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."

The First Amendment was a landmark in the rise of a free press. It was actually the third of 12 amendments approved by Congress in 1789 and sent to the states for ratification Sept. 25, but the first two were not ratified by 3/4 of the states by 1791. The First Amendment to the Constitution of 1791 prohibited only prior restraint, not libel, censorship, propaganda, sedition, obscenity, vulgarity, privacy, access or fairness.

• Charters of Freedom exhibit from National Archives
• comment on libel by Joy Brunetti
• First Amendment of the Bill of Rights to the Constitution of the United States from the American Library Association
• 'The Innocence of Children: Effects of Vulgarity in South Park" by Emily Ravenwood, CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture: A WWWeb Journal 1.2 (1999)
• Yahoo index for the First Amendment

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