By: Alexander Gorokhovskiy The modern American conception of freedom of speech comes from the principles of freedom of the press, and freedom of religion as they developed in England, starting in the seventeenth century. The arguments of people like John Milton on the importance of an unlicensed press, and of people like John Locke on religious toleration, were all the beginning for the idea of the “freedom of speech”. By the year of 1791, when the First Amendment was ratified, the idea of “freedom of speech” was so widely accepted that it became the primary, and a very important issue in the amendment. “Freedom of press” came with