Areopagitica

Areopagitica; A speech of Mr. John Milton for the Liberty of Unlicenc’d Printing, to the Parlament of England is a 1644 prose polemical tract by the English poet, scholar, and polemical author John Milton opposing licensing and censorship.[1] Areopagitica is among history's most influential and impassioned philosophical defences of the principle of a right to freedom of speech and expression.

Today, Areopagitica is regarded as one of the most eloquent defences of press freedom ever written – and as one of the most influential, because many of its expressed principles have formed the basis for modern justifications.