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-That inherent right may, however, be repealed by Congress and state legislatures (not that I can see THAT happen). To amend our Constitution, two sessions of

• SllX 6y ago
  Our amendment process is not for the faint of heart, and so amendments are rare. An amendment can be proposed by two-thirds of Congress or by 2/3 of the State legislatures, but to be ratified you need 3/4 of the States to agree and each State has equal voice regardless of population. During the ratification process for the Constitution, there was some debate about whether a Bill of Rights was even necessary, but there were many States that didn’t want to ratify without one. The reason for the debate is that the liberties in the Bill of Rights were taken to already be natural rights and so spelling them out was unnecessary, but the Anti-Federalist faction wasn’t convinced. Madison eventually won his seat in the election of the First Congress against Monroe (fun fact, they traveled together while campaigning!) by campaigning on the promise to draft and propose a Bill of Rights, but he didn’t see the lack of one as a reason to hold up the ratification conventions. So repealing the First Amendment wouldn’t have the effect of repealing Free speech per se. Congress would still have to justify regulating speech under its enumerated powers (and could still lose elections over the issue) and many State constitutions already have their own takes on it. Some more like Norway’s Article 100, and some more like the First Amendment.