In Whitney v. California (1927), Charlotte Whitney had been found guilty under a state law against advocating the violent overthrow of government. Whitney’s crime was helping to establish the Communist Labor Party, which supported “revolutionary class struggle.” The court allowed the conviction, yet Brandeis wrote a separate opinion, joined by Holmes, that advanced a definitive statement on the right to dissent. His words are as stirring now as they were nearly a century ago: Those who won our independence believed . . . liberty to be the secret of happiness and courage to be the secret of
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