Cad57221cd86134ba1298ededd5214de bill of rights womens rights

The First Amendment

By aln4640

  • Thomas Jefferson

    Thomas Jefferson
    Thomas Jefferson successfully completed the first draft of a Virginia state bill for religious freedom. "No man shall be compelled to frequent or support any religious worship, place, or ministry whatsoever."

  • Northwest Ordinance

    Northwest Ordinance
    "Religion, morality and knowledge being necessary also to good government and the happiness of mankind, schools and the means of education shall forever be encouraged." Congress passed the Northwest Ordinance.Through primarily a law establishing government guidelines for colonization of new territory.

  • Tennessee Constitutional Convention

    Tennessee Constitutional Convention
    Andre Jackson opposes, and plays a prominent role in defeating, a proposal requiring a profession of faith by all officeholders.

  • Sedition Act of 1798 Expiration

    Sedition Act of 1798 Expiration
    The act had punished those who uttered or published "false, scandalous, and malicious" writings against the government.

  • Espionage Act

    Espionage Act
    Congress passed the Espionage Act, making it a crime "to willfully cause or attempt to cause insubordination, disloyalty,mutiny, or refusal of duty, in the military or naval forces of the United States."

  • American Civil Liberties Union

    American Civil Liberties Union
    Roger Baldwin and others start up a new organization dedicated to preserving civil liberties called the American Civil Liberties Union.

  • "Scopes Monkey Trial"

    "Scopes Monkey Trial"
    A school teacher named John Thomas Scopes was guilty of violating a Tennessee law which prohibits teaching the theory of evolution in public schools.

  • Smith Act

    Smith Act
    The U.S. Supreme Court upholds the convictions of 12 Communist Party members convicted under the Smith Act of 1940

  • Guaranty of The First Amendment

    Guaranty of The First Amendment
    The U.S. Supreme Court, for the first time, finds that motion pictures are included within the free speech and free press guaranty of the First Amendment.

  • Pentagon Papers

    Pentagon Papers
    The Supreme Court allows continued publication of the Pentagon Papers. The court holds that the central purpose of the First amendment is to "prohibit the widespread practice of governmental suppression of embarrassing information."

  • Federal Election Campaign Act of 1976

    Federal Election Campaign Act of 1976
    The U.S. Supreme Court rules that certain provisions of the Federal Election Campaign Act of 1976, which limits expenditures to political campaigns, violate the First Amendment.

  • NSPA

    NSPA
    The Illinois Supreme Court rules that the National Socialist Party of American, a neo-Nazi group, can march through Skokie, Illinois, a community inhabited by a number of Holocaust survivors.