The protection of the free speech would not protect all kind of speech. For example, it does not protect a man shouting in a theater and causing fear or panic. In this case the congress has the right to prevent that speech.
The freedom of the First Amendment is uniquely American. They are actually from the Colonial and Revolutionary. The emigrants used many methods to criticize the British rule. Also, the British statutory would punish anyone who tried to make seditious libeler. The British rule did not allow press