Melvin I. Urofsky

The First Amendment to the Constitution provides for the right of the people ‘‘to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.’’

Troops had been stationed in Boston and other cities in the colonies as a result of growing resistance by the colonists against imperial laws, especially the hated Townshend Acts.

Jehovah’s Witnesses believe proselytizing is an essential part of their faith and, therefore, a religious obligation.

This relatively minor case is remembered not for the issue supposedly before the Court, but for a footnote that in the eyes of many scholars launched a constitutional revolution.

Francis Biddle, the scion of a family that emigrated to America in the early seventeenth century, attended private schools, including Harvard College, from which he graduated cum laude, and the Harvard Law School, where he received an LL.B. in 1911.

Harry Anslinger was born in Altoona, Pennsylvania, the son of an immigrant railroad worker. He earned an associate degree in engineering and business management and then went to work for the Pennsylvania Railroad as an investigator.

John Ashcroft served as attorney general during the first term of the administration of George W. Bush, and in his last year in office analysts were terming him the worst attorney general in the nation’s history.