Introduction

Abstract

The “father of the Bill of Rights,” James Madison, described the unqualified words protecting freedoms of speech and press as embodying a broad definition rather than a narrow definition of those liberties. Upon offering those provisions, he said that “freedom of the press and rights of conscience . . . are unguarded in the British constitution,” including the common law, and that “every government should be disarmed of powers which trench upon those particular rights.” In Madison’s draft and in the final First Amendment, each clause was worded to modify or to reject the English common law on point in order to provide for far greater protection of individual liberties; no clause was worded with the restrictions that the common law imposed. Was Madison right? Are freedoms of press and speech in the First Amendment broad or narrow protections?