Did our forefathers really mean completely “free speech” in the First Amendment?”
The First Amendment may refer to the: * First Amendment to the United States Constitution, regarding freedom of speech, freedom of the press, religious freedom, freedom of assembly, and right to petition * Australian Constitution Alteration (Senate Elections) Act, 1906, the first amendment to the Australian constitution * First Amendment of the Constitution of India, which amended several of the Fundamental Rights in India * First Amendment of the Constitution of Ireland, passed during World War II, concerning the declaration of a national emergency * First Amendment to the Constitution of Pakistan, which accounted for the secession of Bangladesh * First Amendment of the Constitution of South Africa, which made three technical changes Sources: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Amendment
The Founding Fathers were intimately familiar with government suppression of political speech. Prior to the American Revolution, the Crown imprisoned, pilloried, mutilated, exiled, and even killed men and women who belonged to minority political parties in England, in order to extinguish dissenting views. Many of these dissenters left England in search of more freedom in the New World, where they instead found colonial governments that stifled political dissidence with similar fervor. Maryland, for example, passed a law prohibiting “all speeches, practices and attempts relating to [the British Crown], that shall be thought mutinous and seditious,” and provided punishments that included whipping, branding, fines, imprisonment, BANISHMENT, and death. The Free Speech Clause of the Constitution was drafted to protect such political dissenters from a similar fate in the newly founded United States. In light of this background, the U.S. Supreme Court has afforded dissident political Burning
