9781422282779

SPEECH, MEDIA, AND PROTEST

Howard Chandler Christy’s painting Scene at the Signing of the Constitution of the United States was completed in 1940 and hangs in the House of Representatives wing of the U.S. Capitol.

Freedom of Speech and Democracy in the West The original American colonists fled Britain to pursue the right to practice their religious beliefs and achieve greater economic opportunities. So it is hardly surprising that the United States became a liberal democracy. Because they were denied political representation, the colonists made a point to ensure basic rights for future generations of Americans. Their leaders, the so-called Founding Fathers, included a range of freedoms, most notably those associated with political and religious beliefs and expression, within the first 10 amendments to the U.S. Constitution, known then and since as the Bill of Rights . History has shown that that the development of enduring democratic institutions is an evolutionary process—one that moves at different speeds depending on the circumstances. For instance, for much of the history of the United States, as was true

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