1876 IONIA MI LETTER POSTAL CARD CRIME OBSCENE PICTURES US MAIL ! PORNOGRAPHY ??

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1876 VERY EARLY CASE OF DEPOSITING OBSCENE PICTURES IN US MAIL !!!! (
The sale and distribution of obscene materials had been prohibited in most American states since the early 19th century, and by federal law since 1873. Adoption of obscenity laws in the United States at the federal level in 1873 was largely due to the efforts of Anthony Comstock, who created and led the New York Society for the Suppression of Vice. Comstock's intense efforts led to the passage of an anti-obscenity statute known as the Comstock Act which made it a crime to distribute "obscene" material through the post. It also prohibited the use of the mail for distribution of birth control devices and information. Comstock was appointed postal inspector to enforce the new law.[2] Twenty-four states passed similar prohibitions on materials distributed within the states.[3] The law criminalized not only sexually explicit material, but also material dealing with birth control and abortion.[4] However, the legislation did not define "obscenity", which was left to the courts to determine on a case by case basis.
In the United States, the suppression or limitation of what is defined as obscenity raises issues of rights to freedom of speech and of the press protected by the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States. The Supreme Court has ruled that obscenity is not protected by the First Amendment, but that the courts still need to determine whether material in question in each case is obscene.
Legally, a distinction is made between socially permitted material and discussions that the public can access on the one hand and obscenity, access to which should be denied, on the other. There does exist a classification of those acceptable materials and discussions that the public should be allowed to engage in, and the access to that same permitted material—which in the areas of sexual materials ranges between the permitted areas of erotic art (which usually includes "classic nude forms" such as Michelangelo's David statue) and the generally less respected commercial pornography. The legal distinction between artistic nudity and permitted commercial pornography (which includes sexual penetration) deemed "protected forms of speech", versus "obscene acts", which are illegal acts and separate from those permitted areas, is usually predicated on cultural factors. However, no such specific objective distinction exists outside of legal decisions in federal court cases where a specific action is deemed to fit the classification of obscene and thus illegal. The difference between erotic art and (protected) commercial pornography, vs. that which is legally obscene (and thus not covered by 1st Amendment protection), appears to be subject to decisions within local US federal districts and contemporary moral standards.
Federal obscenity law in the U.S. is unusual in that there is no uniform national standard, and there is an explicit legal precedent (the Miller test, below) that allows that something which is legally obscene in one jurisdiction may not be in another. In effect, the First Amendment protections of free speech vary by location within the U.S., and over time. With the advent of Internet distribution of potentially obscene material, this question of jurisdiction and community standards has created significant controversy in the legal community. (See United States v. Thomas, 74 F.3d 701 (6th Cir. 1996))
Even at the federal level, there does not exist a specific listing of which exact acts are to be classified as obscene outside of the legally determined court cases. Title 18, chapter 71 of the USC deals with obscenity, the workings out of the law described in this article, most notably the aforementioned Miller test.
The Citizen's Guide To U.S. Federal Law On Obscenity lists several relevant statutes in regards to obscenity and its qualifications) --
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