Dear Editor,
I believe that the First Amendment is what this country’s founding was based upon. The First Amendment is about freedom of speech and our right to peaceably assemble in protest, which was not true before our independence from the British. The British had stopped protesting against things such as the Sugar Act, or when the founding fathers had to hide from the British government to gather in the Continental Congress. They had also stopped Americans telling people the truth, about how they were repressed from saying what they wanted and protesting.
If we did not have the First Amendment, we would not be able to protest on things such as giving equal rights to all people, or protests on the war in Vietnam. And if we weren’t able to protest on those topics, we would have a worse government where they pick and choose what laws to keep and what laws to discard. If we didn’t have the First Amendment, we wouldn’t have the ability to talk about the government negatively, which a lot of people in other countries can not do. The First Amendment is the most important amendment of all.
Steven Blevins is a 6th grader at T.J. Walker Middle School in Sturgeon Bay.
