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HUBERT M. BLALOCK, JR.CENSORSHIP AND THE
REGULATION OF
EXPRESSION
Modern discussions of censorship center on the
legitimacy of the regulatory structures and actions
through which expression and communication
are governed, and the extent to which these struc-
tures meet the requirements of democratic socie-
ties. In this entry, we first survey prominent his-
torical examples of centralized censorship systems
in the West. This history provides a context for a
discussion of modern conceptions of censorship
and issues associated with the term itself. We then
turn to legal structures regulating speech and
press in the United States, to government control
of political speech, and to some modern-day con-
troversies over the regulation of expression.
EARLY SYSTEMS OF GOVERNMENT
CENSORSHIPTraditional conceptions of censorship are rooted
in rigid systems of ecclesiastic and governmental
control over discourse and printing. The term
itself derives from the office of the census in early
Rome, where the censor served as both census
taker and as supervisor of public conduct and
morals. Before the advent of the printing press in
the fifteenth century, most manuscripts in Europe
were produced in monasteries, which controlled
their production. Centralized systems of control
over books developed largely in response to the
invention of the printing press, which both church
and state perceived as threats to their authority. In
the mid-sixteenth century the Catholic Church
issued the Index of Forbidden Books, which was
enforced through compliance of the faithful, pre-
publication screening of books, the burning of
heretical tracts, and the persecution of heretics. In
Protestant countries, the State generally assumed
control over the publication of books. The English
monarchy published its first list of prohibited
books in 1529 and exercised its control through a
contractual arrangement with the Stationers’ Com-
pany, which, in 1557, was granted a monopoly on
the production and distribution of printed materi-
als. This charter remained in effect until 1694
when it was allowed to expire, primarily because of
difficulties in its administration. These centralized
mechanisms of control were replaced by less sys-
tematic methods, such as laws against seditious
libel, through which speech that merely criticized
government policies could be punished.
Although systems similar to these proliferated
worldwide and continue to exist in modern-day
authoritarian regimes, they are consensually viewed
as incompatible with the practice of democracy.
The history of free speech principles in the West
coincides with the rise of democratic thought, as
expressed in the writings of the eighteenth-centu-
ry Enlightenment philosophers in France and in
the influential political philosophies of John Locke,
John Milton, and John Stuart Mill in England. The
turn of mind that gripped Europe during this
period is reflected in Locke’s dictum that govern-
ments are the servants of the people, not the
reverse, and in the insistence by each of these
philosophers that self-governance cannot function
under regimes where the circulation of ideas is
dependent upon the whims of rulers. In modern