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Essay On The First Amendment

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This amendment is saying that the press (in general courts have defined the press so as to include all publishers) can write the truth in the newspaper even if it makes the government look bad. The first amendment, which is included in the bill of rights (the first 10 amendments) was ratified on September 25, 1789 and adopted on December 15, 1791. Anti-federalists demanded that they got the bill of rights so that they could ensure that the government didn’t have too much power over them. The bill of rights was written mostly by James Madison. The press were being pressured to write only and exactly what the president or other person wanted them to write. “If law is unjust a man is not only right to disobey it, he is obligated to do so” -Thomas Jefferson. The freedom of the press doesn’t directly apply to everyone because not all people are considered part of the press, but it still in a way applies to most people and is very important. In 1735 John Peter Zenger, a publisher for the New York Weekly Journal, got sent to court for criticizing New York's governor. His paper claimed the governor accepted bribes, removed a judge and tried to fix an election. All of this was the truth. At the time it was illegal to criticize the king, governors represented the king. Zenger argued that …show more content…

In the case that was know as The Pentagon Papers Case. The plaintiff; USA argued that “prior restraint was necessary to protect national security.” The defendant; NYT said that it wouldn’t hurt the people to know what was going on in a war that their own country was fighting in. The Pentagon Papers was a secret Department of Defense study of U.S. political and military involvement in Vietnam from 1945-1967. On June 30, 1971 the supreme court came to their decision. They voted 6 to 3 in favor of the New York Times. In writing for the

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