Fear of serious injury cannot alone justify suppression of free speech and assembly. Men feared witches and burned women. It is the function of speech to free men from the bondage of irrational fears.

This passage is from Justice Louis D. Brandeis’s separate opinion (concurring) in a U.S. Supreme Court case upholding convictions under California’s Criminal Syndicalism Act during the First Red Scare era. Writing in 1927, Brandeis argued that public fear—however intense—does not by itself warrant suppressing speech or assembly. He framed free expression as a civic safeguard against panic and superstition, invoking the historical example of witch-burnings to show how societies can commit grave injustices when driven by irrational fears. The opinion is often read alongside his earlier free-speech writings as part of the Court’s developing First Amendment doctrine.

Brandeis argues that the mere apprehension of harm—especially when driven by mass hysteria—cannot be enough to silence speech or prohibit peaceful assembly. The witchcraft example illustrates how fear can masquerade as prudence while producing cruelty and error. For Brandeis, the remedy for dangerous ideas is not suppression but more speech: public discussion disciplines fear by forcing claims to face scrutiny, evidence, and counterargument. The quote encapsulates a civic-educational view of the First Amendment: speech is not only an individual liberty but a social instrument that helps a democracy resist panic, protect minorities, and make decisions based on reason rather than superstition.