Answer:
Key Points
The First Amendment protects Americans’ rights to religious freedom. As part of this, the US cannot establish a religion nor prevent free exercise of religion.
The First Amendment protects Americans’ rights to the freedom of speech, press, assembly, and petition.
Originally, the First Amendment applied only to the federal government. However, Gitlow v. New York (1925) used provisions found in the Fourteenth Amendment to apply the First Amendment to the states as well.
Some of the rights protected in the First Amendment have roots in other countries’ declarations of rights. In particular, the English Bill of Rights, the French Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, and the Philippine Constitution all have similar elements to the First Amendment.
Clear and present danger was a doctrine adopted by the Supreme Court of the United States to determine under what circumstances limits can be placed on First Amendment freedoms of speech, press or assembly.
In the 1919 case Schenck v. United States the Supreme Court held that an anti-war activist did not have a First Amendment right to speak out against the draft.
Key Terms
First Amendment: The first of ten amendments to the constitution of the United States, which protects freedom of religion, speech, assembly, and the press.
civil liberties: Civil rights and freedoms such as the freedom from enslavement, freedom from torture and right to a fair trial.
French Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen: A fundamental document of the French Revolution and in the history of human rights, defining the individual and collective rights of all the estates of the realm as universal.