Amendment--"Congress shall make no law ... abridging the freedom of
speech or of the press." Stating this in other words, our Constitution
merely protects an already existing, inalienable right. Its guarantee is
in an entirely different sense from that of one of the above named
European constitutions.

In case of riot or disorder, the divinely constituted government of a
country of Continental Europe need merely "suspend the constitution,"
usually by the method of executive decree, and it suspends the freedom
of the press and all constitutional guarantees with it, as was done in
Hamburg, Germany, recently. In the United States this would be
impossible. Even though Germany or some other nation should invade this
country and destroy the governments at Washington and Albany, let us say
for extreme illustration, yet if any person were unjustly thrown into
prison in any part of New York state and a judge of any duly constituted
court happened to be nearby, he undoubtedly would issue a writ of habeas
corpus and the person be brought into the court for substantiation of
the charges in a legal manner according to the common law. It would not
matter whether there were a government or not, the inalienable common
law rights of an American citizen would continue to exist and the
destruction of the government would only remove one of the means of
protecting these rights and not destroy the rights themselves. In other
words, the judge would merely act on the common law rights of the
individual.

Furthermore, in the United States no person, whether high or low,
official or private citizen, is immune from the operation of the common
law. All are finally subjected to it, and the temporary immunity of the
President, a Governor, or any other official, only exists during the
term of office for which that official has been elected. At the