Page:Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission.pdf/84

Rh concurring Historical evidence relating to the textually similar clause “the freedom of. . . the press” also provides no support for the proposition that the First Amendment excludes conduct of artificial legal entities from the scope of its protection. The freedom of “the press” was widely understood to protect the publishing activities of individual editors and printers. See McIntyre v. Ohio Elections Comm’n, 514 U. S. 334, 360 (1995) (, J., concurring in judgment); see also McConnell, 540 U. S., at 252–253 (opinion of, J.). But these individuals often acted through newspapers, which (much like corporations) had their own names, outlived the individuals who had founded them, could be bought and sold, were sometimes owned by more than one person, and were operated for profit. See generally F. Mott, American Journalism: A History of Newspapers in the United States Through 250 Years 3–164 (1941); J. Smith, Freedom’s Fetters (1956). Their activities were not stripped of First Amendment protection simply because they were carried out under the banner of an artificial legal entity. And the notion which follows from the dissent’s view, that modern newspapers, since they are incorporated, have free-speech rights only at the sufferance of Congress, boggles the mind.