Abrams v. United States

250 U.S. 616 (1919)

Majority Opinion by Justice Clarke

Abrams upheld yet another conviction of a pamphlet-distributing leftist under the Espionage Act. Justice Clarke’s majority opinion is unadventurous and uninteresting. In fairness, the precedent set by Holmes in Schenck, Frohwerk, and Debs supported Clarke’s conclusion and he was probably miffed by Holmes’ shift in outlook. The only portion of Clarke’s opinion excerpted in Sullivan & Feldman is his response to Holmes’ dissent. It is hardly pithy or quotable (“[The writings] show, that while the immediate occasion for this particular outbreak of lawlessness, on the part of the defendant alien anarchists, may have been resentment caused by our Government sending troops into Russia as a strategic operation against the Germans on the eastern battle front, yet the plain purpose of their propaganda was to excite, at the supreme crisis of the war, disaffection, sedition, riots, and, as they hoped, revolution, in this country for the purpose of embarrassing and if possible defeating the military plans of the Government in Europe.”).

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