Michael Haddam

speaker

274 appearances 1 recordings 1 series first heard Jan 2026 last heard 22 Jan

Michael Haddam’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.

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American History Hit · Origins of the First Amendment · 22 Jan 2026 podcast

Inevitably, that government is going to come after these rights of the press, of speech, and of religion even.

That's right, because I think we tend to think of religious freedom, freedom of the press, as sort of under the umbrella of freedom of speech.

What's interesting to me is how much of that First Amendment comes from their previous historical experience, right?

So obviously, no establishment of religion that has to do with the long European history I mentioned before, and as does the free exercise thereof, which was a fundamental aspect that made the colonies different from much of Europe, right?

But also, if you think about the right of the people to assemble...

That is a right that was limited during the imperial crisis with Britain in the 1760s and 1770s, and so was their right to petition the government, to petition parliament.

Parliament kept refusing their petitions, and that played an important role in pushing the crisis along.

So like the rest of the Bill of Rights, many of the rights that are enumerated in it come from their direct, immediate sort of historical experience, right?

If you think of jury trials, no quartering of soldiers, due process, the unlawful search and seizure, all of that is rooted in things that Britain did to them before independence.

Yeah, absolutely.

I mean, well, first of all, the Bill of Rights only applied to the federal government.

It didn't apply to the states.

And that's why for decades after the Constitution is ratified, there are states that have established religions.

Massachusetts has established religion well into the 19th century.

James Madison, you mentioned his remonstrance.

That's from the 1780s because there was a real debate going on in Virginia about whether the Anglican Church, which had been the Church of England –

should remain established after the revolution.

And there's Jefferson's famous bill for religious freedom, which essentially settles that.

But in other places, there are established religions.

So it only applies to the federal government, only the federal government.

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