"Speech Acts" and the First Amendment

Of the 1989 student protests in Beijing's Tiananmen Square, one image lingers still: a lone figure standing motionless before a column of tanks, an extreme act of self-expression in defense of the right to express oneself. The makeshift Statue of Liberty erected by the students occupying the Square pointed to the country providing their inspiration. The foundations of that inspiration may in turn be traced to the handful of words---"Congress shall make no law...abridging the freedom of speech, or the press . . . "--which have become synonymous with American-style democracy.'