American Civilization

Most Americans consider the first amendment of the Constitution to be sacred.  That amendment is the first of the ten amendments that make up the Bill of Rights.  Those ten amendments which compose the Bill of Rights resulted from a compromise at the 1789 Constitutional Convention. 

The first plan for the American government, known as the Articles of Confederation, did not work.  One of the failings of that first plan was that the national government did not have very much power.  Designed by people who had hated the control that England and King George II had had over the colonies, that first American government gave most of the power to the states.  That meant there was no uniform system of money and no way to collect revenues for the country.
When delegates met to approve a new American constitution in 1789, there were two distinct groups.  One group, the Federalists, strongly supported the ideas of the new constitution.  They felt that this document would provide a good balance between national and state powers.  The other group, the Antifederalists, feared that this new constitution gave the central government too much power.  But, their support was necessary to ratify the document.  Consequently, there was a compromise.

The compromise was the addition of the ten amendments called the Bill of Rights.  These amendments were designed to provide basic rights, such as freedom of speech, press, assembly, and religion, rights which had been advocated by Enlightenment thinkers such as Voltaire, Rousseau, and Locke.  These amendments were to provide protection against the abuse of too much government power. 

The first amendment reads:

 “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 of the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”

 This amendment is divided into two parts.  The focus of the first part is on protecting “freedom of religion”; the focus of the second part is on protecting “freedom of expression.”  While the words of this amendment may seem quite straight-forward, there have been numerous disputes involving the interpretation and application of it.