Le libre commerce des idées

Arts et lettres

Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr., juge à la Cour suprême des Etats-Unis, sur le premier amendement et la liberté d'expression, dans un avis divergent sur l'arrêt Abrams v. United States, 250 US 616 (1919) :

"Persecution for the expression of opinions seems to me perfectly logical. If you have no doubt of your premises or your power..., you naturally express your wishes in law and sweep away all opposition... But when men have realized that time has upset many fighting faiths, they may come to believe even more than they believe the very foundations of their own conduct that the ultimate good desired is better reached by free trade in ideas... That at any rate is the theory of our Constitution. It is an experiment, as all life is an experiment... While that experiment is part of our system I think that we should be eternally vigilant against attempts to check the expression of opinions that we loathe and believe to be fraught with death...".

"(...) le bien ultime désiré est mieux atteint par le libre commerce des idées". On ne saurait mieux dire...