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Be Loud for the First Amendment
A perspective from Mark Bell, Tom Stevens and Jenn Weaver
In 1788, North Carolina delegates gathered in Hillsborough, Orange County for a convention to decide whether to ratify the newly proposed Constitution. Heated debate ensued between the Federalists and Antifederalists, the latter concerned with ratifying a Constitution they felt did not adequately protect individual rights. Long story short, the Federalists suffered a resounding defeat at the Constitutional Convention in Hillsborough, with a hundred-plus vote margin refusing to ratify without protection of those individual rights. North Carolina ultimately waited to ratify the U.S. Constitution until the following year when it included the Bill of Rights, the first ten Amendments to the Constitution.
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.” The right to freedom of speech, and the freedom to criticize the government, is essential for any functioning democracy. The First Amendment was crucial to making the Constitution better with additional amendments that eventually moved us to a more perfect union by ensuring this binding document applied more equally to everyone…