Apparently the ideas in the first amendment were influenced by the enlightenment thinkers philosophies from Europe such as John Locke and Cesare Beccaria. It's said that Thomas Jefferson influenced James Madison heavily as well in having him come up with the bill of rights.

So already you can read up on those people and their phylosophies to get a better idea of the concepts behind freedom of speech.

Similarly, about 200 ideas were proposed by the various states to be included in it, and Madison selected 10 from those ideas. It can be interesting to see the ones that weren't selected. And there were influenced from states bill of rights, the English bill of rights and the Magna Carta as well.

For Freedom of Speech I found:

> He studied at Princeton where a great focus was placed on speech and debate. He also studied the Greeks, who are known for valuing freedom of speech, too—that was the premise of Socrates' and/or Plato's work.

This was his first draft for it:

> The civil rights of none shall be abridged on account of religious belief or worship, nor shall any national religion be established, nor shall the full and equal rights of conscience be in any manner, or on any pretext, infringed. The people shall not be deprived or abridged of their right to speak, to write, or to publish their sentiments; and the freedom of the press, as one of the great bulwarks of liberty, shall be inviolable. The people shall not be restrained from peaceably assembling and consulting for their common good; nor from applying to the Legislature by petitions, or remonstrances, for redress of their grievances.

Various dictionaries say:

> Free speech means the free and public expression of opinions without censorship, interference and restraint by the government

> Free press means the right of individuals to express themselves through publication and dissemination of information, ideas and opinions without interference, constraint or prosecution by the government.

And there was a legislative case where Madison argued against the narrower interpretation from common law of what is considered speech. So at least we believe it includes a broader set of speech then that.

The main issue that's unclear, and might have been unclear on purpose, is that the constitution says: "the freedom of speech" emphasise on "the". The presence of the "the" article suggests it refers to the existing freedom of speech that existed at the time. And debates about how wide or narrow was that at that time still linger.

> Similarly, about 200 ideas were proposed by the various states to be included in it, and Madison selected 10 from those ideas.

I don't know where you got this, but I wanted to let you know it is very much incorrect. The bill of rights was originally submitted to congress as 17 articles, passed by congress as 12 articles, 11 of which have been ratified by the states. 10 ratified in 1789 and one, the 27th amendment, in 1992.

As to whether 200 ideas were mulled over, I don't know, I'm sure a lot was discussed. There were a lot of sources for all of the ideas that went into the constitution, and British law at the time was probably the biggest influence.

I got it from here: https://www.thoughtco.com/who-wrote-the-first-amendment-7211...

Where it says:

> When in 1789, he outlined 12 amendments, it was after reviewing over 200 ideas proposed by different state conventions. Out of these, ultimately 10 were selected, edited, and finally accepted as the Bill of Rights.

What I find interesting about that is that it's presented as an originalist argument, by a presumably progressive writer, against the conservative majority on the Supreme Court. Usually it's the other way around, and conservatives are amenable to originalist arguments.

That's interesting, since most founding fathers were progressive in their own right. And most ideas related to the founding of the USA revolved around the ideas of the enlightenment, which were all progressive and liberal in nature, in fact they pretty much coined both terms.