The First Amendment says in part, "Congress shall make no law… abridging the freedom of speech…" Yet in the well-known case Schenck v. U.S

Question

(1919) the Supreme Court decided unanimously that the Espionage Act did not violate the First Amendment free speech clause, and Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes developed his famous "clear and present danger" test ("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"). This test suggests that there are cases in which Congress can abridge an individual's freedom to speech. How can you make sense of this decision in light of the language of the free speech clause?
a. The Supreme Court was wrong in this case; the Espionage Act is on its face unconstitutional.
b. The free speech clause, like many aspects of the Constitution, is vague and thus subject to multiple interpretations.
c. The Espionage Act was constitutional but not for the reasons Holmes and the Court suggested in their 1919 decision.
d. There is only one way to read the Constitution; in this case, the founders would have agreed that "no laws" means "no laws," so the act is unconstitutional.
e. The free speech clause is unique in that unlike other aspects of the Constitution, it has been open to many different interpretations throughout U.S. history.

Answer 1

B