The 1st Amendment Essay Example

The Preamble of the Constitution states “We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America." These promises made to the American people are made tangible through the Bill of Rights – the first ten Amendments.  And amongst those amendments, none is more important in upholding the virtues of the Preamble than the First Amendment. The First Amendment is the cornerstone of our experiment in democracy and is what makes the United States stand alone as the foremost example of freedom and liberty.

The First Amendment reads as follows: “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 way the founding fathers phrased the First Amendment is key in what solidifies and establishes its gravity. The amendment states that congress cannot pass any legislation that infringes upon the rights of religion, speech, the press, or assembly. That distinction is what distinguishes our country’s understanding of freedom from that of other nations, who view these rights as something granted by the government and can be stripped away. 

Among other things, the First Amendment upholds the Preamble by providing the legal precedent for citizens to defend their speech in court, thus ensuring domestic tranquility. A fine example of this is the famous Supreme Court Case Tinker vs Des Moines. Students protesting against the Vietnam war were wearing black armbands to school as a form of nonviolent protest. They were then suspended from school on grounds that it was a “substantial disruption” to the school environment. The students proceeded to file a lawsuit against the school district which eventually went all the way to the Supreme Court. The students invoked the First Amendment as their legal grounds to engage in peaceful protest. An overwhelming majority of 8-1 in favor of the students ruled  that “[i]t can hardly be argued that either students or teachers shed their constitutional rights to freedom of speech or expression at the schoolhouse gate”. The precedent set by this case is even applicable today in the recent case of Mahanoy Area School District v. B.L, in which a student was suspended for language used over Snapchat.The application of the First Amendment in these influential Supreme Court rulings has upheld our rights to speak and express ourselves freely.

The application of the First Amendment has a much broader scope than cases regarding speech. The American press is by far the most free press in the world with essentially no censorship as to what media can present, thereby promoting the general welfare. However, this level of freedom is only possible because of the First Amendment being invoked to support a precedent of non-censorship. The quintessential freedom of press suit happened in 1971 with the case of The New York Times Company v. United States. In what is known as “The Pentagon Papers Case” both the New York Times and Washington Post obtained classified documents from the Pentagon regarding military operations in Vietnam. The Nixon administration argued that they were justified in trying to censor the documents because their release would put national security at risk. In a landmark ruling for freedom of press, the court ruled that First Amendment rights cannot be curtailed in the name of “Security”. The First Amendment has been and will continue to be a gateway to uninfringed freedom through applications such as this.

As expressed, the First Amendment’s primacy amongst all other amendments cannot be understated. Many men and women across this country have gone to great lengths in order to defend this quintessential human right. Due to this, I and many others view it as a civil obligation to exercise this freedom every single day and be mindful of the sacrifices it took to achieve it.