No. of Recommendations: 2
which Amendment have Americans paid a higher price for - the 1st or the 2nd
The 1st. The newspaper - sheet publishers were getting tossed into jail regularly in the runup to the revolution. You took a big risk, made yourself conspicuous, by speaking your mind, especially to influence opinions against the crown.
Attempts to disarm us by the British were unsuccessful (we were onto them), and the 2d was an extension built on the English Bill of Rights, but the 1st Amendment was new. Jefferson was in Paris, listening to the discussions there, wrote to Madison and the 1st Amendment on Speech, etc., came into being as it was Madison who pushed the Bill of Rights through the 1st Congress. When the Bill of Rights passed the complaints of the Anti Federalists faded away.
It's tempting to think, that because the revolution was fought with guns, that the revolution makes the 2d amendment most important, but the 2d was added, in part, to mollify the fears that the central government might take away guns on the way to authoritarianism, and guns were absolutely necessary for, among other things, slave rebellions - which were frequent enough - and slave control.
