Does the First Amendment Protect Only Political Speech?
Several commentators have argued that the First Amendment protects exclusively or primarily political speech.(25) They believe that commercial speech has little, if any, relationship to political speech. Consequently, they conclude that commercial speech deserves less First Amendment protection than political speech. That view is derived from a false historical premise. In 1789 the primary reason James Madison introduced the First Amendment in the first U.S. Congress was to satisfy the desires of the Anti-Federalists who opined that the unamended Constitution of 1787 was unacceptable because it did not include express protections for the natural rights of man, including those to free speech and press. The natural right to speech and press is not limited to speech of a political nature. As Madison understood it, the First Amendment free speech and press clause constituted a positive denial of government power over speech and press without regard to subject matter. With that understandin
