Justice Scalia writes:

The dissent notes that the Court “did not recognize any First Amendment protections for corporations until the middle part of the 20th century.” But it did that in Grosjean v. American Press Co. (1936), a case involving freedom of the press — which the dissent acknowledges did cover corporations from the outset. The relative recency of that first case is unsurprising. All of our First Amendment jurisprudence was slow to develop. We did not consider application of the First Amendment to speech restrictions other than prior restraints until 1919, see Schenck v. United States (1919); we did not invalidate a state law on First Amendment grounds until 1931, see Stromberg v. California (1931), and a federal law until 1965, see Lamont v. Postmaster General (1965)(Scalia’s emphasis; case citations truncated).

It’s not Scalia’s point here, but he does remind us of some facts that tend to undercut the conventional heroic narrative of the Supreme Court’s rule in promoting Americans’ freedom.