First Amendment: Assembly
The Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution makes this prohibition applicable to state governments.
The First Amendment does not provide the right to conduct an assembly at which there is a clear and present danger of riot, disorder, or interference with traffic on public streets, or other immediate threat to public safety or order.
- National Socialist Party of America v. Village of Skokie (Oyez)Supreme Court decision 432 US 43 (1977).
First Amendment: Petition for Redress of Grievances
Freedom of Assembly and Petition by
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.
First Amendment: Freedom of Speech
“...if there is any principle of the Constitution that more imperatively calls for attachment than any other, it is the principle of free thought—not free thought for those who agree with us but freedom for the thought that we hate.”
Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr., Supreme Court Associate Justice. UNITED STATES v. SCHWIMMER, (1929), 279 U.S. 644.
The Tolerant Society by Bollinger contends that the real value of toleration of extremist speech lies in the extraordinary self-control toward antisocial behavior that it elicits: society is strengthened by the exercise of tolerance.
- Free Speech (editorial cartoon, Signe Wilkinson)Available on GoComics.
First Amendment: Freedom of the Press
“Since the founding of this nation, freedom of the press has been a fundamental tenet of American life. There is no more essential ingredient than a free, strong and independent press to our continued success in what the founding fathers called our ‘noble experiment’ in self-government.’”
Ronald Reagan, 1983
“There is a terrific disadvantage not having the abrasive quality of the press applied to you daily, to an administration. even though we never like it, and even though we wish they didn’t write it, and even though we disapprove, there still isn’t any doubt that we couldn’t do the job at all in a free society without a very, very active press.”
John F. Kennedy, 1962
“Power can be very addictive, and it can be corrosive. And it’s important for the media to call to account people who abuse their power, whether it be here or elsewhere.”
George W. Bush, 2017.