The Bill of Rights – Exploring Amendments (Part One)

Welcome back to the Hastings & Hastings blog. We hope you enjoyed our last informative post on the creation of the Bill of Rights. Now that you know a little more about how the Bill of Rights came to be, we are going to start looking at the document itself. We are going to look at each individual amendment and learn exactly what rights it bestows upon us!

The First Amendment

“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.”

Although the First Amendment may only be three lines long, it protects a wide range of rights. Primarily, the First Amendment establishes two of the most iconic rights in America, freedom of religion and freedom of speech. These rights were very important to our Founding Fathers and they have helped make us the great country we are today. Additionally, the First Amendment protects our right to gather and to protest.

The Second Amendment

“A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed”

The widely discussed Second Amendment establishes what is often referred to as, “the right to bear arms.” This amendment was created largely because of the treatment of what were then the American Colonies by the British Government. The colonists could do little to fight this mistreatment because they had no army, no militia, and no power. For the Founding Fathers, this imbalance was a terribly frightening thing. They wanted to create a world in which the people would have just as much power as the government. The Second Amendment and the right to establish a militia and bear arms is part of that.