Lamont v. Postmaster General
Whether a federal statute that required postal recipients to affirmatively request delivery of mail from abroad deemed 'communist political propaganda' — or else have it destroyed — violated the First Amendment's guarantee of free speech.
The Decision
8-0 decision · Opinion by William O. Douglas · 1965
Majority Opinion— William O. Douglasconcurring ↓
The Supreme Court unanimously struck down Section 305(a) of the Postal Service and Federal Employees Salary Act of 1962, ruling 8–0 that the law was unconstitutional under the First Amendment. Justice William O. Douglas wrote the opinion for the Court. This decision was historically significant as the first time the Supreme Court ever struck down an Act of Congress on the grounds that it violated the First Amendment.
Justice Douglas reasoned that the statute's requirement — that the addressee must affirmatively request delivery by returning a reply card — placed an unconstitutional burden on the exercise of First Amendment rights. The act of going to the post office, filling out a card, and formally requesting delivery of communist material was not a trivial administrative step, Douglas explained. It was an official act that would deter many people from ever requesting the material, even if they genuinely wanted to read it. People would naturally fear that returning the card would place their names on a government list of individuals interested in communist literature, and that fear alone was enough to chill the exercise of a constitutional right.
The Court emphasized that the First Amendment protects Americans' right to receive information and ideas. Even though the foreign senders of the material might not themselves enjoy First Amendment protections, American addressees have a constitutionally protected interest in deciding for themselves what they want to read. The government cannot insert itself as a gatekeeper, requiring citizens to take affirmative steps and effectively identify themselves before they can access speech the government finds objectionable.
Douglas wrote that the government's argument — that the statute merely prevented delivery of unwanted material — was unpersuasive. The law did not simply filter out junk mail at the recipient's request. Instead, it created a presumption that communist political material was unwanted and placed the burden on the citizen to overcome that presumption through a formal request. This, the Court concluded, was a regime 'at war with the uninhibited, robust, and wide-open debate and discussion that are contemplated by the First Amendment.'
Concurring Opinions
Justice William J. Brennan Jr. wrote a notable concurring opinion, joined by Justices Arthur Goldberg and John Marshall Harlan II, which articulated an important complementary rationale. Brennan emphasized that the First Amendment includes a robust, freestanding right to receive publications, arguing that this right is a necessary corollary of the rights of free speech and press — because the protection of speech would be hollow if the government could freely restrict the audience's ability to access it.
Background & Facts
In 1962, Congress enacted the Postal Service and Federal Employees Salary Act, which included a provision — Section 305(a) — targeting mail arriving from foreign countries. Under this law, whenever the Post Office identified unsealed mail from abroad as 'communist political propaganda,' it was required to detain the material rather than deliver it. The Post Office would then send the addressee a notification card explaining that propaganda mail was being held. The addressee had to affirmatively return the card requesting delivery. If no card was returned, the mail was destroyed. The law applied to a broad range of materials, including newspapers, pamphlets, magazines, and other printed matter originating from foreign countries and deemed to be political propaganda by postal authorities.
Corliss Lamont was a well-known American author, philosopher, and prominent civil liberties advocate. In 1963, a copy of the Peking Review, a Chinese political periodical, was addressed to him and intercepted by the Post Office under Section 305(a). Lamont received the standard notification card but refused on principle to return it, viewing the entire system as an unconstitutional intrusion on his right to receive and read whatever he wished. Instead of complying, he filed a lawsuit in federal court challenging the statute.
Lamont's case was heard in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, which ruled in his favor and declared the statute unconstitutional. At the same time, a similar challenge was working its way through the courts in California — Heilberg v. Fixa — where another postal customer objected to the same system. The two cases were consolidated for consideration by the Supreme Court.
The Postmaster General, representing the federal government, appealed the lower court rulings directly to the Supreme Court. The case raised a question of enormous significance: could the government condition the delivery of mail on a citizen's willingness to identify themselves as someone who wanted to receive foreign political material? The Supreme Court agreed to hear the case and issued its decision on May 24, 1965.
The Arguments
Lamont argued that requiring him to affirmatively request delivery of foreign mail amounted to an unconstitutional burden on his First Amendment right to receive information and ideas. He maintained that the government had no business making citizens jump through hoops — or identify themselves to the government — simply to receive printed material in the mail.
- The First Amendment protects not only the right to speak but also the right to receive speech, and the reply-card requirement directly burdened that right.
- Requiring a person to request delivery of disfavored political material would have a chilling effect, as many people would be deterred from returning the card out of fear of being placed on a government list of people interested in communist material.
- The government cannot single out speech based on its political viewpoint and impose special procedural hurdles on citizens who wish to access it.
The Postmaster General argued that the statute was a reasonable exercise of Congress's power to regulate the mail and did not prohibit anyone from receiving the material — it merely required recipients to take one simple affirmative step to request delivery.
- The statute did not ban any speech; it simply created an administrative process to avoid delivering unwanted foreign propaganda to Americans who had no interest in it.
- No one's mail was permanently denied — any addressee could receive the material simply by returning the notification card, making the burden minimal.
- Congress has broad authority to manage the postal system and to protect American citizens from unsolicited foreign political propaganda campaigns.