"Lies,Lies, Lies": The Origins of New York Times Co. v. Sullivan

New York Times v. Sullivan stands as a monument to the proposition that robust and open political discourse is the best guarantee of democratic self-governance. Some scholars have connected the case to the civil rights movement, of which it was surely a part. Others have noted the negative impact Sullivan had on the civility of public discourse. This essay approaches the case from the perspective of white moderates in Montgomery who believed that the law of libel should protect the so-called "best men" by upholding habits and manners of civility. The Sullivan case is notable, then, for the sectionally bound social assumptions of the white moderates that animated the litigation in the first place and whose exuberance in doing so ultimately undermined the values they sought to protect.