On Sat, 23 Aug 1997, William H. Geiger III wrote:
Well i think that you also have to take into account the political setting of the times. The Framers of the Constitution were representatives of the States all of which had 1st Amendment protections in their State Constitutions. Their concerns were not with the States but with a Federal Government overriding rights already protected by the States.
Perhaps so, but that says nothing about the federal gov't enforcing the First Amendment to the US Constitution against the states, irrespective of the provisions of their constitutions or other laws. It is a difficult thing to get from "Congress shall make no law" to "No gov't anywhere in this country shall make any law," but we've managed to do it, probably to our credit on the whole. MacN