The Changes To The First Amendment Over The Years
When the Bill of Rights was first ratified, the first amendment had a certain meaning. The first amendment was created to be able to say or publish whatever the people wanted. It was created so the people could practice whatever religion they pleased. In England, where the creators of the Bill of Rights were from, the people were not granted such freedoms. The people of England were in danger of being charged with seditious libel if they got caught criticizing the government, assembling peacefully, or petitioning the government. There was also a set religion. In England, the religion went back and forth between Catholicism and Puritanism. Because everything was new to the people in America, the creators of the Bill of Rights wanted to give the people freedoms they did not originally have. Over the years, the first amendment has been warped and changed based on how offended people got about speech or religion and how their beliefs changed. Many changes to the first amendment are due to opinions or beliefs.
The people back in the 1800’s believed in slavery. So in 1836, the House of Representatives made an anti-slavery act. This act states that no one should speak of anti-slavery proposals. It was eventually repealed in 1844. Thomas Patterson was almost punished because he released articles and cartoons that criticized the state government in the court case, Patterson V. Colorado. There is the sedition act which goes against creating or speaking anything that goes against the government, which was also repealed. All of these laws mean that our opinions should stay concealed. It is literally the definition of “if you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all. ”The first amendment says we can not have any one religion under the establishment clause. That clause seems like it would compensate for everyone and make having different religions fair, but the establishment clause makes it to where not even students can lead a prayer before a football game, legally speaking. The courts also thought that posting a set of the Ten Commandments was against the establishment clause because it supports one religion. So that courthouse had to take down the Ten Commandments. That should be fair to the people who are not Christian, right? Now no one will be left out and offended.
Because the government was so passionate about not putting one religion over another, they banned teachers from being able to teach about evolution in public schools. Christianity teaches that humans were made from dust by God’s breath, which evolution does not teach.
In the future, when it comes to the first amendment, I think there will continue to be changes based off of people's beliefs and what they bring to court that, in their own words, go against the first amendment. I also think that there will be more laws repealed because of an act, clause, or court case that will go against someone's religion or belief. I also think that some rich senator or someone with more money than the average person will try to take someone to court over someone’s opinion, or something that was said that the rich person did not like. It’s what happened in the past, and history tends to repeat itself.
