The First Amendment was the first of the ten amendments ratified as the United States Bill of Rights.
The First Amendment protects freedoms involving religion, speech, the press, peaceful assembly, and petitioning the government. It begins with Congress and the establishment and free exercise of religion, then lists the other protected liberties. These guarantees were designed to limit the new federal government created by the Constitution.
Congress proposed twelve amendments in 1789 after James Madison introduced them in the House of Representatives. The first two proposals did not receive the required number of state ratifications at that time. The proposed third article therefore became the First Amendment, while the proposed eleventh article became the Second Amendment and the proposed twelfth became the current congressional-pay amendment.
The ten ratified amendments took effect in 1791. The Bill of Rights originally restricted only the federal government; after the Fourteenth Amendment, many of its protections were applied to state and local governments through incorporation by the Supreme Court. The First Amendment does not generally prohibit private restrictions on speech.