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 ...

The Supreme Court has announced which cases and controversies it will consider during arguments from October to December 2026 ...

Pennsylvania became a place where people of different faiths sought to live together under laws that protected religious freedom while cultivating civic life. Yet that experiment was also marked by ...

St. John claims the zoning decision placed a “substantial burden” on its First Amendment free exercise rights, citing a ...

The 1735 trial of John Peter Zenger later shaped the Founding generation’s commitment to a free press. In the 1730s, Zenger published an article criticizing the Royal Governor of New York for removing ...

The National Constitution Center’s Founders’ Library includes primary texts that span American history—from the philosophical works that influenced the Founding generation to the most important ...

George Mason, member of a prominent Virginia family who had authored Virginia’s Declaration of Rights in 1776, was one of three delegates in Philadelphia (along with fellow Virginian, Edmund Randolph, ...

Majority: Gray (author), Brewer, Brown, Shiras, White, Peckham Dissent: Fuller (author), Harlan Justice McKenna took no part in this case. Ratified in 1868, the Fourteenth Amendment opens with the ...

In 1798, President John Adams signed into law the federal Sedition Act, which criminalized the publication of any “false, scandalous, or malicious writing” against the government of the United States.

New States may be admitted by the Congress into this Union; but no new State shall be formed or erected within the Jurisdiction of any other State; nor any State be formed by the Junction of two or ...

Constitution 101 resource for The Constitution of the United States: Fast Facts ...

The Historic Documents in this set include the primary texts of moral and political philosophy that influenced the Founding generation—written by philosophers and political theorists from classical ...