Oh, apologies for misreading you then! On that point, I think the problem is just that Thompson doesn't understand this context. He's treating Hamilton's objec

Oh, apologies for misreading you then! On that point, I think the problem is just that Thompson doesn't understand this context. He's treating Hamilton's objection to an amendment prohibiting speech as if it arose from a desire for broader protection of speech, rather than from a desire for no specific protection of speech at all. Hamilton's argument that a specific protection for speech would be counterproductive strikes me as having been pretty comprehensively debunked by the last two centuries of American history, in which the First Amendment has repeatedly proved to be a critical shield for speech of all sorts of kinds. America today would look very different if Hamilton had won this argument.