The First Amendment (Amendment I) to the Constitution of the United States prohibits the creation of any law with respect to the official establishment of a religion, which prevents the free practice of the same, that reduces the freedom of expression, that violates the freedom of press, which interferes with the right of peaceful assembly or that prohibits requesting compensation for governmental grievances. It was adopted on December 15, 1791, as the first of the ten amendments to the Bill of Rights.
The Bill of Rights was originally proposed as a measure to calm the antifederalist opposition for the ratification of the Constitution. Initially, the First Amendment only applied to federal laws promulgated by the United States Congress, and many of its provisions were interpreted much more restrictively than today. Beginning with the Gitlow case against New York in 1925, the Supreme Court began to apply the First Amendment to state laws; a process known as incorporation; through the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States.
