"Cognate" Rights

1. In constitutional law, the word "cognate" is much more restrictive in its meaning than in its common dictionary usage.

In the Webster's New Collegiate Dictionary, the word "cognate" is defined:

cognate - 1. a- related by blood, b - related on the mother's side; 2. a-related by descent from the same ancestral language, b-related by derivation, borrowing, or descent; 3. of the same or similar nature.

2. The Supreme Court on Cognate Rights:

In a 1945 case, the Supreme Court overturned the conviction of a CIO union leader for contempt of court in violating an injunction against his speaking at a meeting without obtaining a licence as required by a Texas law. The union leader appealed his contempt citation claiming the Texas law violated his First Amendment rights.

The Court said: "The case confronts us again with the duty our system places on this Court to say where the individual's freedom ends and the State's power begins." [323 US 516 (1945) Thomas v. Collins, page 528]

The Court said: "Accordingly, whatever occasion would restrain orderly discussion and persuasion, at appropriate time and place, must have clear support in public danger, actual or impending. Only the gravest abuses, endangering paramount interests, give occasion for permissible limitation. It is therefore in our tradition to allow the widest room for discussion, the narrowest range for its restriction, particularly when this right is exercised in conjunction with peaceable assembly."[323 US 516, page 530]

The Court said: "It was not by accident or coincidence that the rights to freedom in speech and press were coupled in a single guaranty with the rights of the people peaceably to assemble and to petition for redress of grievances. All these, though not identical, are inseparable. They are cognate rights, cf. De Jonge v. Oregon, 299 U.S. 353, 364 , 57 S.Ct. 255, 259, and therefore are united in the First Article's assurance. Cf. 1 Annals of Congress 759-760." [323 U.S.516, pages 530-531 - emphasis added]

"It was not by accident or coincidence that the rights to freedom in speech and press were coupled in a single guaranty with the rights of the people peaceably to assemble and to petition for redress of grievances. All these, though not identical, are inseparable. They are cognate rights,

[Continuing directly} "This conjunction of liberties is not peculiar to religious activity and institutions alone. The First Amendment gives freedom of mind the same security as freedom of conscience. Cf. Pierce v. Society of Sisters, 268 U.S. 510 , 45 S.Ct. 571, 39 A.L.R. 468; Meyer v. Nebraska, 262 U.S. 390 , 43 S.Ct. 625, 29 A.L.R. 1446; Prince v. Massachusetts, 321 U.S. 158 , 64 S.Ct. 438. Great secular causes, with small ones, are guarded. The grievances for redress of which the right of petition was insured, and with it the right of assembly, are not solely religious or political ones. And the rights of free speech and a free press are not confined to any field of human interest."

[The Court also said] "We do not mean to say there is not, in many circumstances, a difference between urging a course of action and merely giving and acquiring information. On the other hand, history has not been without periods when the search for knowledge alone was banned. Of this we may assume the men who wrote the Bill of Rights were aware. But the protection they sought was not solely for persons in intellectual pursuits. It extends to more than abstract discussion, unrelated to action. The First Amendment is a charter for government, not for an institution of learning. 'Free trade in ideas' means free trade in the opportunity to persuade to action, not merely to describe facts. Cf. Abrams v. United States, 250 U.S. 616, 624 , 40 S.Ct. 17, 20, and Gitlow v. New York, 268 U.S. 652, 672 , 45 S.Ct. 625, 632, dissenting opinions of Mr. Justice Holmes. Indeed, the whole history of the problem shows it is to the end of preventing action that repression is primarily directed and to preserving the right to urge it that the protections are given." [323 U.S. 516, page 537, emphasis added]

The First Amendment is a charter for government, not for an institution of learning. 'Free trade in ideas' means free trade in the opportunity to persuade to action, not merely to describe facts.

Indeed, the whole history of the problem shows it is to the end of preventing action that repression is primarily directed and to preserving the right to urge it that the protections are given."

3. Perhaps the strongest statement of the Court on "cognate" rights in the First Amendment appear in the 1985 Supreme Court decision 472 US 479 (1985) McDonald v. Smith.

Accused of libeling a person being considered for the office of United States Attorney in the state of North Carolina, Robert McDonald removed the libel case to the federal courts claiming immunity under the "redress of grievances" clause in the First Amendment. The District Court, the Court of Appeals, and then the Supreme Court also held the clause does not grant absolute immunity.

[On pages 489-490 of the decision, the Supreme Court held] "The Framers envisioned the rights of speech, press, assembly, and petitioning as interrelated components of the public's exercise of its sovereign authority. As Representative James Madison observed during the House of Representatives' consideration of the First Amendment:

"The right of freedom of speech is secured; the liberty of the press is expressly declared to be beyond the reach of this Government; the people may therefore publicly address their representatives, may privately advise them, or declare their sentiments by petition to the whole body; in all these ways they may communicate their will." Annals of Cong. 738 (1789)

The Court previously has emphasized the essential unity of the First

Amendment's guarantees [472 U.S. 479, page 490]

"It was not by accident or coincidence that the rights to freedom in speech and press were coupled in a single guaranty with the rights of the people peaceably to assemble and to petition for redress of grievances. All these, though not identical, are inseparable. They are cognate rights, . . . and therefore are united in the First Article's assurance." Thomas v. Collins, 323 U.S. 516, 530 (1945)."

"The Framers envisioned the rights of speech, press, assembly, and petitioning as interrelated components of the public's exercise of its sovereign authority."

The Sovereign Power in the United States is the American People.

To exercise this Sovereign Power, the Constitution guaranteed the American People the rights of Free Speech, a Free Press, Free Assembly, and the Ability to Redress Grievances through an appeal to the government.