Bill of Rights, Part 2: Religion and Expression




How to Build a Nation in 15 Weeks show

Summary: Early colonists try to balance religious liberty with established state churches. John Peter Zenger goes to trial and suffers a pyrrhic loss. The murky origins of the free speech clause. James Madison slyly tweaks proposals from the state ratifying conventions. Federalists and Democratic-Republicans battle over the Sedition Act in the shadow of the new First Amendment. Thomas Jefferson proposes a radical fix that nearly undoes the Constitution.