Humanities Homework Help

SDSU Civil Liberties During World War II Discussion

 

Reply to The Students discussion:

Civil liberties during WWI were vigorously debated due to the dependence and reliance of the national government to take control this aspect of life.  Progressives believed the national government was responsible for civil liberties rather than private business.  During WWI civil liberties were taken away in things like prisoning criticizers of the war.  Also, German-Americans were also greatly scrutinized and extreme nationalism controlled the time in the United States.  The US also controlled many more areas of life such as labor and trade.  This dramatic change from progressiveness and advancements of civil liberties shifted to the retraction of many liberties.  The Government creating such a large change is what essentially led to the debate of civil liberties in WWI.  Because of the attack on the first amendment the American Civil Liberty union was formed which was one of the first groups to take action against such repressive laws.  Them and other citizens began setting up ways where the government could no longer be an enemy of liberty and instead be pro liberty.  Previously there were extremist groups that pressed the first amendment such as the Ku Klux Klan which were questionably protected by the first amendment.  In this new turn, civil liberties like the ability to criticize and question the government was a liberty that was being fought for.  Due to the repressive laws enforced by the United States during WWI, a nationwide debate was sparked to fight for important civil liberties such as protection of the first amendment.

The original question they answered just in case you want to know was:  Based on the evidence available to you, what led to the vigorous debate over civil liberties during and after WWI? How did the outcome of this debate affect the freedom of speech in America?