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Would voters OK the First Amendment today? The First Amendment to the U.S. Constition says "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 to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances." Read the introduction to the First Amendment by Doug Linder, professor at the University of Missouri-Kansas City Law School, and be ready to answer the questions at the bottom of the webpage.

'To keep the waters pure': Jefferson on media. From a webpage of quotes about the press taken from Thomas Jefferson's writings. On a website called Thomas Jefferson on Politics & Government: Quotations from the Writings of Thomas Jefferson maintained by the University of Virginia.

Here's one: "The only security of all is in a free press. The force of public opinion cannot be resisted when permitted freely to be expressed. The agitation it produces must be submitted to. It is necessary, to keep the waters pure." --Thomas Jefferson to Lafayette, 1823. ME 15:491.

And another, more frequently quoted: ""The basis of our governments being the opinion of the people, the very first object should be to keep that right; and were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter. But I should mean that every man should receive those papers and be capable of reading them." --Thomas Jefferson to Edward Carrington, 1787. ME 6:57."

The abbreviation "ME," if you're interested in this kind of thing, refers to the location in The Writings of Thomas Jefferson, (Memorial Edition) Lipscomb and Bergh, editors.

What do the Thomas Jefferson quotes suggest to you about the role of the press in the American Revolution and the early Federalist and Republican periods?