§ Message № first-amendment · Founding Lens

First Amendment.

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...

Bill of Rights, Amendment I · 1791

First Amendment., Quorum

Five freedoms, one sentence.

The First Amendment protects five things in a single sentence: religion, speech, press, assembly, and the right to petition the government. It is the most load-bearing forty-five words in American law.

It is first not by accident. The freedoms it names are the ones a self-governing people cannot do without.

Why it is its own message.

Quorum has separate Press designs, and a separate assembly tradition runs through the Movement lens. "First Amendment" is the message that holds all five together and names the source. It is the citation the rest of the catalogue points back to.

How we set it.

Editorial Fraunces, "Amendment" in the wonky italic. The treatment is sober, almost legal. This is a clause of law set like the cover of a serious book, because that is exactly what it is.