Over the last few week, there has been a lot of discussion regarding the First Amendment and what exactly it means to us here in America. Dr. Laura Schlessinger, a conservative radio show host and author, sparked much of this discussion when she used a racial epithet (the “N word”) eleven times during a call from an African-American listener on her talk radio program and then abruptly quit radio to pursue more First Amendment activism and "regain her first amendment rights". First and foremost, all the power in the world to Dr. Schlessinger. If only all of us could quit our jobs to pursue our own personal crusades and exercise our Constitutional rights for the betterment of all Americans. Unfortunately, some of us have student loans, mortgages, kids, credit cards, or car payments to think about and not all of us have a $71.5 million broadcasting contract or lucrative book / magazine deals. (To read more on Dr. Schlessinger and this story, click here)
Secondly, I feel that some of the support for Dr. Schlessinger has been a bit misinformed as to what the First Amendment really states and what the Founding Fathers envisioned for it. In my mind, this story seems to have less to do with the First Amendment and more to do with public decency. Regardless of what you think of Dr. Schlessinger and her politics / controversies, her verbal tirade on the air was in bad judgment and in poor taste with the strained racial climate of our society today. The US may have elected its first non-Caucasian president, but we are far cry from the perfect racial environment that we have long aspired to be. However, that has not stopped the support from rolling in fast and furious for Dr. Schlessinger. Former Alaska governor and 2008 Republican Vice-Presidential candidate Sarah Palin tweeted that Dr. Schlessinger is now “even more powerful [and] effective [without] the shackles [of public radio], so watch out Constitutional obstructionists...” Conservative blogger Michelle Malkin also echoed similar support, writing that she believes that Dr. Schlessinger will return “stronger and freer to say the things that I believe need to be said for people in this country.” In keeping with this theme, Ken Paulson, president of the First Amendment Center – a nonpartisan Constitutional think tank - wrote an interesting article about what the First Amendment really is stating, as regards to our Founding Fathers’ original vision. It is an interesting piece and I encourage everyone to take a look at it, but unfortunately for Dr. Schlessinger’s supporters, maybe they should have paid a little more attention in 12th grade Government (To read Paulson’s article and see how the Founding Fathers envisioned the First Amendment, click here)
Third and finally, few people know that without Pennsylvania, there would possibly be no First Amendment or Bill of Rights for that matter. Even the US Constitution would look radically different than it does today if it did not have an earlier blueprint to base itself on – the Pennsylvania Constitution of 1776. Here’s the back-story. Throughout the 1760’s and 1770’s, Pennsylvania had been waging a political war against the proprietors of the colony, the Penn family, in the hopes of gaining more political and economic freedom. With the raising of tensions between Great Britain and the American colonies, some in this anti-proprietor movement (among them our old friend Benjamin Franklin) saw this as an opportunity to “kill two birds with one stone” so to speak. In June of 1776, as the Continental Congress debated the idea of independence from Britain and General Washington took command of Continental forces outside of Boston, the anti-proprietors made their move, declaring Pennsylvania to be an “independent state” and stripping the Penn family of all their provincial powers.
That same month, a constitutional convention was convened at the Pennsylvania State House in the West Room (across the hall from where the Continental Congress was meeting) to draft and adopt a new governing document for the new “Commonwealth of Pennsylvania”. The ninety-six delegates that attended this meeting represented all of the new state’s eleven counties, with many of them splitting their time between sessions of Congress and the convention. Benjamin Franklin was elected to chair the event and for the next four months, the delegates would write, rewrite, and debate their document until the finished draft was unveiled in September of 1776. Rejecting the once-revered British model of a balanced government, the new Pennsylvania government adopted an all-powerful one-house legislature and replaced the governor with a veto-less executive; a firm slap at the power and privilege of the Penns. To ensure that legislators would be accountable to the people of the Commonwealth, the new constitution provided for annual elections, the rotation of office-holders, legislative proceedings that were open to the public, and the election (every seven years) of a “Council of Censors” that would determine violations among the governing body. In yet another bold move (unprecedented in history up until that time) the legislature dispensed with property qualifications for office holding, and awarded the right to vote to all men over the age of twenty-one who paid taxes. But the new PA Constitution went even further than that. Within its pages, the delegates included a “Declaration of Rights” – a list of specific personal liberties and freedoms that were protected under the new government. This Declaration of Rights protected all the freedoms later bundled together in the First Amendment including freedom of religious worship, press, assembly, petition, and speech – a full decade before the Constitutional Convention was even organized.
Truly, the Constitution of 1776 was the most radical of any document in the colonies during the Revolutionary movement and was applauded by the leading thinkers of the Enlightenment as the perfect example of pure democratic reform. When the French Revolution erupted in Europe in the 1790’s, French revolutionaries looked to the Constitution of 1776 for inspiration and when Benjamin Franklin attended the US Constitutional Convention in 1787, he encouraged the young lawyer and “Father of the Constitution” James Madison to study it and draw ideas from it. It is not a stretch of the imagination to believe that besides being the “keystone” of the new nation both militarily and economically, Pennsylvania also provided some of the most fundamental ideals that we now celebrate and debate so vigorously in our society today.
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