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 there would be no new ideas; we would all conform under totalitarian rule for fear of punishment, quite like in the fictional world of dictatorship portrayed in George Orwell's ingenious novel, 1984. Thus, the First Amendment is often considered by many the most important amendment in the Bill of Rights because it protects the rights Americans hold most dear - the freedoms of religion and expression.
1870 celebration of the Fifteenth Amendment as a g...
English: The Bill of Rights, the first ten amendme...
English: 16th Amendment of the United States Const...The very first right stated in the First Amendment is the freedom of religion, indicating its vital importance to the American people. As we flip through the pages of history back to the establishment of the first colonies, one perceives that religious toleration was not well respected during this time period; in fact, a minor difference in religious belief could cause the eternal banishment or even death to one's family. Thus, many were determined to leave the conservative Old World in search for a place of religious toleration. Because of this strong motivation for freedom of religion, the Pilgrims left their beloved homeland and came to the New World, the Puritans established the Massachusetts Bay Colony, Lord Baltimore...