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Article: First Amendment
- Article from:
- Dictionary of American History
- Author:
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FIRST AMENDMENT
FIRST AMENDMENT.
The First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution protects several essential rights, against congressional infringements: freedom of speech, freedom of the press, free exercise of religion, and the right of assembly and to petition the government for a redress of grievances. It also forbids the "establishment of religion." Beginning in 1925, in
Gitlow v. New York,
the Supreme Court began applying the clauses against the actions of state and local governments as well.
Though these rights constitute distinct jurisprudential claims, their common denominator is freedom of thought and conscience. As the Court wrote in
West Virginia State Board of Education v. ...