The First Amendment: Religion, Speech, Press, Assembly and Petition

What it plainly means

In one sentence the First Amendment protects five freedoms from interference by Congress:

1. No establishment of religion. Congress may not create a national church or make anyone support one.
2. Free exercise of religion. Congress may not stop you from practicing your faith.
3. Freedom of speech.
4. Freedom of the press.
5. The right to assemble peaceably and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

History and the Founders' intent

The colonists knew established churches well. England had one, and several American states still collected taxes for churches when the Bill of Rights was ratified; Massachusetts did not end its system until 1833. The Establishment Clause kept the national government out of that business and left the states to settle it themselves. It was not written to scrub faith from public life: the same First Congress that proposed the Amendment hired chaplains to open its sessions with prayer.

James Madison had fought for religious liberty in Virginia before he drafted the Bill of Rights. In his Memorial and Remonstrance Against Religious Assessments (1785) he wrote that "the Religion then of every man must be left to the conviction and conscience of every man." Thomas Jefferson's 1802 letter to the Danbury Baptists described the Amendment as building "a wall of separation between Church & State." Jefferson was in France when the Amendment was drafted, so originalists read his phrase as one man's later description, not as the text itself.

Speech and press freedom grew out of the fight against licensing and prosecutions for "seditious libel," under which criticizing the government could be a crime even when the criticism was true. Free speech, above all political speech, was understood as the people's means of holding their servants in government accountable.

Key Supreme Court cases

• Everson v. Board of Education, 330 U.S. 1 (1947): applied the Establishment Clause to the states.
• Engel v. Vitale, 370 U.S. 421 (1962): struck down an official prayer written by New York state officials for public schools.
• New York Times Co. v. Sullivan, 376 U.S. 254 (1964): public officials suing for libel must prove "actual malice."
• Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District, 393 U.S. 503 (1969): students do not "shed their constitutional rights to freedom of speech or expression at the schoolhouse gate."
• Brandenburg v. Ohio, 395 U.S. 444 (1969): advocacy is protected unless it is directed to inciting imminent lawless action and is likely to produce it.
• Citizens United v. FEC, 558 U.S. 310 (2010): the government may not ban independent political spending by corporations and unions.
• Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission, 584 U.S. 617 (2018): Colorado's commission showed impermissible hostility to a baker's religious beliefs.
• Kennedy v. Bremerton School District, 597 U.S. 507 (2022): a public-school football coach's "short, private, personal prayer" at midfield was protected; Establishment Clause questions are answered by "historical practices and understandings."
• 303 Creative LLC v. Elenis, 600 U.S. 570 (2023): Colorado could not force a website designer to create messages she disagrees with.

What it means for you today

You may worship, or not, as your conscience directs, and you may speak, publish, gather and petition about public affairs without government permission. The protection runs against government, not private companies, though many states add their own guarantees. Tennessee's Declaration of Rights (Article I, Sections 3, 19 and 23) and Colorado's Bill of Rights (Article II, Sections 4, 10 and 24) protect these same freedoms in state law.