what that phrase imports. We first note that many of the cases in which this Court has reversed convictions by use of this or similar tests have been based on the fact that the interest which the State was attempting to protect was itself too insubstantial to warrant restriction of speech. In this category we may put such cases as Schneider v. State, 308 U. S. 147 (1939); Cantwell v. Connecticut, 310 U. S. 296 (1940); Martin v. Struthers, 319 U. S. 141 (1943); West Virginia Board of Educa*509tion v. Barnette, 319 U. S. 624 (1943); Thomas v. Collins, 323 U. S. 516 (1945); Marsh v. Alabama, 326 U. S. 501 (1946); but cf. Prince v. Massachusetts, 321 U. S. 158 (1944); Cox v. New Hampshire, 312 U. S. 569 (1941). Overthrow of the Government by force and violence is certainly a substantial enough interest for the Government to limit speech. Indeed, this is the ultimate value of any society, for if a society cannot protect its very structure from armed internal attack, it must follow that no subordinate value can be protected. If, then, this interest may be protected, the literal problem which is presented is what has been meant by the use of the phrase “clear and present danger” of the utterances bringing about the evil within the power of Congress to punish.

Obviously, the words .cannot mean that before the Government may act, ii5 must wait until the putsch is about to be executed, the plans have been laid and the signal is awaited. If Government is aware that a group aiming at its overthrow is attempting to indoctrinate its members and to commit them to a course whereby they will strike when the leaders feel the circumstances permit, action by the Government is required.. The argument that there is no need for Government to concern itself, for Government is strong, it possesses ample powers to put down a rebellion, it may defeat the revolution with ease needs no answer. For that is not the question. Certainly an attempt to overthrow the Government by force, even though doomed from the outset because of inadequate numbers or power of the revolutionists, is a sufficient evil for Congress to prevent. The damage which such attempts create both physically and politically to a nation makes it impossible to measure the validity in terms of the probability of success, or the immediacy of a successful attempt. In the instant case the trial judge charged the jury that they could not convict unless they found that petitioners intended to overthrow the Gov*510ernment “as speedily as circumstances would permit.” This does not mean, and could not properly mean, that they would not strike until there was certainty of success. What was meant was that the revolutionists would strike when they thought the time was ripe. We must therefore reject the contention that success or probability of success is the criterion.

The situation with which Justices Holmes and Brandéis were concerned in Gitlow was a comparatively isolated event, bearing little relation in their minds to any substantial threat to the safety of the community. Such also is true of cases like Fiske v. Kansas, 274 U. S. 380 (1927), and De Jonge v. Oregon, 299 U. S. 353 (1937); but cf. Lazar v. Pennsylvania, 286 U. S. 532 (1932).( They. were not confronted with any situation comparable to the instant one — the development of an apparatus designed and dedicated to the overthrow of the Government, in the context of world crisis after crisis.

Chief Judge Learned Hand, writing for the majority below, interpreted the phrase as follows: “In each case [courts] must ask whether the gravity of the ‘evil,’ discounted by its improbability, justifies such invasion of free speech as is necessary to avoid the danger.” 183 F. 2d at 212. We adopt this statement of the rule. As articulated by Chief Judge Hand, it is as succinct and inclusive as any other we might devise at this time. It takes into consideration those factors which we deem relevant, and relates their significances. More we cannot expect from words.

Likewise, we are in accord with the court below, which affirmed the trial court’s finding that the requisite danger existed. The mere fact that from the period 1945 to 1948 petitioners’ activities did not result in an attempt to overthrow the Government by force and violence is of course no answer to the fact that there was a group that was ready to make the attempt. The formation *511by petitioners of such a highly organized conspiracy, with rigidly disciplined members subject to call when the leaders, these petitioners, felt that the time had come for action, coupled with the inflammable nature of world conditions, similar uprisings in other countries, and the touch-and-go nature of our relations with countries with whom petitioners were in the very least ideologically attuned, convince us that their convictions were justified on this score. And this analysis disposes of the contention that a conspiracy to advocate, as distinguished from the advocacy itself, cannot be constitutionally restrained, because it comprises only the preparation. It is the existence of the conspiracy which creates the danger. Cf. Pinkerton v. United States, 328 U. S. 640 (1946); Goldman v. United States, 245 U. S. 474 (1918); United States v. Rabinowich, 238 U. S. 78 (1915). If the ingredients of the reaction are present, we cannot bind the Government to wait until the catalyst is added.

IV.

Although we have concluded that the finding that there was a sufficient danger to warrant the application of the statute was justified on the merits, there remains the problem of whether the trial judge’s treatment of the issue was correct. He charged the jury, in relevant part, as follows:

“In further construction and interpretation of the statute I charge you that it is not the abstract doctrine of overthrowing or destroying organized government by unlawful means which is denounced by this law, but the teaching and advocacy of action for the accomplishment of that purpose, by language reasonably and ordinarily calculated to incite persons to such action. Accordingly, you cannot find the defendants or any of them guilty of the crime charged *512unless you are satisfied beyond a reasonable doubt that they conspired to organize a society, group and assembly of persons who teach and advocate the overthrow or destruction of the Government of the United States by force and violence and to advocate and teach the duty and necessity of overthrowing or destroying the Government of the United States by force and violence, with the intent that such teaching and advocacy be of a rule or principle of action and by language reasonably and ordinarily calculated to incite persons to such action, all with the intent to cause the overthrow or destruction of the Government of the United States by force and violence as speedily as circumstances would permit.

“If you are satisfied that the evidence establishes beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendants, or any of them, are guilty of a violation of the statute, as I have interpreted it to you, I find as matter of law that there is sufficient danger of a substantive evil that the Congress has a right to prevent to justify the application of the statute under the First Amendment of the Constitution.

“This is matter of law about which you have no concern. It is a finding on a matter of law which I deem essential to support my ruling that the case should be submitted to you to pass upon the guilt or innocence of the defendants. . .

It is thus clear that he reserved the question of the existence of the danger for his own determination, and the question becomes whether the issue is of such a nature that it should have been submitted to the jury.

The first paragraph of the quoted instructions calls for the jury to find the facts essential to establish the substantive crime, violation of §§ 2 (a) (1) and 2 (a) (3) of *513the Smith Act, involved in the conspiracy charge. There can be no doubt that if the jury found those facts against the petitioners violation of the Act would be established. The argument that the action of the trial court is erroneous, in declaring as a matter of law that such violation shows sufficient danger to justify the punishment despite the First Amendment, rests on the theory that a jury must decide a question of the application of the First Amendment. We do not agree.

When facts are found that establish the violation of a statute, the protection against conviction afforded by the First Amendment is a matter of law. The doctrine that there must be a clear and present danger of a substantive evil that Congress has a right to prevent is a judicial rule to be applied as a matter of law by the courts. The guilt is established by proof of facts. Whether the First Amendment protects the activity which constitutes the violation of the statute must depend upon a judicial determination of the scope of the First Amendment applied to the circumstances of the case.

Petitioners’ reliance upon Justice Brandéis’ language in his concurrence in Whitney, supra, is misplaced. In that case Justice Brandéis pointed out that the defendant could have made the existence of the requisite danger the important issue at her trial, but that she had not done so. In discussing this failure, he stated that the defendant could have had the issue determined by the court or the jury.6 No realistic construction of this disjunctive lan*514guage could arrive at the conclusion that he intended to state that the question was only determinable by a jury. Nor is the incidental statement of the majority in Pierce, supra, of any more persuasive effect.7 There the issue of the probable effect of the publication had been submitted to the jury, and the majority was apparently addressing its remarks to the contention of the dissenters that the jury could not reasonably have returned a verdict of guilty on the evidence.8 Indeed, in the very case in which the phrase was born, Schenck, this Court itself examined the record to find whether the requisite danger appeared, and the issue was not submitted to a jury. And in every later case in which the Court has measured the validity of a statute by the “clear and present danger” test, that determination has been by the court, the question of the danger not being submitted to the jury.

The question in this case is whether the statute which the legislature has enacted may be constitutionally applied. In other words, the Court must examine judicially *515the application of the statute to the particular situation, to ascertain if the Constitution prohibits the conviction. We hold that the statute may be applied where there is a “clear and present danger” of the substantive evil which the legislature had the right to prevent. Bearing, as it does, the marks of a “question of law,” the issue is properly one for the judge to decide.

V.

There remains to be discussed the question of vagueness — whether the statute as we have interpreted it is too vague, not sufficiently advising those who would speak of the limitations upon their activity. It is urged that such vagueness contravenes the First and Fifth Amendments. This argument is particularly nonpersuasive when presented by petitioners, who, the jury found, intended to overthrow the Government as speedily as circumstances would permit. See Abrams v. United States, 250 U. S. 616, 627-629 (1919) (dissenting opinion); Whitney v. California, 274 U. S. 357, 373 (1927) (concurring opinion); Taylor v. Mississippi, 319 U. S. 583, 589 (1943). A claim of guilelessness ill becomes those with evil intent. Williams v. United States, 341 U. S. 97, 101-102 (1951); Jordan v. De George, 341 U. S. 223, 230-232 (1951); American Communications Assn. v. Douds, 339 U. S. at 413; Screws v. United States, 325 U. S. 91, 101 (1945).

We agree that the standard as defined is not a neat, mathematical formulary. Like all verbalizations it is subject to criticism on the score of indefiniteness. But petitioners themselves contend that the verbalization “clear and present danger” is the proper standard. We see no difference, from the standpoint of vagueness, whether the standard of “clear and present danger” is one contained in haec verba within the statute, or whether it is the judicial measure of constitutional applicability. We *516have shown the indeterminate standard the phrase necessarily connotes. We do not think we have rendered that standard any more indefinite by our attempt to sum up the factors which are included within its scope. We think it well serves to indicate to those who would advocate constitutionally prohibited conduct that there is a line beyond which they may not go — a line which they, in full knowledge of what they intend and the circumstances in which their activity takes place, will well appreciate and understand. Williams, supra, at 101-102; Jordan, supra, at 230-232; United States v. Petrillo, 332 U. S. 1, 7 (1948); United States v. Wurzbach, 280 U. S. 396, 399 (1930); Nash v. United States, 229 U. S. 373, 376-377 (1913). Where there is doubt as to the intent of the defendants, the nature of their activities, or their power to bring about the evil, this Court will review the convictions with the scrupulous care demanded by our Constitution. But we are not convinced that because there may be borderline cases at some time in the future, these convictions should be reversed because of the argument that these petitioners could not know that their activities were constitutionally proscribed by the statute.

We have not discussed many of the questions which could be extracted from the record, although they were treated in detail by the court below. Our limited grant of the writ of certiorari has withdrawn from our consideration at this date those questions, which include, inter alia, sufficiency of the evidence, composition of jury, and conduct of the trial.

We hold that §§ 2 (a) (1), 2 (a) (3) and 3 of the Smith Act do not inherently, or as construed or applied in the instant case, violate the First Amendment and other provisions of the Bill of Rights, or the First and Fifth Amendments because of indefiniteness. Petitioners intended to overthrow the Government of the United States as speedily as the circumstances would permit. Their conspiracy *517to organize the Communist Party and to teach and advocate the overthrow of the Government of the United States by force and violence created a “clear and present danger” of an attempt to overthrow the Government by force and violence. They were properly and constitutionally convicted for violation of the Smith Act. The judgments of conviction are

Affirmed.

Me. Justice Frankfurter,

concurring in affirmance of the judgment.

The defendants were convicted under § 3 of the Smith Act for conspiring to violate § 2 of that Act, which makes it unlawful “to organize or help to organize any society, group, or assembly of persons who teach, advocate, or encourage the overthrow or destruction of any government in the United States by force or violence.” Act of June 28,1940, § 2 (a) (3), 54 Stat. 670, 671,18 U. S. C. § 10, now 18 U. S. C. § 2385. The substance of the indictment is that the defendants between April 1,1945, and July 20, 1948, agreed to bring about the dissolution of a body known as the Communist Political Association and to organize in its place the Communist Party of the United States; that the aim of the new party was “the overthrow and destruction of the Government of the United States by force and violence”; that the defendants were to assume leadership of the Party and to recruit members for it and that the Party was to publish books and conduct classes, teaching the duty and the necessity of forceful overthrow. The jury found all the defendants guilty. With one exception, each was sentenced to imprisonment for five years and to a fine of $10,000. The convictions were affirmed by the Court of Appeals for the Second *518Circuit. 183 F. 2d 201. We were asked to review this affirmance on all the grounds considered by the Court of Appeals. These included not only the scope of the freedom of speech guaranteed by the Constitution, but also serious questions regarding the legal composition of the jury and the fair conduct of the trial. We granted certiorari, strictly limited, however, to the contention that §§ 2 and 3 of the Smith Act, inherently and as applied, violated the First and Fifth Amendments. 340 U. S. 863. No attempt was made to seek an enlargement of the range of questions thus defined, and these alone are now open for our consideration. All others are foreclosed by the decision of the Court of Appeals.

As thus limited, the controversy in this Court turns essentially on the instructions given to the jury for determining guilt or innocence. 9 F. R. D. 367. The first question is whether — wholly apart from constitutional matters — the judge’s charge properly explained to the jury what it is that the Smith Act condemns. The conclusion that he did so requires no labored argument. On the basis of the instructions, the jury found, for the purpose of our review, that the advocacy which the defendants conspired to promote was to be a rule of action, by language reasonably calculated to incite persons to such action, and was intended to cause the overthrow of the Government by force and violence as soon as circumstances permit. This brings us to the ultimate issue. In enacting a statute which makes it a crime for the defendants to conspire to do what they have been found to have conspired to do, did Congress exceed its constitutional power?

New questions of comparable import have come before this Court in recent years. The appellants maintain that they have a right to advocate a political theory, so long, at least, as their advocacy does not create an immediate danger of obvious magnitude to the very existence of *519our present scheme of society. On the other hand, the Government asserts the right to safeguard the security of the Nation by such a measure as the Smith Act. Our judgment is thus solicited on a conflict of interests of the utmost concern to the well-being of the country. This conflict of interests cannot be resolved by a dogmatic preference for one or the other, nor by a sonorous formula which is in fact only a euphemistic disguise for an unresolved conflict. If adjudication is to be a rational process, we cannot escape a candid examination of the conflicting claims with full recognition that both are supported by weighty title-deeds.

I.

There come occasions in law, as elsewhere, when the familiar needs to be recalled. Our whole history proves even more decisively than the course of decisions in this Court that the United States has the powers inseparable from a sovereign nation. “America has chosen to be, in many respects, and to many purposes, a nation; and for all these purposes, her government is complete; to all these objects, it is competent.” Chief Justice Marshall in Cohens v. Virginia, 6 Wheat. 264, 414. The right of a government to maintain its existence — self-preservation— is the most pervasive aspect of sovereignty. “Security against foreign danger,” wrote Madison, “is one of the primitive objects of civil society.” The Federalist, No. 41. The constitutional power to act upon this basic principle has been recognized by this Court at different periods and under diverse circumstances. “To preserve its independence, and give security against foreign aggression and encroachment, is the highest duty of every nation, and to attain these ends nearly all other considerations are to be subordinated. It matters not in what form such aggression and encroachment come .... The government, possessing the powers which are to be exercised *520for protection and security, is clothed with authority to determine the occasion on which the powers shall be called forth . . . .” Chinese Exclusion Case, 130 U. S. 581, 606. See also De Lima v. Bidwell, 182 U. S. 1; Mackenzie v. Hare, 239 U. S. 299; Missouri v. Holland, 252 U. S. 416; United States v. Curtiss-Wright Corp., 299 U. S. 304. The most tragic experience in our history is a poignant reminder that the Nation’s continued existence may be threatened from within. To protect itself from such threats, the Federal Government “is invested with all those inherent and implied powers which, at the time of adopting the Constitution, were generally considered to belong to every government as such, and as being essential to the exercise of its functions.” Mr. Justice Bradley, concurring in Legal Tender Cases, 12 Wall. 457, 554, 556; and see In re Debs, 158 U. S. 564, 582.

But even the all-embracing power and duty of self-preservation are not absolute. Like the war power, which is indeed an aspect of the power of self-preservation, it is subject to applicable constitutional limitations. See Hamilton v. Kentucky Distilleries Co., 251 U. S. 146, 156. Our Constitution has no provision lifting restrictions upon governmental authority during periods of emergency, although the scope of a restriction may depend on the circumstances in which it is invoked.

The First Amendment is such a restriction. It exacts obedience even during periods of war; it is applicable when war clouds are not figments of the imagination no less than when they are. The First Amendment categorically demands that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.” The right of a man to think what he *521pleases, to write what he thinks, and to have his thoughts made available for others to hear or read has an engaging ring of universality. The Smith Act and this conviction under it no doubt restrict the exercise of free speech and assembly. Does that, without more, dispose of the matter?

Just as there are those who regard as invulnerable every measure for which the claim of national survival is invoked, there are those who find in the Constitution a wholly unfettered right of expression. Such literalness treats the words of the Constitution as though they were found on a piece of outworn parchment instead of being words that have called into being a nation with a past to be preserved for the future. The soil in which the Bill of Rights grew was not a soil of arid pedantry. The historic antecedents of the First Amendment preclude the notion that its purpose was to give unqualified immunity to every expression that touched on matters within the range of political interest. The Massachusetts Constitution of 1780 guaranteed free speech; yet there are records of at least three convictions for political libels obtained between 1799 and 1803.1 The Pennsylvania Constitution of 1790 and the Delaware Constitution of 1792 expressly imposed liability for abuse of the right of free speech.2 Madison’s own State put on its books in 1792 a statute confining the abusive exercise of the right of utterance.3 And it deserves to be noted that in writing to John Adams’s wife, Jefferson did not rest his condemnation of the Sedition Act of 1798 on his belief in *522unrestrained utterance as to political matter. The First Amendment, he argued, reflected a limitation upon Federal power, leaving the right to enforce restrictions on speech to the States.4

*523The language of the First Amendment is to be read not as barren words found in a dictionary but as symbols of historic experience illumined by the presuppositions of those who employed them. Not what words did Madison and Hamilton use, but what was it in their minds which they conveyed? Free speech is subject to prohibition of those abuses of expression which a civilized society may forbid. As in the case of every other provision of the Constitution that is not crystallized by the nature of its technical concepts, the fact that the First Amendment is not self-defining and self-enforcing neither impairs its usefulness nor compels its paralysis as a living instrument.

*524“The law is perfectly well settled,” this Court said over fifty years ago, “that the first ten amendments to the Constitution, commonly known as the Bill of Rights, were not intended to lay down any novel principles of government, but simply to embody certain guaranties and immunities which we had inherited from our English ancestors, and which had from time immemorial been subject to certain well-recognized exceptions arising from the necessities of the case. In incorporating these principles into the fundamental law there was no intention of disregarding the exceptions, which continued to be recognized as if they had been formally expressed.” Robertson v. Baldwin, 165 U. S. 275, 281. That this represents the authentic view of the Bill of Rights and the spirit in which it must be construed has been recognized again and again in cases that have come here within the last fifty years. See, e. g., Gompers v. United States, 233 U. S. 604, 610. Absolute rules would inevitably lead to absolute exceptions, and such exceptions would eventually corrode the rules.5 The demands of free speech in a democratic society as well as the interest *525in national security are better served by candid and informed weighing of the competing interests, within the confines of the judicial process, than by announcing dogmas too inflexible for the non-Euclidian problems to be solved.

But how are competing interests to be assessed? Since they are not subject to quantitative ascertainment, the issue necessarily resolves itself into asking, who is to make the adjustment? — who is to balance the relevant factors and ascertain which interest is in the circumstances to prevail? Full responsibility for the choice cannot be given to the courts. Courts are not representative bodies. They are not designed to be a good reflex of a democratic society. Their judgment is best informed, and therefore most dependable, within narrow limits. Their essential quality is detachment, founded on independence. History teaches that the independence of the judiciary is jeopardized when courts become embroiled in the passions of the day and assume primary responsibility in choosing between competing political, economic and social pressures.

Primary responsibility for adjusting the interests which compete in the situation before us of necessity belongs to the Congress. The nature of the power to be exercised by this Court has been delineated in decisions not charged with the emotional appeal of situations such as that now before us. We are to set aside the judgment of those whose duty it is to legislate only if there is no reasonable basis for it. Sinking-Fund Cases, 99 U. S. 700, 718; Mugler v. Kansas, 123 U. S. 623, 660-661; United States v. Carolene Products Co., 304 U. S. 144. We are to determine whether a statute is sufficiently definite to meet the constitutional requirements of due process, and whether it respects the safeguards against undue concentration of authority secured by separation of power. United States v. Cohen Grocery Co., 255 U. S. 81. *526We must assure fairness of procedure, allowing full scope to governmental discretion but mindful of its impact on individuals in the context of the problem involved. Joint Anti-Fascist Refugee Comm. v. McGrath, 341 U. S. 123. And, of course, the proceedings in a particular case before us must have the warrant of substantial proof. Beyond these powers we must not go; we must scrupulously observe the narrow limits of judicial authority even though self-restraint is alone set over us. Above all we must remember that this Court’s power of judicial review is not “an exercise of the powers of a super-legislature.” Mr. Justice Brandéis and Mr. Justice Holmes, dissenting in Burns Baking Co. v. Bryan, 264 U. S. 504, 534.

A generation ago this distribution of responsibility would not have been questioned. See Fox v. Washington, 236 U. S. 273; Meyer v. Nebraska, 262 U. S. 390; Bartels v. Iowa, 262 U. S. 404; cf. New York ex rel. Bryant v. Zimmerman, 278 U. S. 63. But in recent decisions we have made explicit what has long been implicitly recognized. In reviewing statutes which restrict freedoms protected by the First Amendment, we have emphasized the close relation which those freedoms bear to maintenance of a free society. See Kovacs v. Cooper, 336 U. S. 77, 89, 95 (concurring). Some members of the Court — and at times a majority- — -have done more. They have suggested that our function in reviewing statutes restricting freedom of expression differs sharply from our normal duty in sitting in judgment on legislation. It has been said that such statutes “must be justified by clear public interest, threatened not doubtfully or remotely, but by clear and present danger. The rational connection between the remedy provided and the evil to be curbed, which in other contexts might support legislation against attack on due process grounds, will not suffice.” Thomas v. Collins, 323 U. S. 516, 530. It has been suggested, with the casualness of a footnote, that such legislation is not *527presumptively valid, see United States v. Carolene Products Co., 304 U. S. 144, 152, n. 4, and it has been weightily reiterated that freedom of speech has a “preferred position” among constitutional safeguards. Kovacs v. Cooper, 336 U. S. 77, 88.

The precise meaning intended to be conveyed by these phrases need not now be pursued. It is enough to note that they have recurred in the Court’s opinions, and their cumulative force has, not without justification, engendered belief that there is a constitutional principle, expressed by those attractive but imprecise words, prohibiting restriction upon utterance unless it creates a situation of “imminent” peril against which legislation may guard.6 It is on this body of the Court’s pronouncements that the defendants’ argument here is based.

In all fairness, the argument cannot be met by reinterpreting the Court’s frequent use of “clear” and “present” to mean an entertainable “probability.” In giving this meaning to the phrase “clear and present danger,” the Court of Appeals was fastidiously confining the rhetoric of opinions to the exact scope of what was decided by them. We have greater responsibility for having given constitutional support, over repeated protests, to uncritical libertarian generalities.

*528Nor is the argument of the defendants adequately met by citing isolated cases. Adjustment of clash of interests which are at once subtle and fundamental is not likely to reveal entire consistency in a series of instances presenting the clash. It is not too difficult to find what one seeks in the language of decisions reporting the effort to reconcile free speech with the interests with which it conflicts. The case for the defendants requires that their conviction be tested against the entire body of our relevant decisions. Since the significance of every expression of thought derives from the circumstances evoking it, results reached rather than language employed give the vital meaning. See Cohens v. Virginia, 6 Wheat. 264, 442; Wambaugh, The Study of Cases, 10.

There is an added reason why we must turn to the decisions. “Great cases,” it is appropriate to remember, “like hard cases make bad law. For great cases are called great, not by reason of their real importance in shaping the law of the future, but because of some accident of immediate overwhelming interest which appeals to the feelings and distorts the judgment. These immediate interests exercise a kind of hydraulic pressure which makes what previously was clear seem doubtful, and before which even well settled principles of law will bend.” Mr. Justice Holmes, dissenting in Northern Securities Co. v. United States, 193 U. S. 197, 400-401.

This is such a case. Unless we are to compromise judicial impartiality and subject these defendants to the risk of an ad hoc judgment influenced by the impregnating atmosphere of the times, the constitutionality of their conviction must be determined by principles established in cases decided in more tranquil periods. If those decisions are to be used as a guide and not as an argument, it is important to view them as a whole and to distrust the easy generalizations to which some of them lend themselves.

*529II.

We have recognized and resolved conflicts between speech and competing interests in six different types of cases.7

1. The cases involving a conflict between the interest in allowing free expression of ideas in public places and the interest in protection of the public peace and the primary uses of streets and parks, were too recently considered to be rehearsed here. Niemotko v. Maryland, 340 U. S. 268, 273. It suffices to recall that the result in each case was found to turn on the character of the interest with which the speech clashed, the method used to impose the restriction, and the nature and circumstances of the utterance prohibited. While the decisions recognized the importance of free speech and carefully scrutinized the justification for its regulation, they rejected the notion that vindication of the deep public interest in freedom of expression requires subordination of all conflicting values.

2. A critique of the cases testing restrictions on picketing is made more difficult by the inadequate recognition by the Court from the outset that the loyalties and responses evoked and exacted by picket lines differentiate this form of expression from other modes of communication. See Thornhill v. Alabama, 310 U. S. 88. But the *530crux of the decision in the Thornhill case was that a State could not constitutionally punish peaceful picketing when neither the aim of the picketing nor the manner in which it was carried out conflicted with a substantial interest. In subsequent decisions we sustained restrictions designed to prevent recurrence of violence, Milk Wagon Drivers Union v. Meadowmoor Dairies, 312 U. S. 287, or reasonably to limit the area of industrial strife, Carpenters & Joiners Union v. Ritter’s Cafe, 315 U. S. 722; cf. Bakery & Pastry Drivers Local v. Wohl, 315 U. S. 769. We held that a State’s policy against restraints of trade justified it in prohibiting picketing which violated that policy, Giboney v. Empire Storage Co., 336 U. S. 490; we sustained restrictions designed to encourage self-employed persons, International Brotherhood of Teamsters Union v. Hanke, 339 U. S. 470; and to prevent racial discrimination, Hughes v. Superior Court, 339 U. S. 460. The Fourteenth Amendment bars a State from prohibiting picketing when there is no fair justification for the breadth of the restriction imposed. American Federation of Labor v. Swing, 312 U. S. 321; Cafeteria Employees Union v. Angelos, 320 U. S. 293. But it does not prevent a State from denying the means of communication that picketing affords in a fair balance between the interests of trade unionism and other interests of the community.

3. In three cases we have considered the scope and application of the power of the Government to exclude, deport, or denaturalize aliens because of their advocacy or their beliefs. In United States ex rel. Turner v. Williams, 194 U. S. 279, we held that the First Amendment did not disable Congress from directing the exclusion of an alien found in an administrative proceeding to be an anarchist. “[A]s long as human governments endure,” we said, “they cannot be denied the power of self-preservation, as that question is presented here.” *531194 U. S. at 294. In Schneiderman v. United States, 320 U. S. 118, and Bridges v. Wixon, 326 U. S. 135, we did not consider the extent of the power of Congress. In each case, by a closely divided Court, we interpreted a statute authorizing denaturalization or deportation to impose on the Government the strictest standards of proof.

4. History regards “freedom of the press” as indispensable for a free society and for its government. We have, therefore, invalidated discriminatory taxation against the press and prior restraints on publication of defamatory matter. Grosjean v. American Press Co., 297 U. S. 233; Near v. Minnesota, 283 U. S. 697.

We have also given clear indication of the importance we attach to dissemination of ideas in reviewing the attempts of States to reconcile freedom of the press with protection of the integrity of the judicial process. In Pennekamp v. Florida, 328 U. S. 331, the Court agreed that the Fourteenth Amendment barred a State from adjudging in contempt of court the publisher of critical and inaccurate comment about portions of a litigation that for all practical purposes were no longer pending. We likewise agreed, in a minor phase of our decision in Bridges v. California, 314 U. S. 252, that even when statements in the press relate to matters still pending before a court, convictions for their publication cannot be sustained if their utterance is too trivial to be deemed a substantial threat to the impartial administration of justice.

The Court has, however, sharply divided on what constitutes a sufficient interference with the course of justice. In the first decision, Patterson v. Colorado, 205 U. S. 454, the Court affirmed a judgment for contempt imposed by a State supreme court for publication of articles reflecting on the conduct of the court in cases still before it on *532motions for rehearing. In the Bridges case, however, a majority held that a State court could not protect itself from the implied threat of a powerful newspaper that failure of an elected judge to impose a severe sentence would be a “serious mistake.” The same case also placed beyond a State’s power to punish the publication of a telegram from the president of an important union who threatened a damaging strike in the event of an adverse decision. The majority in Craig v. Harney, 331 U. S. 367, 376, held that the Fourteenth Amendment protected “strong,” “intemperate,” “unfair” criticism of the way an elected lay judge was conducting a pending civil case. None of the cases establishes that the public interest in a free press must in all instances prevail over the public interest in dispassionate adjudication. But the Bridges and Craig decisions, if they survive, tend to require a showing that interference be so imminent and so demonstrable that the power theoretically possessed by the State is largely paralyzed.

5. Our decision in American Communications Assn. v. Douds, 339 U. S. 382, recognized that the exercise of political rights protected by the First Amendment was necessarily discouraged by the requirement of the Taft-Hartley Act that officers of unions employing the services of the National Labor Relations Board sign affidavits that they are not Communists. But we held that the statute was not for this reason presumptively invalid. The problem, we said, was “one of weighing the probable effects of the statute upon the free exercise of the right of speech and assembly against the congressional determination that political strikes are evils of conduct which cause substantial harm to interstate commerce and that Communists and others identified by § 9 (h) pose continuing threats to that public interest when in positions of union leader*533ship.” 339 U. S. at 400. On balance, we decided that the legislative judgment was a permissible one.8

6. Statutes prohibiting speech because of its tendency to lead to crime present a conflict of interests which bears directly on the problem now before us. The first case in which we considered this conflict was Fox v. Washington, supra. The statute there challenged had been interpreted to prohibit publication of matter “encouraging an actual breach of law.” We held that the Fourteenth Amendment did not prohibit application of the statute to an article which we concluded incited a breach of laws against indecent exposure. We said that the statute “lays hold of encouragements that, apart from statute, if directed to a particular person’s conduct, generally would make him who uttered them guilty of a misdemeanor if not an accomplice or a principal in the crime encouraged, and deals with the publication of them to a wider and less selected audience.” 236 U. S. at 277-278. To be sure, the Fox case preceded the explicit absorption of the substance of the First Amendment in the Fourteenth. But subsequent decisions extended the Fox principle to free-speech situations. They are so important to the problem before us that we must consider them in detail.

(a) The first important application of the principle was made in six cases arising under the Espionage Act of 1917. That Act prohibits conspiracies and attempts *534to “obstruct the recruiting or enlistment service.” In each of the first three cases, Mr. Justice Holmes' wrote for a unanimous Court, affirming the convictions. The evidence in Schenck v. United States, 249 U. S. 47, showed that the defendant had conspired to circulate among men called for the draft 15,000 copies of a circular which asserted a “right” to oppose the draft. The defendant in Frohwerk v. United States, 249 U. S. 204, was shown to have conspired to publish in a newspaper twelve articles describing the sufferings of American troops and the futility of our war aims. The record was inadequate, and we said that it was therefore “impossible to say that it might not have been found that the circulation of the paper was in quarters where a little breath would be enough to kindle a flame and that the fact was known and relied upon by those who sent the paper out.” 249 U. S. at 209. In Debs v. United States, 249 U. S. 211, the indictment charged that the defendant had delivered a public speech expounding socialism and praising Socialists who had been convicted of abetting violation of the draft laws.

The ground of decision in each case was the same. The First Amendment “cannot have been, and obviously was not, intended to give immunity for every possible use of language. Robertson v. Baldwin, 165 U. S. 275, 281.” Frohwerk v. United States, supra, at 206. “The question in every case is whether the words used are used in such circumstances and are of such a nature as to create a clear and present danger that they will bring about the substantive evils that Congress has a right to prevent. It is a question of proximity and degree.” Schenck v. United States, supra, at 52. When “the words used had as their natural tendency and reasonably probable effect to obstruct the recruiting service,” and “the defendant had the specific intent to do so in his mind,” conviction in wartime is not prohibited by the Constitution. Debs v. United States, supra, at 216.

*535In the three succeeding cases Holmes and Brandéis, JJ., dissented from judgments of the Court affirming convictions. The indictment in Abrams v. United States, 250 U. S. 616, was laid under an amendment to the Espionage Act which prohibited conspiracies to advocate curtailment of production of material necessary to prosecution of the war, with the intent thereby to hinder the United States in the prosecution of the war. It appeared that the defendants were anarchists who had printed circulars and distributed them in New York City. The leaflets repeated standard Marxist slogans, condemned American intervention in Russia, and called for a general strike in protest. In Schaefer v. United States, 251 U. S. 466, the editors of a German-language newspaper in Philadelphia were charged with obstructing the recruiting service and with wilfully publishing false reports with the intent to promote the success of the enemies of the United States. The evidence showed publication of articles which accused 'American troops of weakness and mendacity and in one instance misquoted or mistranslated two words of a Senator’s speech. The indictment in Pierce v. United States, 252 U. S. 239, charged that the defendants had attempted to cause insubordination in the armed forces and had conveyed false reports with intent to interfere with military operations. Conviction was based on circulation of a pamphlet which belittled Allied war aims and criticized conscription in strong terms.

In each case both the majority and the dissenting opinions relied on Schenck v. United States. The Court divided on its view of the evidence. The majority held that the jury could infer the required intent and the probable effect of the articles from their content. Holmes and Brandéis, JJ., thought that only “expressions of opinion and exhortations,” 250 U. S. at 631, were involved, that they were “puny anonymities,” 250 U. S. at 629, “impotent to produce the evil against which the statute aimed,” 251 *536U. S. 493, and that from them the specific intent required by the statute could not reasonably be inferred. The Court agreed that an incitement to disobey the draft statute could constitutionally be punished. It disagreed over the proof required to show such an incitement.

(b) In the eyes of a majority of the Court, Gitlow v. New York, 268 U. S. 652, presented a very different problem. There the defendant had been convicted under a New York statute nearly identical with the Smith Act now before us. The evidence showed that the defendant was an official of the Left Wing Section of the Socialist Party, and that he was responsible for publication of a Left Wing Manifesto. This document repudiated “moderate Socialism,” and urged the necessity of a militant “revolutionary Socialism,” based on class struggle and revolutionary mass action. No evidence of the effect of the Manifesto was introduced; but the jury were instructed that they could not convict unless they found that the document advocated employing unlawful acts for the purpose of overthrowing organized government.

The conviction was affirmed. The question, the Court held, was entirely different from that involved in Schenck v. United States, where the statute prohibited acts without reference to language. Here, where “the legislative body has determined generally, in the constitutional exercise of its discretion, that utterances of a certain kind involve such danger of substantive evil that they may be punished, the question whether any specific utterance coming within the prohibited class is likely, in and of itself, to bring about the substantive evil, is not open to consideration.” 268 U. S. at 670. It is sufficient that the defendant’s conduct falls within the statute, and that the statute is a reasonable exercise of legislative judgment.

This principle was also applied in Whitney v. California, 274 U. S. 357, to sustain a conviction under a State criminal syndicalism statute. That statute made it a *537felony to assist in organizing a group assembled to advocate the commission of crime, sabotage, or unlawful acts of violence as a means of effecting political or industrial change. The defendant was found to have assisted in organizing the Communist Labor Party of California, an organization found to have the specified character. It was held that the legislature was not unreasonable in believing organization of such a party “involves such danger to the public peace and the security of the State, that these acts should be penalized in the exercise of its police power.” 274 U. S. at 371.

In neither of these cases did Mr. Justice Holmes and Mr. Justice Brandéis accept the reasoning of the Court. “ ‘The question,’ ” they said, quoting from Schenck v. United States, “ ‘in every case is whether the words used are used in such circumstances and are of such a nature as to create a clear and present danger that they will bring about the substantive evils that [the State] has a right to prevent.’ ” 268 U. S. at 672-673. Since the Manifesto circulated by Gitlow “had no chance of starting a present conflagration,” 268 U. S. at 673, they dissented from the affirmance of his conviction. In Whitney v. California, they concurred in the result reached by the Court, but only because the record contained some evidence that organization of the Communist Labor Party might further a conspiracy to commit immediate serious crimes, and the credibility of the evidence was not put in issue by the defendant.9

(c) Subsequent decisions have added little to the principles established in these two groups of cases. In the only case arising under the Espionage Act decided by this Court during the last war, the substantiality of the evidence was the crucial issue. The defendant in Hartzel *538v. United States, 322 U. S. 680, was an educated man and a citizen, not actively affiliated with any political group. In 1942 he wrote three articles condemning our wartime allies and urging that the war be converted into a racial conflict. He mailed the tracts to 600 people, including high-ranking military officers. According to his testimony his intention was to “create sentiment against war amongst the white races.” The majority of this Court held that a jury could not reasonably infer from these facts that the defendant had acted with a specific intent to cause insubordination or disloyalty in the armed forces.

Of greater importance is the fact that the issue of law which divided the Court in the Oitlow and Whitney cases has not again been clearly raised, although in four additional instances we have reviewed convictions under comparable statutes. Fiske v. Kansas, 274 U. S. 380, involved a criminal syndicalism statute similar to that before us in Whitney v. California. We reversed a conviction based on evidence that the defendant exhibited an innocuous preamble to the constitution of the Industrial Workers of the World in soliciting members for that organization. In Herndon v. Lowry, 301 U. S. 242, the defendant had solicited members for the Communist Party, but there was no proof that he had urged or even approved those of the Party’s aims which were unlawful. We reversed a conviction obtained under a statute prohibiting an attempt to incite to insurrection by violence, on the ground that the Fourteenth Amendment prohibited conviction where on the evidence a jury could not reasonably infer that the defendant had violated the statute the State sought to apply.10

*539The other two decisions go no further than to hold that the statute as construed by the State courts exceeded the bounds of a legislative judgment founded in reason. The statute presented in De Jonge v. Oregon, 299 U. S. 353, had been construed to apply to anyone who merely assisted in the conduct of a meeting held under the auspices of the Communist Party. In Taylor v. Mississippi, 319 U. S. 583, the statute prohibited dissemination of printed matter “designed and calculated to encourage violence, sabotage, or disloyalty to the government of the United States, or the state of Mississippi.” We reversed a conviction for what we concluded was mere criticism and prophesy, without indicating whether we thought the statute could in any circumstances validly be applied. What the defendants communicated, we said, “is not claimed or shown to have been done with an evil or sinister purpose, to have advocated or incited subversive action against the nation or state, or to have threatened any clear and present danger to our institutions or our Government.” 319 U. S. at 589-590.

I must leave to others the ungrateful task of trying to reconcile all these decisions. In some instances we have too readily permitted juries to infer deception from error, or intention from argumentative or critical statements. Abrams v. United States, supra; Schaefer v. United States, supra; Pierce v. United States, supra; Gilbert v. Minnesota, 254 U. S. 325. In other instances we weighted the interest in free speech so heavily that we permitted essential conflicting values to be destroyed. Bridges v. California, supra; Craig v. Harney, supra. Viewed as a whole, however, the decisions express an attitude toward the judicial function and a standard of values which for me are decisive of the case before us.

First. — Free-speech cases are not an exception to the principle that we are not legislators, that direct policy-making is not our province. How best to reconcile com*540peting interests is the business of legislatures, and the balance they strike is a judgment not to be displaced by ours, but to be respected unless outside the pale of fair judgment.

On occasion we have strained to interpret legislation in order to limit its effect on interests protected by the First Amendment. Schneiderman v. United States, supra; Bridges v. Wixon, supra. In some instances we have denied to States the deference to which I think they are entitled. Bridges v. California, supra; Craig v. Harney, supra. Once in this recent course of decisions the Court refused to permit a jury to draw inferences which seemed to me to be obviously reasonable. Hartsel v. United States, supra.

But in no case has a majority of this Court held that a legislative judgment, even as to freedom of utterance, may be overturned merely because the Court would have made a different choice between the competing interests had the initial legislative judgment been for it to make. In the cases in which the opinions go farthest towards indicating a total rejection of respect for legislative determinations, the interests between which choice was actually made were such that decision might well have been expressed in the familiar terms of want of reason in the legislative judgment. In Thomas v. Collins, 323 U. S. 516, for example, decision could not unreasonably have been placed on the ground that no substantial interest justified a State in requiring an out-of-State labor leader to register before speaking in advocacy of the cause of trade unionism. In Martin v. City of Struthers, 319 U. S. 141, it was broadly held that a municipality was not justified in prohibiting knocking on doors and ringing doorbells for the purpose of delivering handbills. But since the good faith and reasonableness of the regulation were placed in doubt by the fact that the city did not think it necessary also to prohibit door-to-door com*541mercial sales, decision could be sustained on narrower ground. And compare Breard v. Alexandria, post, p. 622, decided this day.

In other cases, moreover, we have given clear indication that even when free speech is involved we attach great significance to the determination of the legislature. Gitlow v. New York, supra; Whitney v. California, supra; American Communications Assn. v. Douds, supra; cf. Bridges v. California, 314 U. S. at 260. And see Hughes v. Superior Court, supra; International Brotherhood of Teamsters Union v. Hanke, supra.

In Gitlow v. New York, we put our respect for the legislative judgment in terms which, if they were accepted here, would make decision easy. For that case held that, when the legislature has determined that advocacy of forceful overthrow should be forbidden, a conviction may be sustained without a finding that in the particular case the advocacy had a close relation to a serious attempt at overthrow. We held that it was enough that the statute be a reasonable exercise of the legislative judgment, and that the defendant’s conduct fall within the statute.

One of the judges below rested his affirmance on the Gitlow decision, and the defendants do not attempt to distinguish the case. They place their argument squarely on the ground that the case has been overruled by subsequent decisions. It has not been explicitly overruled. But it would be disingenuous to deny that the dissent in Gitlow has been treated with the respect usually accorded to a decision.

The result of the Gitlow decision was to send a left-wing Socialist to jail for publishing a Manifesto expressing Marxist exhortations. It requires excessive tolerance of the legislative judgment to suppose that the Gitlow publication in the circumstances could justify serious concern.

*542In contrast, there is ample justification for a legislative judgment that the conspiracy now before us is a substantial threat to national order and security. If the Smith Act is justified at all, it is justified precisely because it may serve to prohibit the type of conspiracy for which these defendants were convicted. The court below properly held that as a matter of separability the Smith Act may be limited to those situations to which it can constitutionally be applied. See 183 F. 2d at 214-215. Our decision today certainly does not mean that the Smith Act can constitutionally be applied to facts like those in Gitlow v. New York. While reliance may properly be placed on the attitude of judicial self-restraint which the Gitlow decision reflects, it is not necessary to depend on the facts or the full extent of the theory of that case in order to find that the judgment of Congress, as applied to the facts of the case now before us, is not in conflict with the First Amendment.

Second. — A survey of the relevant decisions indicates that the results which we have reached are on the whole those that would ensue from careful weighing of conflicting interests. The complex issues presented by regulation of speech in public places, by picketing, and by legislation prohibiting advocacy of crime have been resolved by scrutiny of many factors besides the imminence and gravity of the evil threatened. The matter has been well summarized by a reflective student of the Court’s work. “The truth is that the clear-and-present-danger test is an oversimplified judgment unless it takes account also of a number of other factors: the relative seriousness of the danger in comparison with the value of the occasion for speech or political activity; the availability of more moderate controls than those which the state has imposed; and perhaps the specific intent with which the speech or activity is launched. No matter how rapidly we utter the phrase ‘clear and present danger,’ or how *543closely we hyphenate the words, they are not a substitute for the weighing of values. They tend to convey a delusion of certitude when what is most certain is the complexity of the strands in the web of freedoms which the judge must disentangle.” Freund, On Understanding the Supreme Court, 27-28.

It is a familiar experience in the law that new situations do not fit neatly into legal conceptions that arose under different circumstances to satisfy different needs. So it was when the injunction was tortured into an instrument of oppression against labor in industrial conflicts. So it is with the attempt to use the direction of thought lying behind the criterion of “clear and present danger” wholly out of the context in which it originated, and to make of it an absolute dogma and definitive measuring rod for the power of Congress to deal with assaults against security through devices other than overt physical attempts.

Bearing in mind that Mr. Justice Holmes regarded questions under the First Amendment as questions of “proximity and degree,” Schenck v. United States, 249 U. S. at 52, it would be a distortion, indeed a mockery, of his reasoning to compare the “puny anonymities,” 250 U. S. at 629, to which he was addressing himself in the Abrams case in 1919 or the publication that was “futile and too remote from possible consequences,” 268 U. S. at 673, in the Gitlow case in 1925 with the setting of events in this case in 1950.

“It does an ill-service to the author of the most quoted judicial phrases regarding freedom of speech, to make him the victim of a tendency which he fought all his life, whereby phrases are made to do service for critical analysis by being turned into dogma. ‘It is one of the misfortunes of the law that ideas become encysted in phrases and thereafter for a long time cease to provoke further analysis.’ Holmes, J., dissenting, in Hyde v. United *544States, 225 U. S. 347, 384, at 391.” The phrase “clear and present danger,” in its origin, “served to indicate the importance of freedom of speech to a free society but also to emphasize that its exercise must be compatible with the preservation of other freedoms essential to a democracy and guaranteed by our Constitution.” Pennekamp v. Florida, 328 U. S. 331, 350, 352-353 (concurring). It were far better that the phrase be abandoned than that it be sounded once more to hide from the believers in an absolute right of free speech the plain fact that the interest in speech, profoundly important as it is, is no more conclusive in judicial review than other attributes of democracy or than a determination of the people’s representatives that a measure is necessary to assure the safety of government itself.

Third. — Not every type of speech occupies the same position on the scale of values. There is no substantial public interest in permitting certain kinds of utterances: “the lewd and obscene, the profane, the libelous, and the insulting or 'fighting’ words — those which by their very utterance inflict injury or tend to incite an immediate breach of the peace.” Chaplinsky v. New Hampshire, 315 U. S. 568, 572. We have frequently indicated that the interest in protecting speech depends on the circumstances of the occasion. See cases collected in Niemotko v. Maryland, 340 U. S. at 275-283. It is pertinent to the decision before us to consider where on the scale of values we have in the past placed the type of speech now claiming constitutional immunity.

The defendants have been convicted of conspiring to organize a party of persons who advocate the overthrow of the Government by force and violence. The jury has found that the object of the conspiracy is advocacy as “a rule or principle of action,” “by language reasonably and ordinarily calculated to incite persons to such action,” *545and with the intent to cause the overthrow “as speedily as circumstances would permit.”

On any scale of values which we have hitherto recognized, speech of this sort ranks low.

Throughout our decisions there has recurred a distinction between the statement of an idea which may prompt its hearers to take unlawful action, and advocacy that such action be taken. The distinction has its root in the conception of the common law, supported by principles of morality, that a person who procures another to do an act is responsible for that act as though he had done it himself. This principle was extended in Fox v. Washington, supra, to words directed to the public generally which would constitute an incitement were they directed to an individual. It was adapted in Schenck v. United States, supra, into a rule of evidence designed to restrict application of the Espionage Act. It was relied on by the Court in Gitlow v. New York, supra. The distinction has been repeated in many of the decisions in which we have upheld the claims of speech. We frequently have distinguished protected forms of expression from statements which “incite to violence and crime and threaten the overthrow of organized government by unlawful means.” Stromberg v. California, 283 U. S. at 369. See also Near v. Minnesota, 283 U. S. at 716; De Jonge v. Oregon, 299 U. S. at 365; Cantwell v. Connecticut, 310 U. S. 296, 308; Taylor v. Mississippi, 319 U. S. at 589.

It is true that there is no divining rod by which we may locate “advocacy.” Exposition of ideas readily merges into advocacy. The same Justice who gave currency to application of the incitement doctrine in this field dissented four times from what he thought was its misapplication. As he said in the Gitlow dissent, “Every idea is an incitement.” 268 U. S. at 673. Even though advocacy of overthrow deserves little protection, we should hesitate to prohibit it if we thereby inhibit the *546interchange of rational ideas so essential to representative government and free society.

But there is underlying validity in the distinction between advocacy and the interchange of ideas, and we do not discard a useful tool because it may be misused. That such a distinction could be used unreasonably by those in power against hostile or unorthodox views does not negate the fact that it may be used reasonably against an organization wielding the power of the centrally controlled international Communist movement. The object of the conspiracy before us is so clear that the chance of error in saying that the defendants conspired to advocate rather than to express ideas is slight. Mr. Justice Douglas quite properly points out that the conspiracy before us is not a conspiracy to overthrow the Government. But it would be equally wrong to treat it as a seminar in political theory.

III.

These general considerations underlie decision of the case before us.

On the one hand is the interest in security. The Communist Party was not designed by these defendants as an ordinary political party. For the circumstances of its organization, its aims and methods, and the relation of the defendants to its organization and aims we are concluded by the jury’s verdict. The jury found that the Party rejects the basic premise of our political system— that change is to be brought about by nonviolent constitutional process. The jury found that the Party advocates the theory that there is a duty and necessity to overthrow the Government by force and violence. It found that the Party entertains and promotes this view, not as a prophetic insight or as a bit of unworldly specula*547tion, but as a program for winning adherents and as a policy to be translated into action.

In finding that the defendants violated the statute, we may not treat as established fact that the Communist Party in this country is of significant size, well-organized, well-disciplined, conditioned to embark on unlawful activity when given the command. But in determining whether application of the statute to the defendants is within the constitutional powers of Congress, we are not limited to the facts found by the jury. We must view such a question in the light of whatever is relevant to a legislative judgment. We may take judicial notice that the Communist doctrines which these defendants have conspired to advocate are in the ascendency in powerful nations who cannot be acquitted of unfriendliness to the institutions of this country. We may take account of evidence brought forward at this trial and elsewhere, much of which has long been common knowledge. In sum, it would amply justify a legislature in concluding that recruitment of additional members for the Party would create a substantial danger to national security.

In 1947, it has been reliably reported, at least 60,000 members were enrolled in the Party.11 Evidence was introduced in this case that the membership was organized in small units, linked by an intricate chain of command, and protected by elaborate precautions designed to prevent disclosure of individual identity. There are no reliable data tracing acts of sabotage or espionage directly to these defendants. But a Canadian Royal Commission appointed in 1946 to investigate espionage reported that it was “overwhelmingly established” that *548“the Communist movement was the principal base within which the espionage network was recruited.”12 The most notorious spy in recent history was led into the service of the Soviet Union through Communist indoctrination.13 Evidence supports the conclusion that members of the Party seek and occupy positions of importance in political and labor organizations.14 Congress was not barred by the Constitution from believing that indifference to such experience would be an exercise not of freedom but of irresponsibility.

On the other hand is the interest in free speech. The right to exert all governmental powers in aid of maintaining our institutions and resisting their physical overthrow does not include intolerance of opinions and speech that cannot do harm although opposed and perhaps alien to dominant, traditional opinion. The treatment of its *549minorities, especially their legal position, is among the most searching tests of the level of civilization attained by a society. It is better for those who have almost unlimited power of government in their hands to err on the side of freedom. We have enjoyed so much freedom for so long that we are perhaps in danger of forgetting how much blood it cost to establish the Bill of Rights.

Of course no government can recognize a “right” of revolution, or a “right” to incite revolution if the incitement has no other purpose or effect. But speech is seldom restricted to a single purpose, and its effects may be manifold. A public interest is not wanting in granting freedom to speak their minds even to those who advocate the overthrow of the Government by force. Eor, as the evidence in this case abundantly illustrates, coupled with such advocacy is criticism of defects in our society. Criticism is the spur to reform; and Burke’s admonition that a healthy society must reform in order to conserve has not lost its force. Astute observers have remarked that one of the characteristics of the American Republic is indifference to fundamental criticism. Bryce, The American Commonwealth, c. 84. It is a commonplace that there may be a grain of truth in the most uncouth doctrine, however false and repellent the balance may be. Suppressing advocates of overthrow inevitably will also silence critics who do not advocate overthrow but fear that their criticism may be so construed. No matter how clear we may be that the defendants now before us are preparing to overthrow our Government at the propitious moment, it is self-delusion to think that we can punish them for their advocacy without adding to the risks run by loyal citizens who honestly believe in some of the reforms these defendants advance. It is a sobering fact that in sustaining the convictions before us we can hardly escape restriction on the interchange of ideas.

*550We must not overlook the value of that interchange. Freedom of expression is the well-spring of our civilization — the civilization we seek to maintain and further by recognizing the right of Congress to put some limitation upon expression. Such are the paradoxes of life. For social development of trial and error, the fullest possible opportunity for the free play of the human mind is an indispensable prerequisite. The history of civilization is in considerable measure the displacement of error which once held sway as official truth by beliefs which in turn have yielded to other truths. Therefore the liberty of man to search for truth ought not to be fettered, no matter what orthodoxies he may challenge. Liberty of thought soon shrivels without freedom of expression. Nor can truth be pursued in an atmosphere hostile to the endeavor or under dangers which are hazarded only by heroes.

“The interest, which [the First Amendment] guards, and which gives it its importance, presupposes that there are no orthodoxies — religious, political, economic, or scientific — which are immune from debate and dispute. Back of that is the assumption — itself an orthodoxy, and the one permissible exception — that truth will be most likely to emerge, if no limitations are imposed upon utterances that can with any plausibility be regarded as efforts to present grounds for accepting or rejecting propositions whose truth the utterer asserts, or denies.” International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers v. Labor Board, 181 F. 2d 34, 40. In the last analysis it is on the validity of this faith that our national security is staked.

It is not for us to decide how we would adjust the clash of interests which this case presents were the primary responsibility for reconciling it ours. Congress has determined that the danger created by advocacy of overthrow justifies the ensuing restriction on freedom of speech. The determination was made after due deliberation, and *551the seriousness of the congressional purpose is attested by the volume of legislation passed to effectuate the same ends.15

Can we then say that the judgment Congress exercised was denied it by the Constitution? Can we establish a constitutional doctrine which forbids the elected representatives of the people to make this choice? Can we hold that the First Amendment deprives Congress of what it deemed necessary for the Government’s protection?

To make validity of legislation depend on judicial reading of events still in the womb of time — a forecast, that is, of the outcome of forces at best appreciated only with knowledge of the topmost secrets of nations — is to charge the judiciary with duties beyond its equipment. We do not expect courts to pronounce historic verdicts on bygone events. Even historians have conflicting views to this day on the origins and conduct of the French Revolution, or, for that matter, varying interpretations of “the glorious Revolution” of 1688. It is as absurd to be confident that we can measure the present clash of forces and *552their outcome as to ask us to read history still enveloped in clouds of controversy.

In the light of their experience, the Framers of the Constitution chose to keep the judiciary dissociated from direct participation in the legislative process. In asserting the power to pass on the constitutionality of legislation, Marshall and his Court expressed the purposes of the Founders. See Charles A. Beard, The Supreme Court and the Constitution. But the extent to which the exercise of this power would interpenetrate matters of policy could hardly have been foreseen by the most prescient. The distinction which the Founders drew between the Court’s duty to pass on the power of Congress and its complementary duty not to enter directly the domain of policy is fundamental. But in its actual operation it is rather subtle, certainly to the common understanding. Our duty to abstain from confounding policy with constitutionality demands perceptive humility as well as self-restraint in not declaring unconstitutional what in a judge’s private judgment is deemed unwise and even dangerous.

Even when moving strictly within the limits of constitutional adjudication, judges are concerned with issues that may be said to involve vital finalities. The too easy transition from disapproval of what is undesirable to condemnation as unconstitutional, has led some of the wisest judges to question the wisdom of our scheme in lodging such authority in courts. But it is relevant to remind that in sustaining the power of Congress in a case like this nothing irrevocable is done. The democratic process at all events is not impaired or restricted. Power and responsibility remain with the people and immediately with their representatives. All the Court says is that Congress was not forbidden by the Constitution to pass this enactment and that a prosecution under it may be brought against a conspiracy such as the one before us.

*553IV.

The wisdom of the assumptions underlying the legislation and prosecution is another matter. In finding that Congress has acted within its power, a judge does not remotely imply that he favors the implications that lie beneath the legal issues. Considerations there enter which go beyond the criteria that are binding upon judges within the narrow confines of their legitimate authority. The legislation we are here considering is but a truncated aspect of a deeper issue. For me it has been most illuminatingly expressed by one in whom responsibility and experience have fructified native insight, the Director-General of the British Broadcasting Corporation:

“We have to face up to the fact that there are powerful forces in the world today misusing the privileges of liberty in order to destroy her. The question must be asked, however, whether suppression of information or opinion is the true defense. We may have come a long way from Mill’s famous dictum that:

“ 'If all mankind minus one were of one opinion, and only one person were of the contrary opinion, mankind would be no more justified in silencing that one person, than he, if he had the power, would be justified in silencing mankind,’

but Mill’s reminders from history as to what has happened when suppression was most virulently exercised ought to warn us that no debate is ever permanently won by shutting one’s ears or by even the most Draconian policy of silencing opponents. The debate must be won. And it must be won with full information. Where there are lies, they must be shown for what they are. Where there are errors, they must be refuted. It would be a major defeat if the enemies of democracy forced us to abandon our faith in the power of informed discussion and so brought us down *554to their own level. Mankind is so constituted, moreover, that if, where expression and discussion are concerned, the enemies of liberty are met with a denial of liberty, many men of goodwill will come to suspect there is something in the proscribed doctrine after all. Erroneous doctrines thrive on being expunged. They die if exposed.” Sir William Haley, What Standards for Broadcasting? Measure, Yol. I, No. 3, Summer 1950, pp. 211-212.

In the context of this deeper struggle, another voice has indicated the limitations of what we decide today. No one is better equipped than George F. Kennan to speak on the meaning of the menace of Communism and the spirit in which we should meet it.

“If our handling of the problem of Communist influence in our midst is not carefully moderated— if we permit it, that is, to become an emotional preoccupation and to blind us to the more important positive tasks before us — we can do a damage to our national purpose beyond comparison greater than anything that threatens us today from the Communist side. The American Communist party is today, by and large, an external danger. It represents a tiny minority in our country; it has no real contact with the feelings of the mass of our people; and its position as the agency of a hostile foreign power is clearly recognized by the overwhelming mass of our citizens.

“But the subjective emotional stresses and temptations to which we are exposed in our attempt to deal with this domestic problem are not an external danger: they represent a danger within ourselves— a danger that something may occur in our own minds and souls which will make us no longer like the persons by whose efforts this republic was founded and held together, but rather like the representatives *555of that very power we are trying to combat: intolerant, secretive, suspicious, cruel, and terrified of internal dissension because we have lost our own belief in ourselves and in the power of our ideals. The worst thing that our Communists could do to us, and the thing we have most to fear from their activities, is that we should become like them.

“That our country is beset with external dangers I readily concede. But these dangers, at their worst, are ones of physical destruction, of the disruption of our world security, of expense and inconvenience and sacrifice. These are serious, and sometimes terrible things, but they are all things that we can take and still remain Americans.

“The internal danger is of a different order. America is not just territory and people. There is lots of territory elsewhere, and there are lots of people; but it does not add up to America. America is something in our minds and our habits of outlook which causes us to believe in certain things and to behave in certain ways, and by which, in its totality, we hold ourselves distinguished from others. . If that once goes there will be no America to defend. And that can go too easily if we yield to the primitive human instinct to escape from our frustrations into the realms of mass emotion and hatred and to find scapegoats for our difficulties in individual fellow-citizens who are, or have at one time been, disoriented or confused.” George F. Kennan, Where Do You Stand on Communism? New York Times Magazine, May 27, 1951, pp. 7, 53, 55.

Civil liberties draw at best only limited strength from legal guaranties. Preoccupation by our people with the constitutionality, instead of with the wisdom, of legislation or of executive action is preoccupation with a false value. Even those who would most freely use the judicial *556brake on the democratic process by invalidating legislation that goes deeply against their grain, acknowledge, at least by paying lip service, that constitutionality does not exact a sense of proportion or the sanity of humor or an absence of fear. Focusing attention on constitutionality tends to make constitutionality synonymous with wisdom. When legislation touches freedom of thought and freedom of speech, such a tendency is a formidable enemy of the free spirit. Much that should be rejected as illiberal, because repressive and envenoming, may well be not unconstitutional. The ultimate reliance for the deepest needs of civilization must be found outside their vindication in courts of law; apart from all else, judges, howsoever they may conscientiously seek to discipline themselves against it, unconsciously are too apt to be moved by the deep undercurrents of public feeling. A persistent, positive translation of the liberating faith into the feelings and thoughts and actions of men and women is the real protection against attempts to strait-jacket the human mind. Such temptations will have their way, if fear and hatred are not exorcized. The mark of a truly civilized man is confidence in the strength and security derived from the inquiring mind. We may be grateful for such honest comforts as it supports, but we must be unafraid of its incertitudes. Without open minds there can be no open society. And if society be not open the spirit of man is mutilated and becomes enslaved.

APPENDIX TO OPINION OF MR. JUSTICE FRANKFURTER.

Opinions responsible for the view that speech could not constitutionally be restricted unless there would result from it an imminent — i. e., close at hand — substantive evil.

1. Thornhill v. Alabama, 310 U. S. 88, 104-105 (State statute prohibiting picketing held invalid): . Every *557expression of opinion on matters that are important has the potentiality of inducing action in the interests of one rather than another group in society. But the group in power at any moment may not impose penal sanctions on peaceful and truthful discussion of matters of public interest merely on a showing that others may thereby be persuaded to take action inconsistent with its interests. Abridgment of the liberty of such discussion can be justified only where the clear danger of substantive evils arises under circumstances affording no opportunity to test the merits of ideas by competition for acceptance in the market of public opinion. . . .

“. . . [N]o clear and present danger of destruction of life or property, or invasion of the right of privacy, or breach of the peace can be thought to be inherent in the activities of every person who approaches the premises of an employer and publicizes the facts of a labor dispute involving the latter.”

2. Bridges v. California, 314 U. S. 252, 262-263 (convictions for contempt of court reversed): “. . . [T]he 'clear and present danger’ language of the Schenck case has afforded practical guidance in a great variety of cases in which the scope of constitutional protections of freedom of expression was in issue. It has been utilized by either a majority or minority of this Court in passing upon the constitutionality of convictions under espionage acts, Schenck v. United States, supra [249 U. S. 47]; Abrams v. United States, 250 U. S. 616; under a criminal syndicalism act, Whitney v. California, supra [274 U. S. 357]; under an 'anti-insurrection’ act, Herndon v. Lowry, supra [301 U. S. 242]; and for breach of the peace at common law, Cantwell v. Connecticut, supra [310 U. S. 296]. And very recently we have also suggested that ‘clear and present danger’ is an appropriate guide in determining the constitutionality of restrictions upon expression where the substantive evil sought to be prevented *558by the restriction is 'destruction of life or property, or invasion of the right of privacy.’ Thornhill v. Alabama, 310 U. S. 88, 105.

"What finally emerges from the ‘clear and present danger’ cases is a working principle that the substantive evil must be extremely serious and the degree of imminence extremely high before utterances can be punished. Those cases do not purport to mark the furthermost constitutional boundaries of protected expression, nor do we here. They do no more than recognize a minimum compulsion of the Bill of Rights. For the First Amendment does not speak equivocally. It prohibits any law 'abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press.’ It must be taken as a command of the broadest scope that explicit language, read in the context of a liberty-loving society, will allow.”

3. West Virginia Board of Education v. Barnette, 319 U. S. 624, 639 (flag-salute requirement for school children held invalid): “In weighing arguments of the parties it is important to distinguish between the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment as an instrument for transmitting the principles of the First Amendment and those cases in which it is applied for its own sake. The test of legislation which collides with the Fourteenth Amendment, because it also collides with the principles of the First, is much more definite than the test when only the Fourteenth is involved. Much of the vagueness of the due process clause disappears when the specific prohibitions of the First become its standard. The right of a State to regulate, for example, a public utility may well include, so far as the due process test is concerned, power to impose all of the restrictions which a legislature may have a ‘rational basis’ for adopting. But freedoms of speech and of press, of assembly, and of worship may not be infringed on such slender grounds. They are suscep-*559tibie of restriction only to prevent grave and immediate danger to interests which the State may lawfully protect. It is important to note that while it is the Fourteenth Amendment which bears directly upon the State it is the more specific limiting principles of the First Amendment that finally govern this case.”

4. Thomas v. Collins, 323 U. S. 516, 529-530 (State statute requiring registration of labor organizers held invalid as applied) : “The case confronts us again with the duty our system places on this Court to say where the individual’s freedom ends and the State’s power begins. Choice on that border, now as always delicate, is perhaps more so where the usual presumption supporting legislation is balanced by the preferred place given in our scheme to the great, the indispensable democratic freedoms secured by the First Amendment. Cf. Schneider v. State, 308 U. S. 147; Cantwell v. Connecticut, 310 U. S. 296; Prince v. Massachusetts, 321 U. S. 158. That priority gives these liberties a sanctity and a sanction not permitting dubious intrusions. And it is the character of the right, not of the limitation, which determines what standard governs the choice. Compare United States v. Carotene Products Co., 304 U. S. 144, 152-153.

“For these reasons any attempt to restrict those liberties must be justified by clear public interest, threatened not doubtfully or remotely, but by clear and present danger. The rational connection between the remedy provided and the evil to be curbed, which in other contexts might support legislation against attack on due process grounds, will not suffice. These rights rest on firmer foundation. Accordingly, whatever occasion would restrain orderly discussion and persuasion, at appropriate time and place, must have clear support in public danger, actual or impending. Only the gravest abuses, endangering paramount interests, give occasion for permissible limitation.”

*5605. Craig v. Harney, 331 U. S. 367, 376 (conviction for contempt of court reversed): “The fires which [the language] kindles must constitute an imminent, not merely a likely, threat to the administration of justice. The danger must not be remote or even probable; it must immediately imperil.”

6. Giboney v. Empire Storage Co., 336 U. S. 490, 503 (injunction against picketing upheld): “. . . There was clear danger, imminent and immediate, that unless restrained, appellants would succeed in making [the State’s policy against restraints of trade] a dead letter insofar as purchases by nonunion men were concerned. . . .”

7. Terminiello v. Chicago, 337 U. S. 1, 4-5 (conviction for disorderly conduct reversed): “Speech is often provocative and challenging. It may strike at prejudices and preconceptions and have profound unsettling effects as it presses for acceptance of an idea. That is why freedom of speech, though not absolute, Chaplinsky v. New Hampshire, supra, [315 U. S. 568] 571-572, is nevertheless protected against censorship or punishment, unless shown likely to produce a clear and present danger of a serious substantive evil that rises far above public inconvenience, annoyance, or unrest. See Bridges v. California, 314 U. S. 252, 262; Craig v. Harney, 331 U. S. 367, 373. There is no room under our Constitution for a more restrictive view. For the alternative would lead to standardization of ideas either by legislatures, courts, or dominant political or community groups.”

8. American Communications Assn. v. Douds, 339 U. S. 382, 396, 412 (“Non-Communist affidavit” provision of Taft-Hartley Act upheld): “Speech may be fought with speech. Falsehoods and fallacies must be exposed, not suppressed, unless there is not sufficient time to avert the evil consequences of noxious doctrine by argument and education. That is the command of the First Amendment.” And again, “[The First] Amendment requires *561that one be permitted to believe what he will. It requires that one be permitted to advocate what he will unless there is a clear and present danger that a substantial public evil will result therefrom.”

Mr. Justice Jackson,

concurring.

This prosecution is the latest of never-ending, because never successful, quests for some legal formula that will secure an existing order against revolutionary radicalism. It requires us to reappraise, in the light of our own times and conditions, constitutional doctrines devised under other circumstances to strike a balance between authority and liberty.

Activity here charged to be criminal is conspiracy — that defendants conspired to teach and advocate, and to organize the Communist Party to teach and advocate, overthrow and destruction of the Government by force and violence. There is no charge of actual violence or attempt at overthrow.1

The principal reliance of the defense in this Court is that the conviction cannot stand under the Constitution because the conspiracy of these defendants presents no “clear and present danger” of imminent or foreseeable overthrow.

*562I.

The statute before us repeats a pattern, originally devised to combat the wave of anarchistic terrorism that plagued this country about the turn of the century,2 which lags at least two generations behind Communist Party techniques.

Anarchism taught a philosophy of extreme individualism and hostility to government and property. Its avowed aim was a more just order, to be achieved by violent destruction of all government.3 Anarchism’s sporadic and uncoordinated acts of terror were not integrated with an effective revolutionary machine, but the Chicago Haymarket riots of 1886,4 attempted murder of the industrialist Erick, attacks on state officials, and *563assassination of President McKinley in 1901, were fruits of its preaching.

However, extreme individualism was not conducive to cohesive and disciplined organization. Anarchism fell into disfavor among incendiary radicals, many of whom shifted their allegiance to the rising Communist Party. Meanwhile, in Europe anarchism had been displaced by Bolshevism as the doctrine and strategy of social and political upheaval. Led by intellectuals hardened by revolutionary experience, it was a more sophisticated, dynamic and realistic movement. Establishing a base in the Soviet Union, it founded an aggressive international Communist apparatus which has modeled and directed a revolutionary movement able only to harass our own country. But it has seized control of a dozen other countries.

Communism, the antithesis of anarchism,5 appears today as a closed system of thought representing Stalin’s *564version of Lenin’s version of Marxism. As an ideology, it is not one of spontaneous protest arising from American working-class experience. It is a complicated system of assumptions, based on European history and conditions, shrouded in an obscure and ambiguous vocabulary, which allures our ultrasophisticated intelligentsia more than our hard-headed working people. From time to time it champions all manner of causes and grievances and makes alliances that may add to its foothold in government or embarrass the authorities.

The Communist Party, nevertheless, does not seek its strength primarily in numbers. Its aim is a relatively small party whose strength is in selected, dedicated, indoctrinated, and rigidly disciplined members. From established policy it tolerates no deviation and no debate. It seeks members that are, or may be, secreted in strategic posts in transportation, communications, industry, government, and especially in labor unions where it can compel employers to accept and retain its members.6 It also seeks to infiltrate and control organizations of professional and other groups. Through these placements in positions of power it seeks a leverage over society that will make up in power of coercion what it lacks in power of persuasion.

The Communists have no scruples against sabotage, terrorism, assassination, or mob disorder; but violence is not with them, as with the anarchists, an end in itself. The Communist Party advocates force only when prudent and profitable. Their strategy of stealth precludes premature or uncoordinated outbursts of violence, except, of course, when the blame will be placed on shoulders other than their own. They resort to violence as to truth, not *565as a principle but as an expedient. Force or violence, as they would resort to it, may never be necessary, because infiltration and deception may be enough.

Force would be utilized by the Communist Party not to destroy government but for its capture. The Communist recognizes that an established government in control of modern technology cannot be overthrown by force until it is about ready to fall of its own weight. Concerted uprising, therefore, is to await that contingency and revolution is seen, not as a sudden episode, but as the consummation of a long process.

The United States, fortunately, has experienced Communism only in its preparatory stages and for its pattern of final action must look abroad. Russia, of course, was the pilot Communist revolution, which to the Marxist confirms the Party’s assumptions and points its destiny.7 *566But Communist technique in the overturn of a free government was disclosed by the coup d’etat in which they seized power in Czechoslovakia.8 There the Communist Party during its preparatory stage claimed and received protection for its freedoms of speech, press, and assembly. Pretending to be but another political party, it eventually was conceded participation in government, where it entrenched reliable members chiefly in control of police and information services. When the government faced a foreign and domestic crisis, the Communist Party had established a leverage strong enough to threaten civil war. In a period of confusion the Communist plan unfolded and the underground organization came to the surface throughout the country in the form chiefly of labor “action committees.” Communist officers of the unions took over transportation and allowed only persons with party permits to travel. Communist printers took over the newspapers and radio and put out only party-approved versions of events. Possession was taken of telegraph and telephone systems and communications were cut off wherever directed by party heads. Communist unions took over the factories, and in the cities a partisan distribution of food was managed by the Communist organization. A virtually bloodless abdication by the elected government admitted the Communists to power, whereupon they instituted a reign of oppression and terror, and ruthlessly denied to all others the freedoms which had sheltered their conspiracy.

*567II.

The foregoing is enough to indicate that, either by accident or design, the Communist stratagem outwits the anti-anarchist pattern of statute aimed against “overthrow by force and violence” if qualified by the doctrine that only “clear and present danger” of accomplishing that result will sustain the prosecution.

The “clear and present danger” test was an innovation by Mr. Justice Holmes in the Schenck case,9 reiterated and refined by him and Mr. Justice Brandéis in later cases,10 all arising before the era of World War II revealed the subtlety and efficacy of modernized revolutionary techniques used by totalitarian parties. In those cases, they were faced with convictions under so-called criminal syndicalism statutes aimed at anarchists but which, loosely construed, had been applied to punish socialism, pacifism, and left-wing ideologies, the charges often resting on far*568fetched inferences which, if true, would establish only technical or trivial violations. They proposed “clear and present danger” as a test for the sufficiency of evidence in particular cases.

I would save it, unmodified, for application as a “rule of reason”11 in the kind of case for which it was devised. When the issue is criminality of a hot-headed speech on a street corner, or circulation of a few incendiary pamphlets, or parading by some zealots behind a red flag, or refusal of a handful of school children to salute our flag, it is not beyond the capacity of the judicial process to gather, comprehend, and weigh the necessary materials for decision whether it is a clear and present danger of substantive evil or a harmless letting off of steam. It is not a prophecy, for the danger in such cases has matured by the time of trial or it was never present. The test applies and has meaning where a conviction is sought to be based on a speech or writing which does not directly or explicitly advocate a crime but to which such tendency is sought to be attributed by construction or by implication from external circumstances. The formula in such cases favors freedoms that are vital to our society, and, even if sometimes applied too generously, the consequences cannot be grave. But its recent expansion has extended, in particular to Communists, unprecedented immunities.12 Unless we are to hold our Government captive in a judge-made verbal trap, we must approach the problem of a well-organized, nation-wide conspiracy, such as I have *569described, as realistically as our predecessors faced the trivialities that were being prosecuted until they were checked with a rule of reason.

I think reason is lacking for applying that test to this case.

*570If we must decide that this Act and its application are constitutional only if we are convinced that petitioner’s conduct creates a “clear and present danger” of violent overthrow, we must appraise imponderables, including international and national phenomena which baffle the best informed foreign offices and our most experienced politicians. We would have to foresee and predict the effectiveness of Communist propaganda, opportunities for infiltration, whether, and when, a time will come that they consider propitious for action, and whether and how fast our existing government will deteriorate. And we would have to speculate as to whether an approaching Communist coup would not be anticipated by a nationalistic fascist movement. No doctrine can be sound whose application requires us to make a prophecy of that sort in the guise of a legal decision. The judicial process simply is not adequate to a trial of such far-flung issues. The answers given would reflect our own political predilections and nothing more.

The authors of the clear and present danger test never applied it to a case like this, nor would I. If applied as it is proposed here, it means that the Communist plotting is protected during its period of incubation; its preliminary stages of organization and preparation are immune from the law; the Government can move only after imminent action is manifest, when it would, of course, be too late.

III.

The highest degree of constitutional protection is due to the individual acting without conspiracy. But even an individual cannot claim that the Constitution protects him in advocating or teaching overthrow of government by force or violence. I should suppose no one would doubt that Congress has power to make such attempted *571overthrow a crime. But the contention is that one has the constitutional right to work up a public desire and will to do what it is a crime to attempt. I think direct incitement by speech or writing can be made a crime, and I think there can be a conviction without also proving that the odds favored its success by 99 to 1, or some other extremely high ratio.

The names of Mr. Justice Holmes and Mr. Justice Brandéis cannot be associated with such a doctrine of governmental disability. After the Schenck case, in which they set forth the clear and present danger test, they joined in these words of Mr. Justice Holmes, spoken for a unanimous Court:

“. . . [T]he First Amendment while prohibiting legislation against free speech as such cannot have been, and obviously was not, intended to give immunity for every possible use of language. Robertson v. Baldwin, 165 U. S. 275, 281. We venture to believe that neither Hamilton nor Madison, nor any other competent person then or later, ever supposed that to make criminal the counselling of a murder within the jurisdiction of Congress would be an unconstitutional interference with free speech.” Frohwerk v. United States, 249 U. S. 204, 206.

The same doctrine was earlier stated in Fox v. Washington, 236 U. S. 273, 277, and that case was recently and with approval cited in Giboney v. Empire Storage & Ice Co., 336 U. S. 490, 502.

As aptly stated by Judge Learned Hand in Masses Publishing Co. v. Patten, 244 F. 535, 540: “One may not counsel or advise others to violate the law as it stands. Words are not only the keys of persuasion, but the triggers of action, and those which have no purport but to counsel the violation of law cannot by any latitude of interpretation be a part of that public opinion which is the final source of government in a democratic state.”

*572Of course, it is not always easy to distinguish teaching or advocacy in the sense of incitement from teaching or advocacy in the sense of exposition or explanation. It is a question of fact in each case.

IY.

What really is under review here is a conviction of conspiracy, after a trial for conspiracy, on an indictment charging conspiracy, brought under a statute outlawing conspiracy. With due respect to my colleagues, they seem to me to discuss anything under the sun except the law of conspiracy. One of the dissenting opinions even appears to chide me for “invoking the law of conspiracy.” As that is the ease before us, it may be more amazing that its reversal can be proposed without even considering the law of conspiracy.

The Constitution does not make conspiracy a civil right. The Court has never before done so and I think it should not do so now. Conspiracies of labor unions, trade associations, and news agencies have been condemned, although accomplished, evidenced and carried out, like the conspiracy here, chiefly by letter-writing, meetings, speeches and organization. Indeed, this Court seems, particularly in cases where the conspiracy has economic ends, to be applying its doctrines with increasing severity. While I consider criminal conspiracy a dragnet device capable of perversion into an instrument of injustice in the hands of a partisan or complacent judiciary, it has an established place in our system of law, and no reason appears for applying it only to concerted action claimed to disturb interstate commerce and withholding it from those claimed to undermine our whole Government.13

*573The basic rationale of the law of conspiracy is that a conspiracy may be an evil in itself, independently of any other evil it seeks to accomplish. Thus, we recently held in Pinkerton v. United States, 328 U. S. 640, 643-644, “It has been long and consistently recognized by the Court that the commission of the substantive offense and a conspiracy to commit it are separate and distinct offenses. The power of Congress to separate the two and to affix to each a different penalty is well established. . . . And the plea of double jeopardy is no defense to a conviction for both offenses. . . .”

So far does this doctrine reach that it is well settled that Congress may make it a crime to conspire with others to do what an individual may lawfully do on his own. This principle is illustrated in conspiracies that violate the antitrust laws as sustained and applied by this Court. Although one may raise the prices of his own products, and many, acting without concert, may do so, the moment they conspire to that end they are punishable. The same principle is applied to organized labor. Any workman may quit his work for any reason, but concerted actions to the same end are in some circumstances forbidden. National Labor Relations Act, as amended, 61 Stat. 136, § 8 (b), 29 U. S. C. § 158 (b).

The reasons underlying the doctrine that conspiracy may be a substantive evil in itself, apart from any evil it may threaten, attempt, or accomplish, are peculiarly appropriate to conspiratorial Communism.

“The reason for finding criminal liability in case of a combination to effect an unlawful end or to use unlawful means, where none would exist, even though-the act contemplated were actually committed by an individual, is that a combination of persons to commit a wrong, either as an end or as a means to an end, is so much more dangerous, because of its increased power to do wrong, because it is more difficult *574to guard against and prevent the evil designs of a group of persons than of a single person, and because of the terror which fear of such a combination tends to create in the minds of people.”14

There is lamentation in the dissents about the injustice of conviction in the absence of some overt act. Of course, there has been no general uprising against the Government, but the record is replete with acts to carry out the conspiracy alleged, acts such as always are held sufficient to consummate the crime where the statute requires an overt act.

But the shorter answer is that no overt act is or need be required. The Court, in antitrust cases, early upheld the power of Congress to adopt the ancient common law that makes conspiracy itself a crime. Through Mr. Justice Holmes, it said: “Coming next to the objection that no overt act is laid, the answer is that the Sherman Act punishes the conspiracies at which it is aimed on the common law footing — that is to say, it does not make the doing of any act other than the act of conspiring a condition of liability.” Nash v. United States, 229 U. S. 373, 378. Reiterated, United States v. Socony-Vacuum Oil Co., 310 U. S. 150, 252. It is not to be supposed that the power of Congress to protect the Nation’s existence is more limited than its power to protect interstate commerce.

Also, it is urged that since the conviction is for conspiracy to teach and advocate, and to organize the Communist Party to teach and advocate, the First Amendment is violated, because freedoms of speech and press protect teaching and advocacy regardless of what is taught or advocated. I have never thought that to be the law.

*575I do not suggest that Congress could punish conspiracy to advocate something, the doing of which it may not punish. Advocacy or exposition of the doctrine of communal property ownership, or any political philosophy unassociated with advocacy of its imposition by force or seizure of government by unlawful means could not be reached through conspiracy prosecution. But it is not forbidden to put down force or violence, it is not forbidden to punish its teaching or advocacy, and the end being punishable, there is no doubt of the power to punish conspiracy for the purpose.

The defense of freedom of speech or press has often been raised in conspiracy cases, because, whether committed by Communists, by businessmen, or by common criminals, it usually consists of words written or spoken, evidenced by letters, conversations, speeches or documents. Communication is the essence of every conspiracy, for only by it can common purpose and concert of action be brought about or be proved. However, when labor unions raised the defense of free speech against a conspiracy charge, we unanimously said:

“It rarely has been suggested that the constitutional freedom for speech and press extends its immunity to speech or writing used as an integral part of conduct in violation of a valid criminal statute. We reject the contention now. ...

“. . . It is true that the agreements and course of conduct here were as in most instances brought about through speaking or writing. But it has never been deemed an abridgment of freedom of speech or press to make a course of conduct illegal merely because the conduct was in part initiated, evidenced, or carried out by means of language, either spoken, written, or printed. . . . Such an expansive interpreta*576tion of the constitutional guaranties of speech and press would make it practically impossible ever to enforce laws against agreements in restraint of trade as well as many other agreements and conspiracies deemed injurious to society.” Giboney v. Empire Storage & Ice Co., 336 U. S. 490, 498, 502.

A contention by the press itself, in a conspiracy case, that it was entitled to the benefits of the “clear and present danger” test, was curtly rebuffed by this Court, saying: “Nor is a publisher who engages in business practices made unlawful by the Sherman Act entitled to a partial immunity by reason of the 'clear and present danger’ doctrine .... Formulated as it was to protect liberty of thought and of expression, it would degrade the clear and present danger doctrine to fashion from it a shield for business publishers who engage in business practices condemned by the Sherman Act. . . .” Associated Press v. United States, 326 U. S. 1, 7. I should think it at least as “degrading” to fashion of it a shield for conspirators whose ultimate purpose is to capture or overthrow the Government.

In conspiracy cases the Court not only has dispensed with proof of clear and present danger but even of power to create a danger: “It long has been settled, however, that a 'conspiracy to commit a crime is a different offense from the crime that is the object of the conspiracy.’ . . . Petitioners, for example, might have been convicted here of a conspiracy to monopolize without ever having acquired the power to carry out the object of the conspiracy . . . .” American Tobacco Co. v. United States, 328 U. S. 781, 789.

Having held that a conspiracy alone is a crime and its consummation is another, it would be weird legal reasoning to hold that Congress could punish the one only if there was “clear and present danger” of the second. This *577would compel the Government to prove two crimes in order to convict for one.

When our constitutional provisions were written, the chief forces recognized as antagonists in the struggle between authority and liberty were the Government on the one hand and the individual citizen on the other. It was thought that if the state could be kept in its place the individual could take care of himself.

In more recent times these problems have been complicated by the intervention between the state and the citizen of permanently organized, well-financed, semisecret and highly disciplined political organizations. Totalitarian groups here and abroad perfected the technique of creating private paramilitary organizations to coerce both the public government and its citizens. These organizations assert as against our Government all of the constitutional rights and immunities of individuals and at the same time exercise over their followers much of the authority which they deny to the Government. The Communist Party realistically is a state within a state, an authoritarian dictatorship within a republic. It demands these freedoms, not for its members, but for the organized party. It denies to its own members at the same time the freedom to dissent, to debate, to deviate from the party line, and enforces its authoritarian rule by crude purges, if nothing more violent.

The law of conspiracy has been the chief means at the Government’s disposal to deal with the growing problems created by such organizations. I happen to think it is an awkward and inept remedy, but I find no constitutional authority for taking this weapon from the Government. There is no constitutional right to “gang up” on the Government.

While I think there was power in Congress to enact this statute and that, as applied in this case, it cannot be *578held unconstitutional,15 I add that I have little faith in the long-range effectiveness of this conviction to stop the rise of the Communist movement. Communism will not go to jail with these Communists. No decision by this Court can forestall revolution whenever the existing government fails to command the respect and loyalty of the people and sufficient distress and discontent is allowed to grow up among the masses. Many failures by fallen governments attest that no government can long prevent revolution by outlawry.16 Corruption, ineptitude, inflation, oppressive taxation, militarization, injustice, and loss of leadership capable of intellectual initiative in domestic or foreign affairs are allies on which the Com*579munists count to bring opportunity knocking to their door. Sometimes I think they may be mistaken. But the Communists are not building just for today — the rest of us might profit by their example.

Mr. Justice Black,

dissenting.

Here again, as in Breard v. Alexandria, post, p. 622, decided this day, my basic disagreement with the Court is not as to how we should explain or reconcile what was said in prior decisions but springs from a fundamental difference in constitutional approach. Consequently, it would serve no useful purpose to state my position at length.

At the outset I want to emphasize what the crime involved in this case is, and what it is not. These petitioners were not charged with an attempt to overthrow the Government. They were not charged with overt acts of any kind designed to overthrow the Government. They were not even charged with saying anything or writing anything designed to overthrow the Government. The charge was that they agreed to assemble and to talk and publish certain ideas at a later date: The indictment is that they conspired to organize the Communist Party and to use speech or newspapers and other publications in the future to teach and advocate the forcible overthrow of the Government. No matter how it is worded, this is a virulent form of prior censorship of speech and press, which I believe the First Amendment forbids. I would hold § 3 of the Smith Act authorizing this prior restraint unconstitutional on its face and as applied.

But let us assume, contrary to all constitutional ideas of fair criminal procedure, that petitioners although not indicted for the crime of actual advocacy, may be punished for it. Even on this radical assumption, the other opinions in this case show that the only way to affirm *580these convictions is to repudiate directly or indirectly the established “clear and present danger” rule. This the Court does in a way which greatly restricts the protections afforded by the First Amendment. The opinions for affirmance indicate that the chief reason for jettisoning the rule is the expressed fear that advocacy of Communist doctrine endangers the safety of the Republic. Undoubtedly, a governmental policy of unfettered communication of ideas does entail dangers. To the Founders of this Nation, however, the benefits derived from free expression were worth the risk. They embodied this philosophy in the First Amendment’s command that “Congress shall make no law . . . abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press . . . .” I have always believed that the First Amendment is the keystone of our Government, that the freedoms it guarantees provide the best insurance against destruction of all freedom. At least as to speech in the realm of public matters, I believe that the “clear and present danger” test does not “mark the furthermost constitutional boundaries of protected expression” but does “no more than recognize a minimum compulsion of the Bill of Rights.” Bridges v. California, 314 U. S. 252, 263.

So long as this Court exercises the power of judicial review of legislation, I cannot agree that the First Amendment permits us to sustain laws suppressing freedom of speech and press on the basis of Congress’ or our own notions of mere “reasonableness.” Such a doctrine waters down the First Amendment so that it amounts to little more than an admonition to Congress. The Amendment as so construed is not likely to protect any but those “safe” or orthodox views which rarely need its protection. I must also express my objection to the holding because, as Mr. Justice Douglas’ dissent shows, it sanctions the determination of a crucial issue of fact by the judge rather than by the jury. Nor can I let this opportunity *581pass without expressing my objection to the severely limited grant of certiorari in this case which precluded consideration here of at least two other reasons for reversing these convictions: (1) the record shows a discriminatory selection of the jury panel which prevented trial before a representative cross-section of the community; (2) the record shows that one member of the trial jury was violently hostile to petitioners before and during the trial.

Public opinion being what it now is, few will protest the conviction of these Communist petitioners. There is hope, however, that in calmer times, when present pressures, passions and fears subside, this or some later Court will restore the First Amendment liberties to the high preferred place where they belong in a free society.

Mr. Justice Douglas,

dissenting.

If this were a case where those who claimed protection under the First Amendment were teaching the techniques of sabotage, the assassination of the President, the filching of documents from public files, the planting of bombs, the art of street warfare, and the like, I would have no doubts. The freedom to speak is not absolute; the teaching of methods of terror and other seditious conduct should be beyond the pale along with obscenity and immorality. This case was argued as if those were the facts. The argument imported much seditious conduct into the record. That is easy and it has popular appeal, for the activities of Communists in plotting and scheming against the free world are common knowledge. But the fact is that no such evidence was introduced at the trial. There is a statute which makes a seditious conspiracy unlawful.1 Petitioners, however, were not *582charged with a “conspiracy to overthrow” the Government. They were charged with a conspiracy to form a party and groups and assemblies of people who teach and advocate the overthrow of our Government by force or violence and with a conspiracy to advocate and teach its overthrow by force and violence.2 It may well be that indoctrination in the techniques of terror to destroy the Government would be indictable under either statute. But the teaching which is condemned here is of a different character.

So far as the present record is concerned, what petitioners did was to organize people to teach and themselves teach the Marxist-Leninist doctrine contained chiefly in four books:3 Stalin, Foundations of Leninism (1924); Marx and Engels, Manifesto of the Communist Party (1848); Lenin, The State and Revolution (1917); History of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (B.) (1939).

Those books are to Soviet Communism what Mein Kampf was to Nazism. If they are understood, the ugliness of Communism is revealed, its deceit and cunning are exposed, the nature of its activities becomes apparent, and the chances of its success less likely. That is not, of course, the reason why petitioners chose these books for their classrooms. They are fervent Communists to whom these volumes are gospel. They preached the creed with the hope that some day it would be acted upon.

*583The opinion of the Court does not outlaw these texts nor condemn them to the fire, as the Communists do literature offensive to their creed. But if the books themselves are not outlawed, if they can lawfully remain on library shelves, by what reasoning does their use in a classroom become a crime? It would not be a crime under the Act to introduce these books to a class, though that would be teaching what the creed of violent overthrow of the Government is. The Act, as construed, requires the element of intent — that those who teach the creed believe in it. The crime then depends not on what is taught but on who the teacher is. That is to make freedom of speech turn not on what is said, but on the intent with which it is said. Once we start down that road we enter territory dangerous to the liberties of every citizen.

There was a time in England when the concept of constructive treason flourished. Men were punished not for raising a hand against the king but for thinking murderous thoughts about him. The Framers of the Constitution were alive to that abuse and took steps to see that the practice would not flourish here. Treason was defined to require overt acts — the evolution of a plot against the country into an actual project. The present case is not one of treason. But the analogy is close when the illegality is made to turn on intent, not on the nature of the act. We then start probing men’s minds for motive and purpose; they become entangled in the law not for what they did but for what they thought; they get convicted not for what they said but for the purpose with which they said it.

Intent, of course, often makes the difference in the law. An act otherwise excusable or carrying minor penalties may grow to an abhorrent thing if the evil intent is present. We deal here, however, not with ordinary acts but with speech, to which the Constitution has given a special sanction.

*584The vice of treating speech as the equivalent of overt acts of a treasonable or seditious character is emphasized by a concurring opinion, which by invoking the law of conspiracy makes speech do service for deeds which are dangerous to society. The doctrine of conspiracy has served divers and oppressive purposes and in its broad reach can be made to do great evil. But never until today has anyone seriously thought that the ancient law of conspiracy could constitutionally be used to turn speech into seditious conduct. Yet that is precisely what is suggested. I repeat that we deal here with speech alone, not with speech plus acts of sabotage or unlawful conduct. Not a single seditious act is charged in the indictment. To make a lawful speech unlawful because two men conceive it is to raise the law of conspiracy to appalling proportions. That course is to make a radical break with the past and to violate one of the cardinal principles of our constitutional scheme.

Free speech has occupied an exalted position because of the high service it has given our society. Its protection is essential to the very existence of a democracy. The airing of ideas releases pressures which otherwise might become destructive. When ideas compete in the market for acceptance, full and free discussion exposes the false and they gain few adherents. Full and free discussion even of ideas we hate encourages the testing of our own prejudices and preconceptions. Full and free discussion keeps a society from becoming stagnant and unprepared for the stresses and strains that work to tear all civilizations apart.

Full and free discussion has indeed been the first article of our faith. We have founded our political system on it. It has been the safeguard of every religious, political, philosophical, economic, and racial group amongst us. We have counted on it to keep us from embracing what is cheap and false; we have trusted the common sense of our *585people to choose the doctrine true to our genius and to reject the rest. This has been the one single outstanding tenet that has made our institutions the symbol of freedom and equality. We have deemed it more costly to liberty to suppress a despised minority than to let them vent their spleen. We have above all else feared the political censor. We have wanted a land where our people can be exposed to all the diverse creeds and cultures of the world.

There comes a time when even speech loses its constitutional immunity. Speech innocuous one year may at another time fan such destructive flames that it must be halted in the interests of the safety of the Republic. That is the meaning of the clear and present danger test. When conditions are so critical that there will be no time to avoid the evil that the speech threatens, it is time to call a halt. Otherwise, free speech which is the strength of the Nation will be the cause of its destruction.

Yet free speech is the rule, not the exception. The restraint to be constitutional must be based on more than fear, on more than passionate opposition against the speech, on more than a revolted dislike for its contents. There must be some immediate injury to society that is likely if speech is allowed. The classic statement of these conditions was made by Mr. Justice Brandéis in his concurring opinion in Whitney v. California, 274 U. S. 357, 376-377,

“Fear of serious injury cannot alone justify suppression of free speech and assembly. Men feared witches and burnt women. It is the function of speech to free men from the bondage of irrational fears. To justify suppression of free speech there must be reasonable ground to fear that serious evil will result if free speech is practiced. There must be reasonable ground to believe that the danger ap*586prehended is imminent. There must be reasonable ground to believe that the evil to be prevented is a serious one. Every denunciation of existing law tends in some measure to increase the probability that there will be violation of it. Condonation of a breach enhances the probability. Expressions of approval add to the probability. Propagation of the criminal state of mind by teaching syndicalism increases it. Advocacy of law-breaking heightens it still further. But even advocacy of violation, however reprehensible morally, is not a justification for denying free speech where the advocacy falls short of incitement and there is nothing to indicate that the advocacy would be immediately acted on. The wide difference between advocacy and incitement, between preparation and attempt, between assembling and conspiracy, must be borne in mind. In order to support a finding of clear and present danger it must be shown either that immediate serious violence was to be expected or was advocated, or that the past conduct furnished reason to believe that such advocacy was then contemplated.

“Those who won our independence by revolution were not cowards. They did not fear political change. They did not exalt order at the cost of liberty. To courageous, self-reliant men, with confidence in the power of free and fearless reasoning applied through the processes of popular government, no danger flowing from speech can be deemed clear and present, unless the incidence of the evil apprehended is so imminent that it may befall before there is opportunity for full discussion. If there he time to expose through discussion the falsehood and fallacies, to avert the evil by the processes of education, the remedy to he applied is more speech, not enforced silence.” (Italics added.)

*587I had assumed that the question of the clear and present danger, being so critical an issue in the case, would be a matter for submission to the jury. It was squarely held in Pierce v. United States, 252 U. S. 239, 244, to be a jury question. Mr. Justice Pitney, speaking for the Court, said, “Whether the statement contained in the pamphlet had a natural tendency to produce the forbidden consequences, as alleged, was a question to be determined not upon demurrer but by the jury at the trial.” That is the only time the Court has passed on the issue. None of our other decisions is contrary. Nothing said in any of the nonjury cases has detracted from that ruling.4 The statement in Pierce v. United States, supra, states the law as it has been and as it should be. The Court, I think, errs when it treats the question as one of law.

Yet, whether the question is one for the Court or the jury, there should be evidence of record on the issue. This record, however, contains no evidence whatsoever showing that the acts charged, viz., the teaching of the Soviet theory of revolution with the hope that it will be realized, have created any clear and present danger to the Nation. The Court, however, rules to the contrary. It says, “The formation by petitioners of such a highly organized conspiracy, with rigidly disciplined members subject to call when the leaders, these petitioners, felt that the time had come for action, coupled with the inflammable nature of world conditions, similar uprisings in other countries, and the touch-and-go nature of our relations with countries with whom petitioners were in the very least ideologically attuned, convince us that their convictions were justified on this score.”

That ruling is in my view not responsive to the issue in the case. We might as well say that the speech of *588petitioners is outlawed because Soviet Russia and her Red Army are a threat to world peace.

The nature of Communism as a force on the world scene would, of course, be relevant to the issue of clear and present danger of petitioners’ advocacy within the United States. But the primary consideration is the strength and tactical position of petitioners and their converts in this country. On that there is no evidence in the record. If we are to take judicial notice of the threat of Communists within the nation, it should not be difficult to conclude that as a political party they are of little consequence. Communists in this country have never made a respectable or serious showing in any election. I would doubt that there is a village, let alone a city or county or state, which the Communists could carry. Communism in the world scene is no bogeyman; but Communism as a political faction or party in this country plainly is. Communism has been so thoroughly exposed in this country that it has been crippled as a political force. Free speech has destroyed it as an effective political party. It is inconceivable that those who went up and down this country preaching the doctrine of revolution which petitioners espouse would have any success. In days of trouble and confusion, when bread lines were long, when the unemployed walked the streets, when people were starving, the advocates of a short-cut by revolution might have a chance to gain adherents. But today there are no such conditions. The country is not in despair; the people know Soviet Communism; the doctrine of Soviet revolution is exposed in all of its ugliness and the American people want none of it.

How it can be said that there is a clear and present danger that this advocacy will succeed is, therefore, a mystery. Some nations less resilient than the United States, where illiteracy is high and where democratic traditions are only budding, might have to take drastic *589steps and jail these men for merely speaking their creed. But in America they are miserable merchants of unwanted ideas; their wares remain unsold. The fact that their ideas are abhorrent does not make them powerful.

The political impotence of the Communists in this country does not, of course, dispose of the problem. Their numbers; their positions in industry and government; the extent to which they have in fact infiltrated the police, the armed services, transportation, stevedor-ing, power plants, munitions works, and other critical places — these facts all bear on the likelihood that their advocacy of the Soviet theory of revolution will endanger the Republic. But the record is silent on these facts. If we are to proceed on the basis of judicial notice, it is impossible for me to say that the Communists in this country are so potent or so strategically deployed that they must be suppressed for their speech. I could not so hold unless I were willing to conclude that the activities in recent years of committees of Congress, of the Attorney General, of labor unions, of state legislatures, and of Loyalty Boards were so futile as to leave the country on the edge of grave peril. To believe that petitioners and their following are placed in such critical positions as to endanger the Nation is to believe the incredible. It is safe to say that the followers of the creed of Soviet Communism are known to the F. B. I.; that in case of war with Russia they will be picked up overnight as were all prospective saboteurs at the commencement of World War II; that the invisible army of petitioners is the best known, the most beset, and the least thriving of any fifth column in history. Only those held by fear and panic could think otherwise.

This is my view if we are to act on the basis of judicial notice. But the mere statement of the opposing views indicates how important it is that we know the facts before we act. Neither prejudice nor hate nor senseless *590fear should be the basis of this solemn act. Free speech— the glory of our system of government — should not be sacrificed on anything less than plain and objective proof of danger that the evil advocated is imminent. On this record no one can say that petitioners and their converts are in such a strategic position as to have even the slightest chance of achieving their aims.

The First Amendment provides that “Congress shall make no law . . . abridging the freedom of speech.” The Constitution provides no exception. This does not mean, however, that the Nation need hold its hand until it is in such weakened condition that there is no time to protect itself from incitement to revolution. Seditious conduct can always be punished. But the command of the First Amendment is so clear that we should not allow Congress to call a halt to free speech except in the extreme case of peril from the speech itself. The First Amendment makes confidence in the common sense of our people and in their maturity of judgment the great postulate of our democracy. Its philosophy is that violence is rarely, if ever, stopped by denying civil liberties to those advocating resort to force. The First Amendment reflects the philosophy of Jefferson “that it is time enough for the rightful purposes of civil government, for its officers to interfere when principles break out into overt acts against peace and good order.”5 The political censor has no place in our public debates. Unless and until extreme and necessitous circumstances are shown, our aim should be to keep speech unfettered and to allow the processes *591of law to be invoked only when the provocateurs among us move from speech to action.

Vishinsky wrote in 1938 in The Law of the Soviet State, “In our state, naturally, there is and can be no place for freedom of speech, press, and so on for the foes of socialism.”

Our concern should be that we accept no such standard for the United States. Our faith should be that our people will never give support to these advocates of revolution, so long as we remain loyal to the purposes for which our Nation was founded.

APPENDIX TO OPINION OF MR. JUSTICE DOUGLAS.

There have been numerous First Amendment cases before the Court raising the issue of clear and present danger since Mr. Justice Holmes first formulated the test in Schenck v. United States, 249 U. S. 47, 52. Most of them, however, have not involved jury trials.

The cases which may be deemed at all relevant to our problem can be classified as follows:

Convictions tor contempt of court (non-jury): Near v. Minnesota, 283 U. S. 697; Bridges v. California, 314 U. S. 252; Thomas v. Collins, 323 U. S. 516; Pennekamp v. Florida, 328 U. S. 331; Craig v. Harney, 331 U. S. 367.

Convictions by state courts sitting without juries, GENERALLY FOR VIOLATIONS OF LOCAL ORDINANCES: Lovell v. Griffin, 303 U. S. 444; Schneider v. State, 308 U. S. 147; Cantwell v. Connecticut, 310 U. S. 296; Marsh v. Alabama, 326 U. S. 501; Tucker v. Texas, 326 U. S. 517; Winters v. New York, 333 U. S. 507; Saia v. New York, 334 U. S. 558; Kovacs v. Cooper, 336 U. S. 77; Kunz v. New York, 340 U. S. 290; Feiner v. New York, 340 U. S. 315.

Injunctions against enforcement of state or local laws (non-jury) : Grosjean v. American Press Co., 297 *592U. S. 233; Hague v. C. I. O., 307 U. S. 496; Minersville School District v. Gobitis, 310 U. S. 586; West Virginia Board of Education v. Barnette, 319 U. S. 624.

Administrative proceedings (non-jury) : Bridges v. Wixon, 326 U. S. 135; Schneiderman v. United States, 320 U. S. 118; American Communications Association v. Douds, 339 U. S. 382.

Cases tried before juries for violations of state LAWS DIRECTED AGAINST ADVOCACY OF ANARCHY, CRIMINAL syndicalism, etc.: Gilbert v. Minnesota, 254 U. S. 325; Gitlow v. New York, 268 U. S. 652; Whitney v. California, 274 U. S. 357; Fiske v. Kansas, 274 U. S. 380; Stromberg v. California, 283 U. S. 359; De Jonge v. Oregon, 299 U. S. 353; Herndon v. Lowry, 301 U. S. 242; Taylor v. Mississippi, 319 U. S. 583; or for minor local offenses: Cox v. New Hampshire, 312 U. S. 569; Chaplinsky v. New Hampshire, 315 U. S. 568; Terminiello v. Chicago, 337 U. S. 1; Niemotko v. Maryland, 340 U. S. 268.

Federal prosecutions before juries under the espionage ACT OF 19 17 FOLLOWING WORLD WAR I: Schenck v. United States, 249 U. S. 47; Frohwerk v. United States, 249 U. S. 204; Debs v. United States, 249 U. S. 211; Abrams v. United States, 250 U. S. 616; Schaefer v. United States, 251 U. S. 466; Pierce v. United States, 252 U. S. 239. Pierce v. United States ruled that the question of clear and present danger was for the jury. In the other cases in this group the question whether the issue was for the court or the jury was not raised or passed upon.

Federal prosecution before a jury under the espionage ACT OF 19 17 FOLLOWING WORLD WAR II: Hartzel V. United States, 322 U. S. 680. The jury was instructed on clear and present danger in terms drawn from the language of Mr. Justice Holmes in Schenck v. United States, supra, p. 52. The Court reversed the conviction on the ground that there had not been sufficient evidence for submission of the case to the jury.

Per Curiam.

The appellant, a leader of a Ku Klux Klan group, was convicted under the Ohio Criminal Syndicalism statute for “advocating] .. . the duty, necessity, or propriety *445of crime, sabotage, violence, or unlawful methods of terrorism as a means of accomplishing industrial or political reform” and for “voluntarily assembl[ing] with any society, group, or assemblage of persons formed to teach or advocate the doctrines of criminal syndicalism.” Ohio Rev. Code Ann. § 2923.13. He was fined $1,000 and sentenced to one to 10 years’ imprisonment. The appellant challenged the constitutionality of the criminal syndicalism statute under the First and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution, but the intermediate appellate court of Ohio affirmed his conviction without opinion. The Supreme Court of Ohio dismissed his appeal, sua sponte, “for the reason that no substantial constitutional question exists herein.” It did not file an opinion or explain its conclusions. Appeal was taken to this Court, and we noted probable jurisdiction. 393 U. S. 948 (1968). We reverse.

The record shows that a man, identified at trial as the appellant, telephoned an announcer-reporter on the staff of a Cincinnati television station and invited him to come to a Ku Klux Klan “rally” to be held at a farm in Hamilton County. With the cooperation of the organizers, the reporter and a cameraman attended the meeting and filmed the events. Portions of the films were later broadcast on the local station and on a national network.

The prosecution’s case rested on the films and on testimony identifying the appellant as the person who communicated with the reporter and who spoke at the rally. The State also introduced into evidence several articles appearing in the film, including a pistol, a rifle, a shotgun, ammunition, a Bible, and a red hood worn by the speaker in the films.

One film showed 12 hooded figures, some of whom carried firearms. They were gathered around a large wooden cross, which they burned. No one was present *446other than the participants and the newsmen who made the film. Most of the words uttered during the scene were incomprehensible when the film was projected, but scattered phrases could be understood that were derogatory of Negroes and, in one instance, of Jews.1 Another scene on the sanie film showed the appellant, in Klan regalia, making a speech. The speech, in full, was as follows:

“This is an organizers’ meeting. We have had quite a few members here today which are — we have hundreds, hundreds of members throughout the State of Ohio. I can quote from a newspaper clipping from the Columbus, Ohio Dispatch, five weeks ago Sunday morning. The Klan has more members in the State of Ohio than does any other organization. We’re not a revengent organization, but if our President, our Congress, our Supreme Court, continues to suppress the white, Caucasian race, it’s possible that there might have to be some revengeance taken.

“We are marching on Congress July the Fourth, four hundred thousand strong. From there we are dividing into two groups, one group to march on St. Augustine, Florida, the other group to march into Mississippi. Thank you.”

*447The second film showed six hooded figures one of whom, later identified as the appellant, repeated a speech very similar to that recorded on the first film. The reference to the possibility of “revengeance” was omittted, and one sentence was added: “Personally, I believe the nigger should be returned to Africa, the Jew returned to Israel.” Though some of the figures in the films carried weapons, the speaker did not.

The Ohio Criminal Syndicalism Statute was enacted in 1919. From 1917 to 1920, identical or quite similar laws were adopted by 20 States and two territories. E. Dowell, A History of Criminal Syndicalism Legislation in the United States 21 (1939). In 1927, this Court sustained the constitutionality of California’s Criminal Syndicalism Act, Cal. Penal Code §§ 11400-11402, the text of which is quite similar to that of the laws of Ohio. Whitney v. California, 274 U. S. 357 (1927). The Court upheld the statute on the ground that, without more, “advocating” violent means to effect political and economic change involves such danger to the security of the State that the State may outlaw it. Cf. Fiske v. Kansas, 274 U. S. 380 (1927). But Whitney has been thoroughly discredited by later decisions. See Dennis v. United States, 341 U. S. 494, at 507 (1951). These later decisions have fashioned the principle that the constitutional guarantees of free speech and free press do not permit a State to forbid or proscribe advocacy of the use of force or of law violation except where such advocacy is directed to inciting or producing imminent lawless action and is likely to incite or produce such action.2 As we *448said in Noto v. United States, 367 U. S. 290, 297-298 (1961), “the mere abstract teaching ... of the moral propriety or even moral necessity for a resort to force and violence, is not the same as preparing a group for violent action and steeling it to such action.” See also Herndon v. Lowry, 301 U. S. 242, 259-261 (1937); Bond v. Floyd, 385 U. S. 116, 134 (1966). A statute which fails to draw this distinction impermissibly intrudes upon the freedoms guaranteed by the First and Fourteenth Amendments. It sweeps within its condemnation speech which our Constitution has immunized from governmental control. Cf. Yates v. United States, 354 U. S. 298 (1957); De Jonge v. Oregon, 299 U. S. 353 (1937); Stromberg v. California, 283 U. S. 359 (1931). See also United States v. Robel, 389 U. S. 258 (1967); Keyishian v. Board of Regents, 385 U. S. 589 (1967); Elfbrandt v. Russell, 384 U. S. 11 (1966); Aptheker v. Secretary of State, 378 U. S. 500 (1964); Baggett v. Bullitt, 377 U. S. 360 (1964).

Measured by this test, Ohio’s Criminal Syndicalism Act cannot be sustained. The Act punishes persons who “advocate or teach the duty, necessity, or propriety” of violence “as a means of accomplishing industrial or political reform”; or who publish or circulate or display any book or paper containing such advocacy; or who “justify” the commission of violent acts “with intent to exemplify, spread or advocate the propriety of the doctrines of criminal syndicalism”; or who “voluntarily assemble” with a group formed “to teach or advocate the doctrines of criminal syndicalism.” Neither the indictment nor the trial judge’s instructions to the jury in any way refined the statute’s bald definition of the crime *449in terms of mere advocacy not distinguished from incitement to imminent lawless action.3

Accordingly, we are here confronted with a statute which, by its own words and as applied, purports to punish mere advocacy and to forbid, on pain of criminal punishment, assembly with others merely to advocate the described type of action.4 Such a statute falls within the condemnation of the First and Fourteenth Amendments. The contrary teaching of Whitney v. California, supra, cannot be supported, and that decision is therefore overruled.

Reversed.

Mr. Justice Black,

concurring.

I agree with the views expressed by Mr. Justice Douglas in his concurring opinion in this case that the “clear and present danger” doctrine should have no place *450in the interpretation of the First Amendment. I join the Court’s opinion, which, as I understand it, simply cites Dennis v. United States, 341 U. S. 494 (1951), but does not indicate any agreement on the Court’s part with the “clear and present danger” doctrine on which Dennis purported to rely.

Mr. Justice Douglas,

concurring.

While I join the opinion of the Court, I desire to enter a caveat.

The “clear and present danger” test was adumbrated by Mr. Justice Holmes in a case arising during World War I — a war “declared” by the Congress, not by the Chief Executive. The case was Schenck v. United States, 249 U. S. 47, 52, where the defendant was charged with attempts to cause insubordination in the military and obstruction of enlistment. The pamphlets that were distributed urged resistance to the draft, denounced conscription, and impugned the motives of those backing the war effort. The First Amendment was tendered as a defense. Mr. Justice Holmes in rejecting that defense said:

“The question in every case is whether the words used are used in such circumstances and are of such a nature as to create a clear and present danger that they will bring about the substantive evils that Congress has a right to prevent. It is a question of proximity and degree.”

Frohwerk v. United States, 249 U. S. 204, also authored by Mr. Justice Holmes, involved prosecution and punishment for publication of articles very critical of the war effort in World War I. Schenck was referred to as a conviction for obstructing security “by words of persuasion.” Id., at 206. And the conviction in Frohwerk was sustained because “the circulation of the paper was *451in quarters where a little breath would be enough to kindle a flame.” Id., at 209.

Debs v. United States, 249 U. S. 211, was the third of the trilogy of the 1918 Term. Debs was convicted of speaking in opposition to the war where his “opposition was so expressed that its natural and intended effect would be to obstruct recruiting.” Id., at 215.

“If that was intended and if, in all the circumstances, that would be its probable effect, it would not be protected by reason of its being part of a general program and expressions of a general and conscientious belief.” Ibid.

In the 1919 Term, the Court applied the Schenck doctrine to affirm the convictions of other dissidents in World War I. Abrams v. United States, 250 U. S. 616, was one instance. Mr. Justice Holmes, with whom Mr. Justice Brandéis concurred, dissented. While adhering to Schenck, he did not think that on the facts a case for overriding the First Amendment had been made out:

“It is only the present danger of immediate evil or an intent to bring it about that warrants Congress in setting a limit to the expression of opinion where private rights are not concerned. Congress certainly cannot forbid all effort to change the mind of the country.” Id., at 628.

Another instance was Schaefer v. United States, 251 U. S. 466, in which Mr. Justice Brandeis, joined by Mr. Justice Holmes, dissented. A third was Pierce v. United States, 252 U. S. 239, in which again Mr. Justice Brandéis, joined by Mr. Justice Holmes, dissented.

Those, then, were the World War I cases that put the gloss of “clear and present danger” on the First Amendment. Whether the war power — the greatest leveler of them all — is adequate to sustain that doctrine is debat*452able. The dissents in Abrams, Schaefer, and Pierce show how easily “clear and present danger” is manipulated to crush what Brandéis called “[t]he fundamental right of free men to strive for better conditions through new legislation and new institutions” by argument and discourse (Pierce v. United States, supra, at 273) even in time of war. Though I doubt if the “clear and present danger” test is congenial to the First Amendment in time of a declared war, I am certain it is not reconcilable with the First Amendment in days of peace.

The Court quite properly overrules Whitney v. California, 274 U. S. 357, which involved advocacy of ideas which the majority of the Court deemed unsound and dangerous.

Mr. Justice Holmes, though never formally abandoning the “clear and present danger” test, moved closer to the First Amendment ideal when he said in dissent in Gitlow v. New York, 268 U. S. 652, 673:

“Every idea is an incitement. It offers itself for belief and if believed it is acted on unless some other belief outweighs it or some failure of energy stifles the movement at its birth. The only difference between the expression of an opinion and an incitement in the narrower sense is the speaker’s enthusiasm for the result. Eloquence may set fire to reason. But whatever may be thought of the redundant discourse before us it had no chance of starting a present conflagration. If in the long run the beliefs expressed in proletarian dictatorship are destined to be accepted by the dominant forces of the community, the only meaning of free speech is that they should be given their chance and have their way.”

We have never been faithful to the philosophy of that dissent.

*453The Court in Herndon v. Lowry, 301 U. S. 242, overturned a conviction for exercising First Amendment rights to incite insurrection because of lack of evidence of incitement. Id., at 259-261. And see Hartzel v. United States, 322 U. S. 680. In Bridges v. California, 314 U. S. 252, 261-263, we approved the “clear and present danger” test in an elaborate dictum that tightened it and confined it to a narrow category. But in Dennis v. United States, 341 U. S. 494, we opened wide the door, distorting the “clear and present danger” test beyond recognition.1

In that case the prosecution dubbed an agreement to teach the Marxist creed a “conspiracy.” The case was submitted to a jury on a charge that the jury could not convict unless it found that the defendants “intended to overthrow the Government ‘as speedily as circumstances would permit.' ” Id., at 509-511. The Court sustained convictions under that charge, construing it to mean a determination of ‘“whether the gravity of the “evil,” discounted by its improbability, justifies such invasion of free speech as is necessary to avoid the danger.’ ”2 Id., at 510, quoting from United States v. Dennis, 183 F. 2d 201, 212.

Out of the “clear and present danger” test came other offspring. Advocacy and teaching of forcible overthrow of government as an abstract principle is immune from prosecution. Yates v. United States, 354 U. S. 298, 318. But an “active” member, who has a guilty knowledge and intent of the aim to overthrow the Government *454by violence, Noto v. United States, 367 U. S. 290, may be prosecuted. Scales v. United States, 367 U. S. 203, 228. And the power to investigate, backed by the powerful sanction of contempt, includes the power to determine which of the two categories fits the particular witness. Barenblatt v. United States, 360 U. S. 109, 130. And so the investigator roams at will through all of the beliefs of the witness, ransacking his conscience and his innermost thoughts.

Judge Learned Hand, who wrote for the Court of Appeals in affirming the judgment in Dennis, coined the “not improbable” test, 183 F. 2d 201, 214, which this Court adopted and which Judge Hand preferred over the “clear and present danger” test. Indeed, in his book, The Bill of Rights 59 (1958), in referring to Holmes’ creation of the “clear and present danger” test, he said, “I cannot help thinking that for once Homer nodded.”

My own view is quite different. I see no place in the regime of the First Amendment for any “clear and present danger” test, whether strict and tight as some would make it, or free-wheeling as the Court in Dennis rephrased it.

When one reads the opinions closely and sees when and how the “clear and present danger” test has been applied, great misgivings are aroused. First, the threats were often loud but always puny and made serious only by judges so wedded to the status quo that critical analysis made them nervous. Second, the test was so twisted and perverted in Dennis as to make the trial of those teachers of Marxism an all-out political trial which was part and parcel of the cold war that has eroded substantial parts of the First Amendment.

Action is often a method of expression and within the protection of the First Amendment.

Suppose one tears up his own copy of the Constitution in eloquent protest to a decision of this Court. May he be indicted?

*455Suppose one rips his own Bible to shreds to celebrate his departure from one “faith” and his embrace of atheism. May he be indicted?

Last Term the Court held in United States v. O’Brien, 391 U. S. 367, 382, that a registrant under Selective Service who burned his draft card in protest of the war in Vietnam could be prosecuted. The First Amendment was tendered as a defense and rejected, the Court saying:

“The issuance of certificates indicating the registration and eligibility classification of individuals is a legitimate and substantial administrative aid in the functioning of this system. And legislation to insure the continuing availability of issued certificates serves a legitimate and substantial purpose in the system’s administration.” 391 U. S., at 377-378.

But O’Brien was not prosecuted for not having his draft card available when asked for by a federal agent. He was indicted, tried, and convicted for burning the card. And this Court’s affirmance of that conviction was not, with all respect, consistent with the First Amendment.

The act of praying often involves body posture and movement as well as utterances. It is nonetheless protected by the Free Exercise Clause. Picketing, as we have said on numerous occasions, is “free speech plus.” See Bakery Drivers Local v. Wohl, 315 U. S. 769, 775 (Douglas, J., concurring); Giboney v. Empire Storage Co., 336 U. S. 490, 501; Hughes v. Superior Court, 339 U. S. 460, 465; Labor Board v. Fruit Packers, 377 U. S. 58, 77 (Black, J., concurring), and id., at 93 (Harlan, J., dissenting); Cox v. Louisiana, 379 U. S. 559, 578 (opinion of Black, J.); Food Employees v. Logan Plaza, 391 U. S. 308, 326 (Douglas, J., concurring). That means that it can be regulated when it comes to the “plus” or “action” side of the protest. It can be regulated as to *456the number of pickets and the place and hours (see Cox v. Louisiana, supra), because traffic and other community problems would otherwise suffer.

But none of these considerations are implicated in the symbolic protest of the Vietnam war in the burning of a draft card.

One’s beliefs have long been thought to be sanctuaries which government could not invade. Barenblatt is one example of the ease with which that sanctuary can be violated. The lines drawn by the Court between the criminal act of being an “active” Communist and the innocent act of being a nominal or inactive Communist mark the difference only between deep and abiding belief and casual or uncertain belief. But I think that all matters of belief are beyond the reach of subpoenas or the probings of investigators. That is why the invasions of privacy made by investigating committees were notoriously unconstitutional. That is the deep-seated fault in the infamous loyalty-security hearings which, since 1947 when President Truman launched them, have processed 20,000,000 men and women. Those hearings were primarily concerned with one’s thoughts, ideas, beliefs, and convictions. They were the most blatant violations of the First Amendment we have ever known.

The line between what is permissible and not subject to control and what may be made impermissible and subject to regulation is the line between ideas and overt acts.

The example usually given by those who would punish speech is the case of one who falsely shouts fire in a crowded theatre.

This is, however, a classic case where speech is brigaded with action. See Speiser v. Randall, 357 U. S. 513, 536-537 (Douglas, J., concurring). They are indeed inseparable and a prosecution can be launched for the overt *457acts actually caused. Apart from rare instances of that kind, speech is, I think, immune from prosecution. Certainly there is no constitutional line between advocacy of abstract ideas as in Yates and advocacy of political action as in Scales. The quality of advocacy turns on the depth of the conviction; and government has no power to invade that sanctuary of belief and conscience.3

Mr. Justice Harlan

delivered the opinion of the Court.

This case may seem at first blush too inconsequential to find its way into our bdoks, but the issue it presents is of no small constitutional significance.

*16Appellant Paul Robert Cohen was convicted in the Los Angeles Municipal Court of violating that part of California Penal Code § 415 which prohibits “maliciously and willfully disturb [ing] the peace or quiet of any neighborhood or person . ■. . by . . . offensive conduct . . . 1 He was given 30 days’imprisonment. The facts upon which his conviction rests are detailed in the opinion of the Court of Appeal of California, Second Appellate District, as follows:

“On April 26, 1968, the defendant was observed in the Los Angeles County Courthouse in the corridor outside of division 20 of the municipal court wearing a jacket bearing the words ‘Fuck the Draft’ which were plainly visible. There were women and children present in the corridor. The defendant was arrested. The defendant testified that he wore the jacket knowing that the words were on the jacket as a means of informing the public of the depth of his feelings against the Vietnam War and the draft.

“The defendant did not engage in, nor threaten to engage in, nor did anyone as the result of his conduct *17in fact commit or threaten to commit any act. of violence. The defendant did not make any loud or unusual noise, nor was there any evidence that he uttered any sound prior to his arrest.” 1 Cal. App. 3d 94, 97-98, 81 Cal. Rptr. 503, 505 (1969).

In affirming the conviction the Court of Appeal held that' “offensive conduct” means “behavior which has a tendency to provoke others to acts of violence or to in turn disturb the peace,” and that the State had,proved this element because, on the facts of this case, “[i]t was certainly reasonably foreseeable that .such conduct might cause others to rise up to commit a violent act against the person of the defendant or attempt to forceably remove his jacket.” 1 Cal. App. 3d, at 99-100, 81 Cal. Rptr., at 506. The California Supreme Court, declined review by á divided vote.2 We brought the case here, postponing the consideration of the question of our jurisdiction over this appeal to a hearing of the case on the merits. 399 U. S. 904. We now reverse. .

The question of our jurisdiction need not detain us long. Throughout the proceedings below, .Cohen con*18sistently claimed that, as construed to apply to the facts of this case, the statute infringed his rights to freedom of expression guaranteed by the First and Fourteenth Amendments of the Federal Constitution. That contention has been rejected by the highest California state court in which review could be had. Accordingly, we are fully satisfied that Cohen has properly invoked our jurisdiction by this appeal. 28 U. S. C. § 1257 (2) ; Dahnke-Walker Milling Co. v. Bondurant, 257 U. S. 282 (1921).

I

In order to lay hands on the precise issue which this case' involves, it is useful first to canvass various matters which this record does not present.

The conviction quite clearly rests upon the asserted offensiveness of the words Cohen used to convey his message to the public. The only “conduct”, which the State sought to punish is the fact of communication. Thus, we deal here with a conviction resting solely upon “speech,” cf. Stromberg v. California, 283 U. S. 359 (1931), not upon any separately identifiable conduct which allegedly was intended by Cohen- to be perceived by others as expressive of particular views but which, on its face, does not necessarily convey any r. ,„ssage and hence arguably could be regulated without effectively repressing Cohen’s ability to. express himself. Cf. United States v. O’Brien, 391 U. S. 367 (1968). Further, the State certainly lacks power to' punish Cohen for the underlying content of the message the inscription. conveyed. At least so long as there is no showing of an intent to incite disobedience to or disruption of the draft, Cohen could not, consistently with the First and Fourteenth Amendments, be punished for asserting the evident position on the inutility or immorality of the draft his jacket reflected. Yates v. United States, 354 U. S. 298 (1957).

*19Appellant’s conviction, then, rests-squarely upon his exercise of the “freedom of speech” protected from arbitrary governmental interference by the Constitution and can be justified, if at all, only as a valid regulation of the manner in which he exercised that freedom, not as a permissible prohibition on the substantive message it conveys. This does not end the inquiry, of course, for the First and Fourteenth Amendments have never been thought to give absolute protection to every individual to speak whenever or wherever he pleases, or to use any form of address in any circumstances that he chooses. In this vein, too, however, we think it important to note that several issues typically associated with such problems are not presented here.

In the first place, Cohen was tried under a statute applicable throughout the entire State. Any attempt to support this conviction on the ground that the statute seeks to preserve an appropriately decorous atmosphere in the courthouse where Cohen was arrested must fail in the absence of any language in the statute that would have put appellant on notice that certain kinds of otherwise permissible speech or conduct would nevertheless, under California law, not.be tolerated in certain places. See Edwards v. South Carolina, 372 U. S. 229, 236-237, and n. 11 (1963). Cf. Adderley v. Florida, 385 U. S. 39 (1966). No fair reading of the phrase “offensive conduct” can be said sufficiently to inform the ordinary person that distinctions between certain locations are thereby created.3

In the second place, as it comes to us, this case cannot be said to fall within those relatively few categories of *20instances where prior decisions have established the power of government to deal more comprehensively with certain forms of individual expression simply upon a showing that such a form was employed. This is not, for example, an obscenity case. Whatever else may be necessary to give rise to the States’ broader power to prohibit obscene expression, such expression must be, in some significant way, erotic. Roth v. United States, 354 U. S. 476 (1957). It cannot plausibly be maintained that this vulgar allusion to the Selective Service System would conjure up such psychic stimulation in anyone likely to be confronted with Cohen’s crudely defaced jacket.

This Court has also held that the States are free to ban the simple use, without a demonstration of additional justifying circumstances, of so-called “fighting words,” those personally abusive epithets which, when addressed to the ordinary citizen, are, as a matter of common knowledge, inherently likely to provoke violent reaction. Chaplinsky v. New Hampshire, 315 U. S. 568 (1942). While the four-letter word displayed by Cohen in relation to the draft is not uncommonly employed in a personally provocative fashion, in this' instance it was clearly not “directed to the person of the hearer.” Cantwell v. Connecticut, 310 U. S. 296, 309 (1940). No individual actually or likely to be present could reasonably have regarded the words on appellant’s jacket as a direct personal insult. Nor do we have here an instance of the exercise of the State’s police power .to prevent a speaker from intentionally provoking a given group to hostile reaction. Cf. Feiner v. New York, 340 U. S. 315 (1951); Terminiello v. Chicago, 337 U. S. 1 (1949). There is, as. noted above, no showing that anyone who saw Cohen was in fact violently aroused or that appellant intended .such a result.

*21Finally, in arguments before this Court much has been made of the claim that Cohen’s distasteful mode of expression was thrust upon unwilling or unsuspecting viewers, and that the State might therefore legitimately act as it did in order to protect the sensitive from otherwise unavoidable exposure to appellant’s crude form of protest. Of course, the mere presumed presence of unwitting listeners or viewers does not serve automatically to justify curtailing all speech capable of giving offense. See, e. g., Organization for a Better Austin v. Keefe, 402 U. S. 415 (1971). While this Court has recognized that government may properly act in many situations to prohibit intrusion into the privacy of the home of unwelcotne views and ideas which cannot be totally banned from the public dialogue, e. g., Rowan v. Post Office Dept., 397 U. S. 728 (1970), we have at the'same time consistently stressed that “we are often ‘captives’ outside the sanctuary of the home and subject to objectionable speech.” Id., at 738. The ability of government, consonant with the Constitution, to shut off discourse solely to protect others from hearing if is, in other words, dependent upon a showing that substantial privacy interests are being invaded in an essentially intolerable manner. Any broader view of this authority would effectively empower a majority to silence dissidents simply as a matter of personal predilections.

In this regard, persons confronted were in a quite different posture than, say, those subjected to the raucous emissions of sound trucks blaring outside their residences. Those in the Los Angeles courthouse could effectively avoid further bombardment of their sensibilities simply by averting their eyes. And, while it may be that one has a more substantial claim to a recognizable privacy interest when walking through a courthouse corridor than, for example, strolling through Central Park, surely it is nothing like the interest in *22being free from unwanted expression in the confines of one’s own home. Cf. Keefe, supra. Given the subtlety and complexify of the factors involved, if Cohen’s "speech’’ was otherwise entitled to constitutional protection, we do not think the fact that some unwilling “listeners” in a public building may have been briefly exposed to if can serve to justify this breach of the peace conviction where, as here, there was no evidence that persons powerless to avoid appellant’s conduct did in fact object to it, and where that portion of the statute upon which Cohen’s conviction rests evinces no concern, either on its face or ns construed by the California courts, with the special plight of the captive auditor, but, instead, indiscriminately sweeps within its prohibitions all “offensive conduct” that disturbs "any neighborhood or person.” Cf. Edwards v. South Carolina, supra.4

> — i

Against this background, the issue flushed by this caso stands out in bold relief. Tt is whether California can excise, a,s “offensive conduct,” one particular scurrilous epithet from the public discourse, either upon the theory of the court below that its use is inherently likely to cause violent reaction or upon a more general assertion that the States, acting as guardians of public morality, *23may properly remove this offensive word from the public vocabulary.

The rationale of the California court is plainly untenable. At most it reflects an “undifferentiated fear or apprehension of disturbance [which] is not enough to overcome the right to freedom of expression.” Tinker v. Des Moines Indep. Community School Dist., 393 U. S. 503, 508 (1969). We have been shown no evidence that substantial, numbers of citizens are standing ready to strike out physically at whoever may assault their sensibilities with execrations like that uttered by Cohen. There may be some persons about with such lawless and violent proclivities, but that is an insufficient base upon which to erect, consistently with constitutional values, a governmental power to force persons who wish to ventilate their dissident views into avoiding particular forms of expression. The argument amounts to little more than the self-defeating proposition that to avoid physical censorship of one who has not sought to provoke such a response by a hypothetical coterie of the violent and lawless, the States may more appropriately effectuate that censorship themselves. Cf. Ashton v. Kentucky, 384 U. S. 195, 200 (1966); Cox v. Louisiana, 379 U. S. 536, 550-551 (1965)!

Admittedly, it is not so obvious that the First and Fourteenth Amendments must be.taken to disable the States from punishing public utterance of this unseemly expletive in order to maintain what they regard as a suitable level of discourse within the body politic.5 We *24think, however, that examination and reflection will reveal the shortcomings of a contrary viewpoint.

At the outset, we cannot overemphasize that, in our judgment, most situations where the State has a justifiable interest in regulating speech will fall within one or more of the various established exceptions, discussed, above but not applicable here, tó the usual rule that governmental bodies may not prescribe the form or content of individual expression. Equally important to our conclusion is the constitutional backdrop against which our decision must be made. The constitutional right of free expression is powerful medicine in a society as diverse and populous as ours. It is designed and intended to remove governmental restraints from the arena of public discussion, putting the decision as to what views shall be voiced largely into the hands of each of us, in the hope that use of such freedom will ultimately produce a more capable citizenry and more perfect polity and in the belief that no other approach would comport with the . premise of individual dignity and choice upon which our political system rests. See Whitney v. California, 274 U. S. 357, 375-377 (1927) (Brandéis, J., concurring).

To many, the immediate consequence of this freedom may often appear to be only verbal tumult, discord, and *25even offensive utterance. These are, however, within established limits, in truth necessary side effects of the broader enduring values which the process of open debate permits us to achieve. That the air may at times seem filled with verbal cacophony is, in this sense not a sign of weakness but of strength. We cannot lose sight of the fact that, in what otherwise might seem a trifling and annoying instance of individual distasteful abuse of a privilege, these fundamental societal values are truly implicated. That is why “[w] holly neutral futilities . . . come under the protection of free speech as fully as do Keats’ poems or Donne’s sermons,” Winters v. New York, 333 U. S. 507, 528 (1948) (Frankfurter, J., dissenting), and why “so long as the means are peaceful, the communication need not meet standards of acceptability,” Organization for a Better Austin v. Keefe, 402 U. S. 415, 419 (1971).

Against this perception of the constitutional policies involved, we discern certain more particularized considerations that peculiarly call for reversal of this conviction. First, the principle contended for by the State seems inherently boundless. How is one to distinguish this from any other offensive word? Surely the State has no right to cleanse public debate to the point where it is grammatically palatable to the most squeamish among us. Yet no readily ascertainable general principle exists for stopping short of that result were we to affirm the judgment below. For, while the particular four-letter word being litigated here is perhaps more distasteful than most others of its genre, it is nevertheless often true that one man’s vulgarity is another’s lyric. Indeed, we think it is largely because governmental officials cannot make principled distinctions in this area that the Constitution leaves matters of taste and style so largely to the individual.

Additionally, we cannot overlook the fact, because it *26is well illustrated by the episode involved here, that much linguistic expression serves a dual communicative function: it conveys not only ideas capable .of relatively precise, detached explication, but otherwise inexpressible emotions as. well. In fact, words are often chosen as much for their emotive as their cognitive force. We cannot sanction the view that the Constitution, while solicitous of the cognitive content of individual speech, has little or no regard for that emotive function which, practically speaking, may often be the more important element of the overall message sought to be communicated. Indeed, as Mr. Justice Frankfurter has said, “[o]ne of the prerogatives of American citizenship is the right to criticize .public men and measures — and that means not only informed and responsible criticism but the freedom to speak foolishly and without moderation.” Baumgartner v. United States, 322 U. S. 665, 673-674 (1944).

Finally, and in the same vein, we cannot indulge the -facile assumption that one can forbid particular words without also running a substantial risk of suppressing ideas in the process. Indeed, governments might soon seize upon the censorship of particular words as a convenient guise for banning the expression of unpopular views. We have been able, as noted above, to discern little social benefit that might result from running.the risk of opening the door to such grave results.

It is, in sum, our judgment that, absent a more particularized and compelling reason for its actions, the State may not, consistently with the First and Fourteenth. Amendments, ■ make the simple public display here involved of this single four-letter expletive a criminal offense. Because that is the only 'arguably sustainable rationale for the conviqtion here at issue, the judgment below must be

Reversed.

*27Me. Justice Blackmun,

with whom The Chief Justice and Mr. Justice Black join.

I dissent, and I do so for two reasons:

1. Cohen’s absurd and immature antic, in my view, was mainly conduct and little speech. See Street v. New York, 394 U. S. 576 (1969); Cox v. Louisiana, 379 U. S. 536, 555 (1965); Giboney v. Empire Storage Co., 336 U. S. 490, 502 (1949). The California Court of Appeal appears so to have described it, 1 Cal. App. 3d 94, 100, 81 Cal. Rptr. 503, 507, and I cannot characterize it otherwise. Further, the case appears to me to be well within the sphere of Chaplinsky v. New Hampshire, 315 U. S. 568 (1942), where Mr. Justice Murphy, a known champion of First Amendment freedoms, wrote for a unanimous- bench. As a consequence, this Court’s agonizing over First Amendment values seems misplaced and unnecessary.

2. I am not at all certain that the California Court of Appeal’s construction of § 415 is now the authoritative California construction. The Court of Appeal filed its opinion on October 22, 1969. The Supreme Court of California declined review by' a four-to-three vote on December 17. See 1 Cal. App. 3d, at 104. A month later, on January 27, 1970, the State Supreme Court in another case construed § 415, evidently for the first time. In re Bushman, 1 Cal. 3d 767, 463 P. 2d 727. Chief Justice Traynor, who was among the dissenters to his court’s refusal to take Cohen’g. pase, wrote the majority opinion. He held that § 415 ‘ is not unconstitutionally vague and overbroad” and further said:

“[TJhat part of Penal Code section 415 in question here makes punishable only wilful and malicious conduct that is violent and endangers public safety and order or that creates a clear and present danger that others will engage in violence of that nature.

*28. . [It] does not make criminal any nonviolent act unless the act incites or threatens to incite others to violence . . . 1 Cal. 3d, at 773-774, 463 P. 2d, at 731.

Cohen was cited in Bushman, 1 Cal. 3d, at 773, 463 P. 2d, at 730, but. I am not convinced that its description there and Cohen itself are completely consistent with the “clear and present danger” standard enunciated in Bushman. Inasmuch as this Court does not dismiss this case, it ought to be remanded to the California Court of Appeal, for reconsideration in the light of the subsequently rendered. decision by the State’s highest tribunal in Bushman.

Mr. Justice White concurs in Paragraph 2 of Mr. Justice Blackmun’s dissenting opinion.

*316Mr. Chief Justice Vinson

delivered the opinion of the Court.

Petitioner was convicted of the offense of disorderly conduct, a misdemeanor under the New York penal laws, in the Court of Special Sessions of the City of Syracuse and was sentenced to thirty days in the county penitentiary. The conviction was affirmed by the Onondaga County Court and the New York Court of Appeals, 300 N. Y. 391, 91 N. E. 2d 316 (1950). The case is here on certiorari, 339 U. S. 962 (1950), petitioner having claimed that the conviction is in violation of his right of free speech under the Fourteenth Amendment.

In the review of state decisions where First Amendment rights are drawn in question, we of course make an examination of the evidence to ascertain independently whether the right has been violated. Here, the trial judge, who heard the case without a jury, rendered an oral decision at the end of the trial, setting forth his determination of the facts upon which he found the petitioner guilty. His decision indicated generally that he believed the state’s witnesses, and his summation of the testimony was used by the two New York courts on review in stating the facts. Our appraisal of the facts is, therefore, based upon the uncontroverted facts and, where controversy exists, upon that testimony which the trial judge did reasonably conclude to be true.

On the evening of March 8, 1949, petitioner Irving Feiner was addressing an open-air meeting at the corner of South McBride and Harrison Streets in the City of Syracuse. At approximately 6:30 p. m., the police received a telephone complaint concerning the meeting, and two officers were detailed to investigate. One of these officers went to the scene immediately, the other arriving some twelve minutes later. They found a crowd of about seventy-five or eighty people, both Negro and white, filling the sidewalk and spreading out into the street. Pe*317titioner, standing on a large wooden box on the sidewalk, was addressing the crowd through a loud-speaker system attached to an automobile. Although the purpose of his speech was to urge his listeners to attend a meeting to be held that night in the Syracuse Hotel, in its course he was making derogatory remarks concerning President Truman, the American Legion, the Mayor of Syracuse, and other local political officials.

The police officers made no effort to interfere with petitioner’s speech, but were first concerned with the effect of the crowd on both pedestrian and vehicular traffic. They observed the situation from the opposite side of the street, noting that some pedestrians were forced to walk in the street to avoid the crowd. Since traffic was passing at the time, the officers attempted to get the people listening to petitioner back on the sidewalk. The crowd was restless and there was some pushing, shoving and milling around. One of the officers telephoned the police station from a nearby store, and then both policemen crossed the street and mingled with the crowd without any intention of arresting the speaker.

At this time, petitioner was speaking in a “loud, high-pitched voice.” He gave the impression that he was endeavoring to arouse the Negro people against the whites, urging that they rise up in arms and fight for equal rights. The statements before such a mixed audience “stirred up a little excitement.” Some of the onlookers made remarks to the police about their inability to handle the crowd and at least one threatened violence if the police did not act. There were others who appeared to be favoring petitioner’s arguments. Because of the feeling that existed in the crowd both for and against the speaker, the officers finally “stepped in to prevent it from resulting in a fight.” One of the officers approached the petitioner, not for the purpose of arresting him, but to get him to break up the crowd. He asked petitioner to get down *318off the box, but the latter refused to accede to his request and continued talking. The officer waited for a minute and then demanded that he cease talking. Although the officer had thus twice requested petitioner to stop over the course of several minutes, petitioner not only ignored him but continued talking. During all this time, the crowd was pressing closer around petitioner and the officer. Finally, the officer told petitioner he was under arrest and ordered him to get down from the box, reaching up to grab him. Petitioner stepped down, announcing over the microphone that “the law has arrived, and I suppose they will take over now.” In all, the officer had asked petitioner to get down off the box three times over a space of four or five minutes. Petitioner had been speaking for over a half hour.

On these facts, petitioner was specifically charged with violation of § 722 of the Penal Law of New York, the pertinent part of which is set out in the margin.1 The bill of particulars, demanded by petitioner and furnished by the State, gave in detail the facts upon which the prosecution relied to support the charge of disorderly conduct. Paragraph C is particularly pertinent here: “By ignoring and refusing to heed and obey reasonable police orders issued at the time and place mentioned in the Information to regulate and control said crowd and to prevent a breach or breaches of the peace and to prevent injury to pedes*319trians attempting to use said walk, and being forced into the highway adjacent to the place in question, and prevent injury to the public generally.”

We are not faced here with blind condonation by a state court of arbitrary police action. Petitioner was accorded a full, fair trial. The trial judge heard testimony supporting and contradicting the judgment of the police officers that a clear danger of disorder was threatened. After weighing this contradictory evidence, the trial judge reached the conclusion that the police officers were justified in taking action to prevent a breach of the peace. The exercise of the police officers’ proper discretionary power to prevent a breach of the peace was thus approved by the trial court and later by two courts on review.2 The courts below recognized petitioner’s right to hold a street meeting at this locality, to make use of loud-speaking equipment in giving his speech, and to make derogatory remarks concerning public officials and the American Legion. They found that the officers in making the arrest were motivated solely by a proper concern for the preservation of order and protection of the general welfare, and that there was no evidence which could lend color to a claim that the acts of the police were a cover for suppression of petitioner’s views and opinions. Petitioner was thus neither arrested nor convicted for the *320making or the content of his speech. Rather, it was the reaction which it actually engendered.

The language of Cantwell v. Connecticut, 310 U. S. 296 (1940), is appropriate here. “The offense known as breach of the peace embraces a great variety of conduct destroying or menacing public order and tranquility. It includes not only violent acts but acts and words likely to produce violence in others. No one would have the hardihood to suggest that the principle of freedom of speech sanctions incitement to riot or that religious liberty connotes the privilege to exhort others to physical attack upon those belonging to another sect. When clear and present danger of riot, disorder, interference with traffic upon the public streets, or other immediate threat to public safety, peace, or order, appears, the power of the State to prevent or punish is obvious.” 310 U. S. at 308. The findings of the New York courts as to the condition of the crowd and the refusal of petitioner to obey the police requests, supported as they are by the record of this case, are persuasive that the conviction of petitioner for violation of public peace, order and authority does not exceed the bounds of proper state police action. This Court respects, as it must, the interest of the community in maintaining peace and order on its streets. Schneider v. State, 308 U. S. 147, 160 (1939); Kovacs v. Cooper, 336 U. S. 77, 82 (1949). We cannot say that the preservation of that interest here encroaches on the constitutional rights of this petitioner.

We are well aware that the ordinary murmurings and objections of a hostile audience cannot be allowed to silence a speaker, and are also mindful of the possible danger of giving overzealous police officials complete discretion to break up otherwise lawful public meetings. “A State may not unduly suppress free communication of views, religious or other, under the guise of conserving desirable conditions.” Cantwell v. Connecticut, supra, at *321308. But we are not faced here with such a situation. It is one thing to say that the police cannot be used as an instrument for the suppression of unpopular views, and another to say that, when as here the speaker passes the bounds of argument or persuasion and undertakes incitement to riot, they are powerless to prevent a breach of the peace. Nor in this case can we condemn the considered judgment of three New York courts approving the means which the police, faced with a crisis, used in the exercise of their power and duty to preserve peace and order. The findings of the state courts as to the existing situation and the imminence of greater disorder coupled with petitioner’s deliberate defiance of the police officers convince us that we should not reverse this conviction in the name of free speech.

Affirmed.

Mr. Justice Black,

dissenting.

The record before us convinces me that petitioner, a young college student, has been sentenced to the penitentiary for the unpopular views he expressed1 on matters of public interest while lawfully making a street-corner *322speech in Syracuse, New York.2 Today’s decision, however, indicates that we must blind ourselves to this fact because the trial judge fully accepted the testimony of the prosecution witnesses on all important points.3 Many times in the past this Court has said that despite findings below, we will examine the evidence for ourselves to ascertain whether federally protected rights have been denied; otherwise review here would fail of its purpose in safeguarding constitutional guarantees.4 Even a par*323tial abandonment of this rule marks a dark day for civil liberties in our Nation.

But still more has been lost today. Even accepting every “finding of fact” below, I think this conviction makes a mockery of the free speech guarantees of the First and Fourteenth Amendments. The end result of the af-firmance here is to approve a simple and readily available technique by which cities and states can with impunity subject all speeches, political or otherwise, on streets or elsewhere, to the supervision and censorship of the local police. I will have no part or parcel in this holding which I view as a long step toward totalitarian authority.

Considering only the evidence which the state courts appear to have accepted, the pertinent “facts” are: Syracuse city authorities granted a permit for 0. John Rogge, a former Assistant Attorney General, to speak in a public school building on March 8, 1948 on the subject of racial discrimination and civil liberties. On March 8th, how*324ever, the authorities cancelled the permit. The Young Progressives under whose auspices the meeting was scheduled then arranged for Mr. Rogge to speak at the Hotel Syracuse. The gathering on the street where petitioner spoke was held to protest the cancellation and to publicize the meeting at the hotel. In this connection, petitioner used derogatory but not profane language with reference to the city authorities, President Truman and the American Legion. After hearing some of these remarks, a policeman, who had been sent to the meeting by his superiors, reported to Police Headquarters by telephone. To whom he reported or what was said does not appear in the record, but after returning from the call, he and another policeman started through the crowd toward petitioner. Both officers swore they did not intend to make an arrest when they started, and the trial court accepted their statements. They also said, and the court believed, that they heard and saw “angry mutterings,” “pushing,” “shoving and milling around” and “restlessness.” Petitioner spoke in a “loud, high pitched voice.” He said that colored people “don’t have equal rights and they should rise up in arms and fight for them.”5 One man who heard this told the officers that if they did not take that “S ... 0 ... B ...” off the box, he would. The officers then approached petitioner for the first time. *325One of them first “asked” petitioner to get off the box, but petitioner continued urging his audience to attend Rogge’s speech. The officer next “told” petitioner to get down, but he did not. The officer finally “demanded” that petitioner get down, telling him he was under arrest. Petitioner then told the crowd that “the law had arrived and would take over” and asked why he was arrested. The officer first replied that the charge was “unlawful assembly” but later changed the ground to “disorderly conduct.” 6

The Court’s opinion apparently rests on this reasoning: The policeman, under the circumstances detailed, could reasonably conclude that serious fighting or even riot was imminent; therefore he could stop petitioner’s speech to prevent a breach of peace; accordingly, it was “disorderly conduct” for petitioner to continue speaking in disobedience of the officer’s request. As to the existence of a dangerous situation on the street corner, it seems far-fetched to suggest that the “facts” show any imminent threat of riot or uncontrollable disorder.7 It *326is neither unusual nor unexpected that some people at public street meetings mutter, mill about, push, shove, or disagree, even violently, with the speaker. Indeed, it is rare where controversial topics are discussed that an outdoor crowd does not do some or all of these things. Nor does one isolated threat to assault the speaker forebode disorder. Especially should the danger be discounted where, as here, the person threatening was a man whose wife and two small children accompanied him and who, so far as the record shows, was never close enough to petitioner to carry out the threat.

Moreover, assuming that the “facts” did indicate a critical situation, I reject the implication of the Court’s opinion that the police had no obligation to protect petitioner’s constitutional right to talk. The police of course have power to prevent breaches of the peace. But if, in the name of preserving order, they ever can interfere with a lawful public speaker, they first must make all reasonable efforts to protect him.8 Here the policemen did not even pretend to try to protect petitioner. According to the officers’ testimony, the crowd was restless but there is *327no showing of any attempt to quiet it; pedestrians were forced to walk into the street, but there was no effort to clear a path on the sidewalk; one person threatened to assault petitioner but the officers did nothing to discourage this when even a word might have sufficed. Their duty was to protect petitioner’s right to talk, even to the extent of arresting the man who threatened to interfere.9 Instead, they shirked that duty and acted only to suppress the right to speak.

Finally, I cannot agree with the Court’s statement that petitioner’s disregard of the policeman’s unexplained request amounted to such “deliberate defiance” as would justify an arrest or conviction for disorderly conduct. On the contrary, I think that the policeman’s action was a “deliberate defiance” of ordinary official duty as well as of the constitutional right of free speech. For at least where time allows, courtesy and explanation of commands are basic elements of good official conduct in a democratic society. Here petitioner was “asked” then “told” then “commanded” to stop speaking, but a man making a lawful address is certainly not required to be silent merely *328because an officer directs it. Petitioner was entitled to know why he should cease doing a lawful act. Not once was he told. I understand that people in authoritarian countries must obey arbitrary orders. I had hoped that there was no such duty in the United States.

In my judgment, today’s holding means that as a practical matter, minority speakers can be silenced in any city. Hereafter, despite the First and Fourteenth Amendments, the policeman’s club can take heavy toll of a current administration’s public critics.10 Criticism of public officials will be too dangerous for all but the most courageous.11 This is true regardless of the fact that in *329two other cases decided this day, Kunz v. New York, 340 U. S. 290; Niemotko v. Maryland, 340 U. S. 268, a majority, in obedience to past decisions of this Court, provides a theoretical safeguard for freedom of speech. For whatever is thought to be guaranteed in Kunz and Niemotko is taken away by what is done here. The three cases read together mean that while previous restraints probably cannot be imposed on an unpopular speaker, the police have discretion to silence him as soon as the customary hostility to his views develops.

In this case I would reverse the conviction, thereby adhering to the great principles of the First and Fourteenth Amendments as announced for this Court in 1940 by Mr. Justice Roberts:

“In the realm of religious faith, and in that of political belief, sharp differences arise. In both fields the tenets of one man may seem the rankest error to his neighbor. To persuade others to his own point of view, the pleader, as we know, at times, resorts to exaggeration, to vilification of men who have been, or are, prominent in church or state, and even to false statement. But the people of this nation have ordained in the light of history, that, in spite of the probability of excesses and abuses, these liberties are, in the long view, essential to enlightened opinion and right conduct on the part of the citizens of a democracy.” Cantwell v. Connecticut, 310 U. S. 296, 310.

I regret my inability to persuade the Court not to retreat from this principle.

Mb. Justice Douglas,

Feiner, a university student, made a speech on a street corner in Syracuse, New York, on March 8, 1949. The purpose of the speech was to publicize a meeting of the *330Young Progressives of America to be held that evening. A permit authorizing the meeting to be held in a public school auditorium had been revoked and the meeting shifted to a local hotel.

Feiner delivered his speech in a small shopping area in a predominantly colored residential section of Syracuse. He stood on a large box and spoke over loudspeakers mounted on a car. His audience was composed of about 75 people, colored and white. A few minutes after he started two police officers arrived.

The speech was mainly devoted to publicizing the evening’s meeting and protesting the revocation of the permit. It also touched on various public issues. The following are the only excerpts revealed by the record:

“Mayor Costello (of Syracuse) is a champagne-sipping bum; he does not speak for the negro people.”

“The 15th Ward is run by corrupt politicians, and there are horse rooms operating there.”

“President Truman is a bum.”

“Mayor O’Dwyer is a bum.”

“The American Legion is a Nazi Gestapo.”

“The negroes don’t have equal rights; they should rise up in arms and fight for their rights.”

There was some pushing and shoving in the crowd and some angry muttering. That is the testimony of the police. But there were no fights and no “disorder” even by the standards of the police. There was not even any heckling of the speaker.

But after Feiner had been speaking about 20 minutes a man said to the police officers, “If you don’t get that son of a bitch off, I will go over and get him off there myself.” It was then that the police ordered Feiner to stop speaking ; when he refused, they arrested him.

Public assemblies and public speech occupy an important role in American life. One high function of *331the police is to protect these lawful gatherings so that the speakers may exercise their constitutional rights. When unpopular causes are sponsored from the public platform, there will commonly be mutterings and unrest and heckling from the crowd. When a speaker mounts a platform it is not unusual to find him resorting to exaggeration, to vilification of ideas and men, to the making of false charges. But those extravagances, as we emphasized in Cantwell v. Connecticut, 310 U. S. 296, do not justify penalizing the speaker by depriving him of the platform or by punishing him for his conduct.

A speaker may not, of course, incite a riot any more than he may incite a breach of the peace by the use of “fighting words.” See Chaplinsky v. New Hampshire, 315 U. S. 568. But this record shows no such extremes. It shows an unsympathetic audience and the threat of one man to haul the speaker from the stage. It is against that kind of threat that speakers need police protection. If they do not receive it and instead the police throw their weight on the side of those who would break up the meetings, the police become the new censors of speech. Police censorship has all the vices of the censorship from city halls which we have repeatedy struck down. See Lovell v. City of Griffin, 303 U. S. 444; Hague v. C. I. O., 307 U. S. 496; Cantwell v. Connecticut, supra; Murdock v. Pennsylvania, 319 U. S. 105; Saia v. New York, 334 U. S. 558.