History Forum lecture series continues with its theme of the U.S. Constitution. This time “The Right to Dissent” is examined.

In the summer of 1918, as U.S. soldiers fought and died in Europe, labor activist Eugene Debs stood before a crowd and publicly declared World War I a “Wall Street war” that benefited only the rich. Because of this speech, Debs was labeled “a clear and present danger” to national security and sentenced to federal prison. Two years later he ran for president and won over a million votes without ever leaving his cell. Most cast their vote for him not in support of his politics, but of his right as an American to speak freely, even in time of war. Though eventually pardoned, Debs’ imprisonment sparked an argument that still rages: is free speech in wartime a right or a threat?

This Forum presented by the Minnesota Historical Society featured, Ernest Freeberg, a prize winning author and Professor of History at the University of Tennessee who specializes in American religious and cultural history, with an emphasis on the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

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