<P> Clear and present danger was a doctrine adopted by the Supreme Court of the United States to determine under what circumstances limits can be placed on First Amendment freedoms of speech, press, or assembly . The test was replaced in 1969 with Brandenburg v Ohio's "imminent lawless action" test . </P> <P> Before the 20th century, most free speech issues involved prior restraint . Starting in the early 1900s, the Supreme Court began to consider cases in which persons were punished' after' speaking or publishing . The primary legal test used in the United States to determine if speech could be criminalized was the bad tendency test . Rooted in English common law, the test permitted speech to be outlawed if it had a tendency to harm public welfare . One of the earliest cases in which the Supreme Court addressed punishment after material was published was 1907's Patterson v. Colorado in which the Court used the bad tendency test to uphold contempt charges against a newspaper publisher who accused Colorado judges of acting on behalf of local utility companies . </P>

The clear and present danger ruling in the supreme court case