The Taming of Free Speech: America's Civil Liberties Compromise offers a new historical revisionist perspective on the fight over civil liberties, such as free speech, and the commitment involved from special-interest groups to amend the Constitution. In the past, scholars’ accounts have analyzed the debate on the limits of free speech with the outcome that judiciary should have control over the regulation. Furthermore, these scholars have represented the opinion that the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) acquired the right to free speech through strong law based on the reasoning that it would provide pluralism through a participatory democracy.

In Lochner v. New York (1905), the Supreme Court struck down the New York law regarding maximum working hours because of the Constitutional implication of “right to free contract.” This social and economic legislation challenged in the Lochner decision influenced future choices by the Supreme Court regarding its cases.

In contrast to previous literature, Laura M. Weinrib finds that the judiciary expanded the First Amendment right to free speech as early as the Warren Court through the Lochner v. New York Supreme Court case which invalidated the Liberty of Contract in the due-process rights of the 14th Amendment and property rights. The main argument of the book is to support the claim that civil liberties expanded through Lochnerization during the New Deal settlements: United States v. Caroline Products Company (1938). In this case, the Supreme Court changed the structural restraints of Congress by giving it more control over the economy. Furthermore, the ACLU was now able to utilize the invigoration of Constitutionality for ethnic and racial minorities along free-speech lines by aligning itself with business and association groups.

In the 1920s, the ACLU brought civil liberties to the forefront of political discussion. Despite the Bill of Rights being in place, the inability of the judiciary to act on civil liberties caused constraints on the relationship between the state and its citizens; as a result, civil liberties had limited effects on society. As an example of the change within civil liberties, Weinrib focusses on the creation of the ACLU as an offshoot of the American Union against Militarism (AUAM), with an agenda to pressure for the expansion of civil liberties through the World War I effort. In doing so, the author illustrates the conflict between citizens and the state over civil liberties and the aim of the AUAM to create a balance between social interests and to promote civil liberties.

The book states that the AUAM was able to find political space to push for greater civil liberties due to the economic dependency between employers and labor in the war effort. This developed a connection between political and economic conditions and, in the push for civil liberties, opened the door to utilize the strategy of agitations through picketing and striking.

The modern definition of civil liberties was created by the ACLU at the end of the 1930s for the assertion that state power be blocked in reference to the constraints of free speech. This was as a result of the 1920s era when civil liberties were gradually redefined as judicial checks on government abuses. This conventional interpretation of the gradual progress of civil liberties was a result of persuasion and dissent from Supreme Court Justices Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. and Louis Brandeis. As an extension to these views, Weinrib states that the new vision evolved out of a state-skeptical view of labor radicalism and was cultivated by a conservative legal tradition to preserve individual rights.

The new Constitutional compromise implemented by Franklin D. Roosevelt expanded control over economic regulation to Congress. As the state accepted pro-labor rhetoric from the ACLU and invoked civil liberty legislation, the discussion shifted from radical to mainstream. However, employers and lawyers were able to manipulate the precedent set by civil liberties as a legal weapon against state control over industry. In this context, Weinrib illustrates how employers acknowledged that there was no free exchange of ideas and that free speech would favor superior resources of stakeholders. As a result, the courts would no longer regard freedom of contract or right of property as a way to challenge social progress. This created stagnation in the discussion of free speech by limiting the state to a neutral position. At the same time, it generated a marketplace of ideas that could be hijacked by private economic actors and lobbyists by diffusing its agenda through the workforce and public forum. Weinrib describes the ACLU's relationship with business as one that did not discriminate between business and labor but had an obligation to uphold civil liberties with a deep distrust of the state because of its history of repressing civil liberties.

The Taming of Free Speech: America's Civil Liberties Compromise illustrates a comprehensive account of the power of government and business elites and their connection to the weaker elements in society regarding civil liberties. Despite the conflictual relationship between government and union radicals, the ACLU was able to find only limited protection from business and the state in the Constitution. The author argues that the promotion of a marketplace of ideas to provide alternatives in the challenge of the status quo is the best way to combat injustice in civil liberties.

In drawing readers’ attention to the New Deal settlements and the expansion of the state regarding civil liberties, the author provides a new and interesting approach in analyzing how the ACLU strategy evolved to protect civil liberties in a changing political landscape. This revisionist perspective of the evolution of civil liberties is well researched and accessible even to readers with reservations about this approach. Scholars interested in the fight over civil liberties and what it takes to amend the Constitution will benefit from reading The Taming of Free Speech: America ’s Civil Liberties Compromise.