"The people, not the government, possess the absolute sovereignty. The legislature, no less than the executive, is under limitations of power. Encroachments are regarded as possible from the one, as well as from the other. Hence, in the United States, the great and essential rights of the people are secured against legislative, as well as against executive ambition. They are secured, not by laws paramount to prerogative, but by constitutions paramount to laws. This security of the freedom of the press requires, that it should be exempt, not only from previous restraint by the executive, as in Great Britain, but from legislative restraint also; and this exemption, to be effectual, must be an exemption not only from the previous inspection of licensers, but from the subsequent penalty of laws."
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Original Language: English
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Sources
James Madison, Report of 1800, for the quotation source see here. Additional source: The Founders' Constitution, Volume 5, Amendment I (Speech and Press), Document 24: James Madison, Report on the Virginia Resolutions, Writings 6:385--401 . In: The Writings of James Madison. Edited by Gaillard Hunt. 9 vols. New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1900--1910.
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Freedom_of_the_press
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Freedom of the press
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