by Jarret Liotta

WESTPORT — Veteran lawyer and First Amendment expert Alan Neigher shared some of the unique and sometimes tumultuous history that led to the creation of the Bill of Rights Thursday morning with the Westport Y’s Men.

Neigher — who has practiced law in Westport for decades and was the son of renowned columnist and illustrator Harry Neigher of the Bridgeport Herald — outlined some details on the formation of a federal document that has drawn controversy since it was first written.

“It was never about freedom of speech,” he said of the First Amendment. “It was always about freedom after speech.”

English history, which Neigher noted formed the basis for the legal system in the United States, was rife with examples of suppression, imprisonment and persecution of people who challenged authority, beginning to a greater degree after the advent of the printing press.

“In England men and women were beheaded, burned … disemboweled for dishonoring of the King … Obviously this kind of restrictive overview was translated to the Colonies,” he said.

But while the Declaration of Independence was geared toward establishing a new approach to government, creation of the Constitution more than a decade later led to what he described as a never-ending battle that pitted Federalists, who saw a need for central laws governing the whole country, and Jeffersonian Republicans, who did not want to see the individual rule of states superseded.

President George Washington, he said, “was constantly fighting accusations … that the government was too strong.”

Thus, creation of the Bill of Rights was created as “a list of protections of citizens and states against a large federal government.”

Passing the addition to the Constitution was not straight-forward, as many were not in favor of the amendments, but ultimately more forward-thinking heads prevailed.

“They all knew that we could not exist as a free nation with a government able to suppress our right to (free) speech,” Neigher said.