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First Amendment to the United States Constitution
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The First Amendment to the United States Constitution is part of the Bill of Rights. The amendment prohibits the making of any law "respecting an establishment of religion", impeding the free exercise of religion, infringing on the freedom of speech, infringing on the freedom of the press, interfering with the right to peaceably assemble or prohibiting the petitioning for a governmental redress of grievances.
Originally, the First Amendment only applied to the Congress. However, in the 20th century, the Supreme Court held that the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment applies the First Amendment to each state, including any local government.
Text
“ 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. ”Background
Opposition to the ratification of the Constitution was partly based on the Constitution's lack of adequate guarantees for civil liberties. To provide such guarantees, the First Amendment, along with the rest of the Bill of Rights, was submitted to the states for ratification on September 25, 1789 and adopted on December 15, 1791.
Establishment of religion
The Establishment Clause of the First Amendment prohibits the establishment of a national religion by the Congress or the preference of one religion over another, non-religion over religion, or religion over non-religion. Originally, the First Amendment only applied to the federal government. Subsequently, under the incorporation doctrine, certain selected provisions were applied to states. However, it was not until the middle and later years of the twentieth century that the Supreme Court began to interpret the Establishment and Free Exercise Clauses in such a manner as to restrict the promotion of religion by state governments. For example, in the Board of Education of Kiryas Joel Village School District v. Grumet, , Justice David Souter, writing for the majority, concluded that "government should not prefer one religion to another, or religion to irreligion."
In 2007, the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, in Inouye v Kemna, ruled that a parolee can not be forced to attend Alcoholics Anonymous meetings as a part of his parole when there is a conflict between the religious belief of the parolee and that of Alcoholics Anonymous.[1]
Free exercise of religion
In Sherbert v. Verner, , the Warren Court applied the strict scrutiny standard of review to this clause, holding that a state must demonstrate a compelling interest in restricting religious activities. In Employment Division v. Smith, , the Supreme Court retreated from this standard, permitting governmental actions that were neutral regarding religion. The Congress attempted to restore this standard by passing the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, but in City of Boerne v. Flores, , the Supreme Court held that such an attempt was unconstitutional regarding state and local government actions (though permissible regarding federal actions).
Freedom of speech
Sedition
The Supreme Court never ruled on the constitutionality of any federal law regarding the Free Speech Clause until the 20th century. The Supreme Court never ruled on the Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798, whose speech provisions expired in 1801.[2] The leading critics of the law, Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, argued for the Acts' unconstitutionality based on the First Amendment, among other Constitutional provisions (e.g. Tenth Amendment).[3] In New York Times Co. v. Sullivan, , the Supreme Court said, "[a]lthough the Sedition Act was never tested in this Court, the attack upon its validity has carried the day in the court of history."[4]
After World War I, several cases involving laws limiting speech came before the Supreme Court. The Espionage Act of 1917 imposed a maximum sentence of twenty years for anyone who caused or attempted to cause "insubordination, disloyalty, mutiny, or refusal of duty in the military or naval forces of the United States." Under the Act, there were over two thousand prosecutions. For instance, one filmmaker was sentenced[citation needed] to ten years imprisonment because his portrayal of British soldiers in a movie about the American Revolution impugned the good faith of an American ally, the United Kingdom. The Sedition Act of 1918 went even further, criminalizing "disloyal," "scurrilous" or "abusive" language against the government.
In Schenck v. United States, , the Supreme Court was first requested to strike down a law violating the Free Speech Clause. The case involved Charles Schenck, who had, during the war, published leaflets challenging the conscription system then in effect. The Supreme Court unanimously upheld Schenck's conviction for violating the Espionage Act. Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., writing for the Court, suggested that "the question in every case is whether the words used are used in such circumstances and are of such a nature as to create a clear and present danger that they will bring about the substantive evils that Congress has a right to prevent."
The "clear and present danger" test of Schenck was extended in Debs v. United States, , again by Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes. The case involved a speech made by Eugene V. Debs, a political activist. Debs had not spoken any words that posed a "clear and present danger" to the conscription system, but a speech in which he denounced militarism was nevertheless found to be sufficient grounds for his conviction. Justice Holmes suggested that the speech had a "natural tendency" to obstruct the draft.
Thus, the Supreme Court effectively shaped the First Amendment in such a manner as to allow a multitude of restrictions on speech. Further restrictions on speech were accepted by the Supreme Court when it decided Gitlow v. New York, . Writing for the majority, Justice Edward Sanford suggested that states could punish words that "by their very nature, involve danger to the public peace and to the security of the state." Lawmakers were given the freedom to decide which speech would constitute a danger.
Freedom of speech was influenced by anti-communism during the Cold War. In 1940, the Congress enacted the Smith Act, which made it illegal to advocate "the propriety of overthrowing or destroying any government in the United States by force and violence." The law was commonly used as a weapon against Communist leaders. The constitutionality of the Act was questioned in Dennis v. United States . The Court upheld the law in 1951 by a 6-2 vote (Justice Tom C. Clark did not participate because he had ordered the prosecutions when he was Attorney General). Chief Justice Fred M. Vinson relied on Oliver Wendell Holmes' "clear and present danger" test when he wrote for the majority. Vinson suggested that the doctrine did not require the government to "wait until the putsch is about to be executed, the plans have been laid and the signal is awaited", thereby broadly defining the words "clear and present danger." Thus, even though there was no immediate danger posed by the Communist Party's ideas, the Court allowed the Congress to regulate the Communist Party's speech.