ABSTRACT
Grosjean v. American Press Co., was a crucial US Supreme Court decision concerning the protection for freedom of the press as provided in the First Amendment to the US Constitution. The law, enacted in 1934 at a time in Louisiana politics when "loyal opposition" was an oxymoron, was struck down initially by a lower federal court. In the eyes of the Court, the statute was simply a thinly veiled censorship tactic seeking to impose a prior restraint on certain newspapers critical of the politics and policies of the Long administration. Especially noteworthy in Grosjean was the vision Justice Sutherland offered concerning the role of the press in a constitutional democracy. According to Sutherland, the framers of the First Amendment were well aware of struggles against censorial powers in England throughout the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries; they thus sought to provide more than mere protection against censorship.
