History
Prior to the legal development of substantive due process, state governments had the authority to regulate speech in public places without regard to the First Amendment. In the 1895 Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court case Massachusetts v. Davis, Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes wrote that "For the Legislature absolutely or conditionally to forbid public speaking in a highway or public park is no more an infringement of the rights of a member of the public than for the owner of a private house to forbid it in his house." The Supreme Court unanimously upheld Holmes' opinion in the 1897 appeal Davis v. Massachusetts.
However, in 1939, Justice Owen Josephus Roberts stated that "use of the streets and public places has, from ancient times, been a part of the privileges of citizens." And in 1965, Professor Harry Kalven described such places as a "public forum that the citizen can commandeer".
Read more about this topic: Forum (legal)
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