To best answer this question it is important to look at the origins of the Bill of Rights and the ideological anti-federalist sentiment that inspired the collective document. You have to remember that following the completion of the Constitution in Philadelphia in September of 1787, the Constitution was disseminated to the states for review. In what is perhaps the most comprehensive view of the ratification process, Ratification: The People Debate the Constitution 1787-1788, Pauline Maier analyzes the debates that took place in the individual states. While some states, notably Delaware, New Jersey, and Georgia, were quick to ratify the document, debate in other states was heated and hotly contested. Following New Hampshire's ratification of Constitution in June of 1788 the Constitution became the governing document of the United States and convinced the conventions of both Virginia and New York to ratify days later. The last of the original thirteen colonies, North Carolina and Rhode Island, ratified the Constitution in 1789 and 1790 respectively. The Framers of the Constitution dictated that the states needed to ratify or reject the Constitution unedited. Despite these demands, a majority of the states ratified the Constitution and attached a list of suggested amendments that they believed would protect individual liberties of the citizens of the United States.

These proposed amendments were supported by a group of people who have been collectively referred to as the "anti-federalists," a term coined by their Federalist detractors. In his work The Other Founders: Anti-Federalism and the Dissenting Tradition in America 1788-1828, Saul Cornell demonstrates that the "term anti-federalists" obscures much more than it illuminates. Nineteenth and early twentieth century historians tended to write about the anti-federalists as if they shared a common set of gripes concerning the Constitution. In reality, however, the anti-federalists were drawn from all social classes of the post-Revolutionary population. Anti-federalists included elites, who shared much in common with the elite Federalists, a class of middling people, and a group Cornell refers to as "plebeian" who held most egalitarian views. However, Akhil Reed Amar argues in his article "The Bill of Rights as Constitution," The main objection that most anti-federalists shared was the belief that the Framers had taken the "skimming principle" too far. In their eyes, Congress was far too small, susceptible to the influence of an aristocratic elites, and therefore, less trustworthy than locally elected legislatures. Although we are tempted to view the experiences of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries as validation that the First Amendment was written to protect the rights of minority voices, Amar argues, “The historical reality is that the First Amendment was written to protect the rights of popular majorities… against a possibly underrepresentative and self-interested Congress.”

Therefore, the collective First Amendment, which included freedoms of religion, press, speech, petition, and peacefully assemble, were linked together in order to protect the voices of popular majorities, specifically the emerging Republican party of 1790s who would succeed the anti-federalists as an organized party. The amendment specifically restrains Congress from restricting individual freedoms because most anti-federalists viewed Congress as the least likely to reflect the majority will. Finally, the tactic of linking all these rights together was a measure to ensure that they were accepted. Madison’s initial bill that became the First Amendment also included the right to trial by jury and an equal protection clause that were defeated in the senate. Though these measures would eventually become amendments themselves, trial by Jury as the Sixth Amendment in 1791 and equal protection only after the Civil War as the Fourteenth Amendment, they were defeated in the Senate in its original format. After striking these portions, the First Amendment was accepted in December of 1791.

Also, I have to ask. How possible is it that we can deduce the intentions of structuring the first amendment as such? It seems like its easier to find out why those freedoms were included in the Bill of Rights than it is to find out why they were placed in the first amendment, right?

How can this be answered?

• Are there previous attempts to formulate similar rights?

• Are there treaties that theorize about this?

• Are there documented discussions about this?

I'm not talking in theory, neither am I talking about the theory and practice of history - I am asking about the materials available for this specific question. What materials could this be based on?

EDIT: or are there simply too many sources for this?

Hello everyone,

/r/AskHistorians has standards for answers, and those standards are actively enforced. Many low effort responses have already been removed by the mod-team. Please, before you attempt to answer the question, keep in mind our rules concerning in-depth and comprehensive responses. Answers that do not meet the standards we ask for will be removed, and posters who break the rules of the subreddit admonished as applicable.

This thread is trending high in the subreddit, but those upvotes represent interest in the question itself, and it can often take time for a good answer to be written. We know that it can be frustrating to come in here from your front page and see only [removed] and this post, but we ask for your patience and understanding. If you are looking for some interesting content in the mean time, we hope you will check out our Twitter, the Sunday Digest, or the Monthly "Best Of" feature. It is very rare that a decent answer doesn't result in due time, so please do come check into the thread in a few hours. A Private Message to the Remind Me bot is a good way to remember.

Additionally, it is unfair to the OP to further derail this thread with off topic conversation, so if anyone has further questions or concerns, I would ask that they be directed to modmail, or a META thread. Thank you!