As part of the Publius Project, a Berkman Center effort soliciting essays on “constitutional moments on the Net,” Lewis Hyde has published a brilliant essay equating the Founders’ support for the free exchange of ideas with net neutrality.

Hyde relates the story of a visiting evangelical minister who was banned from preaching at congregations when his message became opposed to the resident clergy. Benjamin Franklin, appalled, founded what would become the University of Pennsylvania to foster a venue for freedom of expression. To Franklin, as to the ancient Greeks, freedom of speech wasn’t enough – it needed its counterpart: freedom of listening. If a dissenting minister or activist or politician could not gain access to the audiences he sought, the Founders recognized that the democracy would falter.

In much the same vein, Hyde contends that the Founder would have understood discriminatory telecommunications networks as aligned with tyranny.