The First Amendment
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
How It's Used
“It’s very easy to give the First Amendment to groups we like and [that] make us feel good. It’s very difficult to apply those principles to people who anger us, that we want to shut up…” —Anthony Griffin, an attorney from Texas, who defended the grand dragon of the Texas Ku Klux Klan, in Nat Hentoff’s Living the Bill of Rights: How to Be an Authentic American. "Stone’s history examines America’s tendency in wartime to compromise First Amendment rights in the name of national security. During the Civil War, a former congressman, Clement Vallandigham, was imprisoned and nearly executed for objecting to the conflict as 'wicked, cruel, and unnecessary'; in the First World War, the anarchist Mollie Steimer was sentenced to fifteen years for calling capitalism the 'only one enemy of the workers of the world.'” —no author, "Books Briefly Noted," The New Yorker, October 18, 2004 in a review of Geoffrey R. Stone's Perilous Times: Free Speech in Wartime: From the Sedition Act of 1798 to the War on Terrorism. "Is outlawing political speech based on the identity of the speaker compatible with the First Amendment? Tomorrow, the Supreme Court will hear arguments to determine the answer to this question." —Theodore B. Olson, "The Chance for a Free Speech Do-Over: Will the Supreme Court finally overturn McCain-Feingold and enforce the First Amendment?" The Wall Street Journal, September 7, 2009. "Bishop William Lori said he was disappointed with the decision. The diocese had argued unsuccessfully that the documents were subject to religious privileges under the First Amendment.
"'Our concern is not about the past but rather about the future, about the impact that these decisions will have on litigants who think they are settling things, and find that they really aren't settled,' Lori told The Associated Press. 'Also on the First Amendment issues, particularly the freedom of the church, and indeed all churches, to determine who should be a priest or a minister or a rabbi.'" —John Christoffersen, "Court won't block release of sex abuse papers," The Washington Post, October 5, 2009. Links Related on eAlmanac
The Second Amendment
To Take the Fifth
The Pentagon Papers
The Ten Amendments that Form the Bill of Rights
Beyond eAlmanac
Wikipedia article on the First Amendment
The First Amendment Center at Vanderbilt University
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