Читать книгу Keeping the Republic - Christine Barbour - Страница 135

The First Amendment reads, “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.” These are the “democratic freedoms,” the liberties that the founders believed to be so necessary to ensuring a free and unfettered people that they crammed them all into the very first of the amendments. For all that, none of these liberties has escaped controversy, and none has been interpreted by the Supreme Court to be absolute or unlimited.