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First Amendment Importance

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First Amendment Importance
In 1791, after the final completion of the warfare fought for our nation 's independence, our forefathers drafted and ratified the Constitution for the United States of America, which contained the single most important document for any American citizen - the Bill of Rights. This precious document outlined the basic rights sought after by all the nation 's citizens, ranging from the freedom of exercising one 's inborn rights to the constitutional rights given to each of the unique and individual thirteen colonies, now part of the United States of America. Specifically, the First Amendment includes the most important rights for a truly democratic society: the rights of religion, speech, press, assembly, and petition. Without these valued rights …show more content…

The founders knew from their own personal experiences and knowledge of history that the freedom to write and publish must be protected from government interference in order to establish their original purposes. As many would probably agree, the right to think about and arrive at your own conclusions concerning morality, politics, or anything else, is part of individual freedom. That right would be meaningless without the freedom to speak and write about those opinions. Thus, freedom of expression serves as an important part for the advancement of knowledge, as new ideas are more likely to be developed in a community that allows free discussion. Furthermore, freedom of expression is a necessary part of our representative government; it is critical both in determining policy and in examining how well the government is carrying out its responsibilities. It is also vital to bringing about peaceful social change protection of all individual rights by allowing the freedoms to assemble and petition the government - to ask the government to take action or change its policies. From the beginning, Americans have always felt free to speak to ask the government for action on issues that were important to them. The use of the right to petition, especially, was a chief way for women, African Americans, and others who were denied the right to vote to communicate with public officials. As many know, the importance of the right to assemble is nowhere bettered demonstrated than in the civil rights movement of the1950 and 1960 's. Under the leadership of Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr., thousands of valiant African Americans participated in the march for "Jobs and Freedom." Obviously, these powerful achievements would have never accomplished their goals or to even have started if it was not for the

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