There are not too many words in the English dictionary that carry as much weight as the word “freedom” does. It is arguably one of the most consequential aspects of the government, democracy, and rules over everyone’s life in some capacity or another. In order to properly employ the word “freedom” in our daily lives, it is crucial for us to know the history leading up to it,  the meaning behind it, and how they impact us. Let’s rewind and transition to the beginning. Before “freedom” came to be, there was first the Constitution – a single document composed by the Founding Fathers of our nation that lays out a set of rules detailing how our country should be run. It brought the three branches of government into fruition with checks and balances in place to prevent one branch from becoming too powerful, separated power federally and at the state level, and lastly, protects our individual rights. While the constitution is incredibly valuable to us, we, as inhabitants of this nation, also have a duty and obligation towards the constitution. As disclosed in the social contract, we have to comply with social rules, laws, practices, and principles of a society to maintain a stable fluid relationship with our government and society itself. Furthermore, for all the benefits we inherited from the constitution, there are some flaws and imperfections present within the original document. In order to appease Anti-Federalists in order to get the constitution ratified, twelve amendments were proposed to the constitution. 10 were agreed upon and later came to be known as the Bill of Rights which is synonymous with the word constitution nowadays. Now that we have caught up with the history up to the formation of the bill of rights, let’s delve into arguably the most important amendment, the first amendment, in particular the 3 aspects of speech, press, and religion.

There is a reason behind why aspect one of the first amendment is the first one in the bill of rights. It is by far the most important freedom we enjoy as human beings. Aspect one of the first amendment gives everyone the right to freely express their thoughts, emotions, feelings, and more without the interruption of the government. It serves as the building block for the rest of the amendments and aspects and is the cornerstone for freedom of expression to be implemented. Vocalizing yourself is something everyone takes for granted but imagine the united states constantly censoring your speech. The nation would not be the same. However, numerous questions arise due to this amendment. Surely it has limits right? Or some restrictions? Most if not all of these questions were dispelled in the Schenck v. the United States case (1). The case surrounds Mr. Schenck who admitted to spreading letters urging prospective army men to ignore draft notices. The United States came to the conclusion that Mr. Schenck’s deeds were a threat to national security and as a result, we got our first clarification for aspect one of the first amendment – your speech is not protected if it bears a “clear and present danger” to the security. This was an incredibly important clarification as now, we know the boundaries of such a powerful aspect of the first amendment. Another case that went to the absolute extremes of this aspect was the case of Texas v. Johnson which took place in 1989 (2). Mr. Johnson participated in numerous protests against the Reagan administration’s regime and at one point, doused the American Flag with kerosene and set it alight. Sadly such an act also caused the court to be divided. Some believed that expressive conduct was protected under the First Amendment as burning the flag did not incite violence but rather was just a case of expressing the dissatisfaction symbolically. Dissenters on the other hand honed in behind the meaning of the flag. They concluded that burning the flag is equated to fighting words and deserves to be punished. Many debates still revolve around this topic to this day and this historic court case even brought the Flag Protection Act to fruition. While the burning of the flag is a debatable issue, deliberating about it and expressing thoughts, opinions, and emotions regarding it are not – they are indeed 100% protected underneath this aspect of the First Amendment.

Moving swiftly along, chronologically, Freedom of the Press is the next aspect I consider more important than the rest of the amendments and aspects. Freedom of the Press is incredibly similar in principle to the Freedom of Speech except for the fact that it gives everyone the right to express their voices through publication. This gives publications, newspapers, journals, and magazines to criticize, praise, deliberate on public issues without bound. Like aspect one, this aspect is also severely underappreciated and underrated. Imagine a world where the newspaper is not allowed to discuss anything regarding the government. Newspapers are much more effective at revealing new information to a wide range of audience to make everyone engaged with society and thus the government. Taking such a right away would inevitably lead to chaos – without a doubt. Discussions regarding controversial government policies, acts, and other various topics are uninhibited due to this crucial aspect and are the sole reason behind why America’s journalism sector is constantly praised worldwide. However, similar to the first aspect, people were adamant to find out what exactly the boundaries were. Thus, the New York Times v. Sullivan case in 1964 was brought up (3). When the New York Times published an article somewhat critical of Mr. Sullivan, Mr. Sullivan filed a libel action and the case was brought up to the court. In a unanimous decision, the court ruled in favor of the New York Times emphasizing how it did not fit the criteria of “inaccurate, false, reckless” and moreover, did not have a bad intent associated with it. As a result, this discloses just how much of a leeway the publications have and this, in turn, benefits the general population to obtain unfiltered raw information from credible sources. As a result, I deem aspect two of the first amendment incredibly important and for the, it deserves the second spot.

Last but definitely not least, Freedom of Religion. Freedom of Religion is widely known throughout the country and as a result, it is exercised often. The Freedom of Religion prohibits a state from imposing a blanket religion over its residents. Furthermore, it does not allow states to prefer, give specific advantages, or hold a grudge/bias towards or against a religion. I will be the first to admit, discrimination based on religion, crimes at religious locations, grudges still exist. However, I can definitely say that without this aspect, hate crimes, discrimination, religious assault, and more would be more prevalent in today’s society. Thankfully that is not the case. Although we are learning remotely as of now, we used to go to school when everything was normal. We pledged allegiance and saluted the flag. However, what happens if you don’t salute the flag? A court case was brought up revolving around a student who was a member of Jehovah’s Witnesses who did not salute the flag (4). In a 6 to 3 decision, the court ruled that compelling children to salute the flag was unconstitutional. This goes to show how much freedom we enjoy under the first amendment as even not saluting the flag gets away as it is unconstitutional to force something unanimously upon a person. Furthermore, it helps to exemplify the fact that, the salute was simply just a form of communicating ideas, and saluting for it means one thing, not saying it means another. Moreover, there is another recent court case based upon the religious aspect of the First Amendment (5). In the Roman Catholic Diocese of Brooklyn v. Cuomo case, Governor Cuomo classified certain areas as red zones where places of worship were limited to a capacity of 10 people. The Roman Catholic Diocese of Brooklyn and two Orthodox Jewish synagogues believed that this violated the Religious aspect of the first amendment and as a result, we went to court. The court decided that the people who appealed were only entitled to a preliminary injunction as gathering in a tight place in the middle of a pandemic would cause irreparable injury. Due to this recent court case which occurred in the glorious city of New York, we now understand the limits of this aspect of the First Amendment – some gatherings and religious occasions may be brought to a halt in order to benefit the greater good. If the court ruled in favor of the appealers, numerous injuries and maybe even casualties would occur as this was when New York was at the epicenter of the pandemic. In order to maintain the status quo and benefit the greater population, certain religious privileges were momentarily taken away. Even with small limits in place for this Religious Aspect of the First Amendment, it deserves to be in third when ranking the most important Amendments and Aspects in the Bill of Rights.

Although this goes without saying, all the amendments are incredibly vital and important for society to run peacefully. They are necessary for us to attain prosperity and the Founding Fathers definitely have solid reasoning as to why the Bill of Rights was created. If the bill of rights were to be arranged in an order of greatest to least important, I would put the aspects and amendments I mentioned first on that list. From the first amendment, in particular, the Freedom of Speech which allows me to express my thoughts, ideas, and emotions freely without interference from the government to the Freedom of Press which gives publications the right to dispel innumerous amount of information regarding anything and everything to the public to the Freedom of  Religion which prohibits discrimination based on race by the government and gives everyone the freedom to exercise any religion they want to abide by, it is safe to say that the first amendment alongside the three aspects I discussed so far are by far the most important – no wonder the word “Freedom” holds so much weight 🙂

5 Sources utilized:

Information regarding the Constitution: The History Channel

Information regarding Social Contract: Britannica

Information regarding the Bill of Rights: Bill of Rights Institute

Information regarding the First Amendment and 3 of its aspects: First Amendment Encyclopedia

Information regarding the 5 court cases: American Library Association