Abrams V. United States - Majority Opinion

Majority Opinion

Writing for the majority, Justice John Hessin Clarke asserted that the leaflets were an appeal to violence against the United States government as opposed to peaceful change. In quoting heavily from the leaflets themselves, Clark wrote: "This is not an attempt to bring about a change of administration by candid discussion, for no matter what may have incited the outbreak on the part of the defendant anarchists, the manifest purpose of such a publication was to create an attempt to defeat the war plans of the government of the United States, by bringing upon the country the paralysis of a general strike, thereby arresting the production of all munitions and other things essential to the conduct of the war."

Clark further discussed the purpose behind the leaflets, stating that they "sufficiently 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."

Clark explained that the leaflets called for a general strike and the curtailment of munitions production, in violation of the Sedition Act of 1918. Although the distribution of the leaflets did not incite immediate resistance, the materials or speech had a "tendency" to encourage violent resistance, and therefore were not protected by the First Amendment: "...the language of these circulars was obviously intended to provoke and to encourage resistance to the United States in the war... and, the defendants, in terms, plainly urged and advocated a resort to a general strike of workers in ammunition factories for the purpose of curtailing the production of ordnance and munitions necessary and essential to the prosecution of the war.... Thus it is clear not only that some evidence but that much persuasive evidence was before the jury tending to prove that the defendants were guilty as charged...."